Wiktionary:Votes/2020-12/Bringing back wynn entries

Proposal: Allow the creation of Old English entries with the ƿynn ("wynn") character -- the way they were written in the language originally.

Background:

• Presently, the creation of entries with the wynn character is prohibited as a consequence of the success of an earlier vote, Wiktionary:Votes/2020-09/Removing_Old_English_entries_with_wynns.
• "While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph ⟨uu⟩, scribes soon borrowed the rune wynn ᚹ for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era."
• Ƿynn is a letter in the Old English alphabet; the sound was represented by ƿ or by uu/u. The letter w did not exist the way we know it now. Having entries with ƿynn is historically correct.
• For convenience, modern texts about Old English tend to use w as a substitute for ƿ. Here on Wiktionary, we have the opportunity to present the actual original Old English orthography. It would be winsome if ƿynn entries appeared again.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 00:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
• Vote created: Birdofadozentides (talk) 16:54, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2020/November#Bringing_back_ƿynn_entries
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2019/November#Proposal:_Delete_all_Old_English_words_with -ƿ-
• Wiktionary talk:Votes/2020-09/Removing Old English entries with wynns

1. Support. It was a standard letter in the language. They wrote with it. There's no good reason why it shouldn't be here. — Dentonius 12:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
2. Support. Birdofadozentides (talk) 13:06, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
3. Support for the sake of presenting words as they were written. We have both justus and iustus in Latin. There's no reason why we can't handle wynn entries the same way. Perhaps the main entries can still be hosted at the "w" entries with wynn entries having a "Manuscript form of..." definition line (since they aren't actually alternative forms, but are the original main form of most of these words). I abstained from voting in the last vote, because of a lack of knowledge, but I feel confident now in supporting wynn entries. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   I would like to note that while I continue to support this vote, I do not identify with the more extreme positions taken below. I would strongly prefer having wynn entries as alternative/manuscript forms, but this is not the hill I am going to die on. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

4. Support. While I am not actually knowledgeable about OE myself, on the understanding that the "wynn" entries represent how the words were actually written in Old English, the decision in the earlier vote to delete them was clearly a mistake and should be overturned. Mihia (talk) 20:58, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   "While I am not actually knowledgeable " -- great way to vote. 👏 --{{victar|talk}} 12:00, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

5. Support I think the wynn entries should be listed as "alternative forms", though I don't support full entry duplication. Mårtensås (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   I should say also that I do not support duplication of content across alternative forms/spellings, e.g. of definitions or etymological information, either in this case or any other. In fact, I eliminate it where I see it. In the absence of a proper one-article solution, one form should be made the main form, and the other form(s) alternative forms/spellings pointing to the main article. I assume that it is not the proposal here to duplicate significant amounts of content across "wynn" and "w" entries? And I hope that "Oppose" voters are not voting assuming that it is? Mihia (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   Mihia, cweðan is a perfect example to show how these entries used to be. There were no definitions or etymological information. Birdofadozentides (talk) 22:14, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   I see, yes. In the case of "wynn"/"w", originally, which were the main entries and which the alt entries? Mihia (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   W entries were always main, since in modern editions ƿynn is almost never used, ƿynn entries couldn't be the main ones, they were alternative. Birdofadozentides (talk) 22:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   OK, I see. Well, if this vote fails, which it seems it may, then surely at least we can mention the "wynn" spellings at the "w" articles. One of the things that annoys me most about automatic redirects, where you are dumped to a different place than you expected with no information, is when the thing you searched for is not even mentioned on the target page, as is the case with the one I tried, ƿynsum -> wynsum. Surely there can be no objection to mentioning the existence of the "wynn" form at the page it redirects to? If this is to be done, assuming I am understanding everything correctly, I think that an "alternative spelling" designation for the "wynn" form is too weak/uninformative. We should come up with a concise wording or labelling that tells people that the "w" spelling did not actually exist in OE, but the "wynn" form was the one used. This information can then be concisely included in all the "w" articles. Mihia (talk) 22:46, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   It would be great if the information could be included, I just don't quite see how. And I'm afraid it won't be allowed to put this information to so many words. Perhaps an "alternative spelling" designation was too weak, but these pages existed, they were real. I don't like redirects either. Birdofadozentides (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   For sure it can be done somehow. Even "original spelling" is a possibility. However, I would wish to see the opinions of the Oppose voters before spending any time thinking about it. Oppose voters: Do you object to even mentioning the "wynn" spellings at the "w" entries? Mihia (talk) 23:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Mihia No, I only object to the creation of entries with wynn (whether full entries or alternative-form entries). I am fine with: hard redirects (perhaps with soft redirects if necessary), mentions in usage notes, use in quotations (provided they are from diplomatic or facsimile editions whose manuscripts use wynn), even wynn being displayed in the headword. Most of these require consensus among editors of Old English, but using wynn in quotations should be fine anyway in my book. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

6. Support Of course. I have plenty of OE books which use wynns, so it's not like this is just a manuscript issue (although that would be enough to keep them, IMO). Wynn is not an alternative form of W, it's a completely separate letter (which is sometimes transliterated with W), so I think the analogy with long S is misleading. Ƿidsiþ 15:50, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

   Your point about wynn's origin is a instance of the genetic fallacy (and thus shouldn't play a clinching discursive role); what matters is how wynn's used now and what effects adding entries with it will have. These points have been addressed by both myself and others below. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 13:15, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

   What matters is how wynns are used now? I'm not sure I understand this at all... Old English is a dead language. Surely, what matters is how wynns were used when the language was actually current? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:12, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   Not necessarily; we have Old English entries to help people in the present day who want to look up words that they find in Old English texts or publications on OE, not 800s monks. Most people reading Old English texts these days use modern editions with modern forms rather than the original manuscripts, and publications mostly use modern forms too. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:20, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Hazarasp: Andrew Sheedy is right. Wiktionary is meant to be originalist, and that is why we have Prakrit languages entries written in the dead Brahmi script, instead of the Devanagari, etc. modern scripts as used in modern publications. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 20:08, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Inqilābī: The claim that "Wiktionary is meant to be originalist" is demonstrably false - for instance, we write Latin and Ancient Greek as lowercase, even though that's alien the contemporary practice for those languages. It's true that we mostly (though not always) stop short of lemmatising in a different script from the original, but that's not what's being proposed. (If one was to consider insular miniscule a different script from modern lowercase, then we're already writing in a different script, further belying you). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Hazarasp: Very sorry for the late reply. The Latin and Greek minuscules are a direct (albeit via intermediate forms) descendant of their majuscule forms. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that Latin and Greek (actually especially the former; though here Medieval Greek as an etymology-only language is included within Ancient Greek) literature thrived for long after the majuscules were discarded from use. Thus, our depiction of Ancient Greek and Latin is all right, and our depiction still remains quite originalist (if not fully, obviously for the sake of convenience). On the other hand, w and ƿ are actually unrelated letters, and therefor this analogy of yours is not at all justified. So my point is, since Old English literature ended with the Norman Conquest, how modern scholarship writes OE should have no bearing on how we can depict the language— because we are allowed to be originalist (and often we are so). Regards — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 21:51, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

   If you accept that our "depiction" of Greek and Latin is still originalist because later manuscripts use lowercase letterforms, then you should be fine with believing that our representation of Old English remains originalist because modern editions of OE texts use <w> instead of wynn. Your implicit response that OE literature ended with the Norman Conquest is untrue; people still study Beowulf, Widsith, etc. today (there's even a OE Wikipedia!), so that's not a valid ground for deeming modern OE orthographic practice as irrelevant. These students probably use modern editions of OE texts with <w> instead of wynn, just as medieval monks studying Cicero used minuscule manuscripts instead of their Old Roman cursive archetypes.

   You also tender the point that <w> and <ƿ> are unrelated, unlike majuscule and minuscule. Setting aside the fact that <ƿ> may well be ultimately derived from Greek upsilon, that does not matter to me. As I have said, determining whether letters are "separate" based on their origins is a instance of the genetic fallacy; instead such determinations should be made on actual patterns of usage; you should know better than to respond with a point that I have already addressed. Finally, all your discourse about Greek and Latin fails to address the multitude of other languages/scripts where Wiktionary is demonstrably non-originalist, such as Egyptian; that is a good thing, since Wiktionary is a useful tool, not the product of a perverse originalist ideology. When we have a entry, it should be listed under the form that people are most likely to search for, which may have no resemblance to the original form. Requests for wynn forms are probably less common than for <w> forms, and can be easily handled by redirects; as I have pointed out, having separate entries for them vastly increases required maintenance. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   @Hazarasp: You know what I mean to say… Later literary traditions, being a continuation of earlier traditions, is fully different from modern scholarship; the two should not be conflated! For example, ƕ, which is used as a transliteration of the Gothic letter 𐍈, is a letter invented by modern philologists (apparently by combining the digraph hv). So ƕ is obviously not the original letter, and no wonder here it is merely used for transliteration. And we have no rule or convention that we have to stick to what modern editions use. By the way, User:Widsith says he has books where ƿynns are used— thus it may be concluded that blindly following modern scholarship is unreliable and confusing because different modern editions could use different letters. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 15:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   Your claims that the situation modern editions of OE texts and medieval editions of Latin texts are different must be substantiated; you state that the Latin situation is a "continuation of a earlier tradition", but fail to define what this means and why it should matter for our lexicographic practices. By the way, I never claimed adhering to normal modern OE orthographic practice was a Wiktionary rule or convention; I support it because I think it's a good idea (for reasons I have explained multiple times). Finally, of course there's going to be variation in the orthographic practices used in modern OE works, as all languages display with reasonably large corpuses display orthographic variation - if we rejected orthographic standards for being "unreliable or confusing", we'd have to delete all of our entries! Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 16:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   Well I am one of those people who uses Wiktionary for help with OE, and I definitely think we should be lemmatising the wynn entries. Not least because this is how they are spelled in many of the books on my shelves. Ƿidsiþ 09:46, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

   Ƿidsiþ, thank you for your support! Could you please tell these books titles, maybe they could be found on the Internet? I actually found only one book that uses ƿynn, it's The Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar by Joseph Bosworth, it was published really long ago - https://books.google.com.au/books?id=CRMAAAAAYAAJ&vq=283&hl=ru&source=gbs_navlinks_s I am glad and suprised there are more. Birdofadozentides (talk) 01:09, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Widsith: Do those books of yours use the modern counterparts of the Insular script letters alongside ƿynns? Hazarasp perhaps is right that depicting OE using modern letter equivalents, while at the same time insisting on having ƿynns, is quite inconsistent. May be later on we should work toward switching over to the Insular script outright to be more consistent and historically accurate and true to the original OE Latin alphabet? What d’you think about this? — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 15:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   To be honest, I'm not especially interested in rendering everything in insular text. I see this as a difference, essentially, of typeface and therefore a trivial one. Wynn is not an insular variant of W. It's a completely separate letter. People were asking for examples, here's one that is on my desk right now - my Methuen copy of The Dream of the Rood: https://i.imgur.com/q9u5XQL.jpg. Ƿidsiþ 07:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

7. Support wholeheartedly. The last vote was a genocide, and Bird. has done their best to undo the same. I see this vote as but a small step towards ending the discrimination of ƿynn spellings, which formed part of the standard orthography wellnigh throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. So I find this great opposition towards ƿynn spellings politically motivated. Wiktionary is meant to be a special project that depicts originality, rather than how modern people behold historical things (in this case, w spellings). Eventually, I would like to see ƿynn spellings becoming the main entries; in fact, I would be happy to see w spellings banned.

   “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” — George Orwell

   — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 16:53, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

   This support vote is really “creative” in its vocabulary. Now I am not sure whether our definitions of genocide and discrimination catch all meanings of these words correctly. And oh yeah, did I mention that the opposition is of course also racist? Such strong terms surely must convince everyone to support. Especially the dread of an Orwellian regime now imposed. Or the opposite. Fay Freak (talk) 17:03, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

   The opposition is certainly not “racism” because we are not dealing with anthropological or ethnological stuffs; we are dealing with a linguistic matter, namely, orthography. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 19:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   Well put. The irony is, the same ones in the oppose section — not all of them, just the ones who have actually contributed to the Old English section — will tell you how much they love the language. Yet, here they are defiling it. — Dentonius 19:15, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

   How am I "defiling" the language just because I don't support the slavish, naïve replication of wynn's use in the original mss.? There's a whole bunch of other orthographic features in OE manuscripts that we ignore; the focus placed on wynn is ridiculously arbitrary. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 21:59, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Hazarasp: I think you have some misunderstanding regarding what is a letter and what is a ligature; there is really no need for us to depict “ whole bunch of other orthographic features in OE manuscripts ”. For example, while æ (as used in Old English) is not a ligature, but a distinct letter; on the other hand, in Old English manuscripts or inscriptions, you can find certain ligatures (such as that of H and E) which are obviously not distinct letters and thus deserve no depiction by us. However, do you seriously think that ƿ is some arbitrary orthographic feature? What is the basis of your argument that ƿ does not deserve equal footing with æ? We are not campaigning for the acceptance of mere stylistic variations, we are only asking for the acceptance of a real and fullfledged letter! There should be no confusion about that. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 19:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   How are we supposed determine what's considered a letter and what isn't? For the sake of argument, early OE texts such as Caedmon's Hymn use <ae> instead of <æ>, so clearly it shouldn't be considered separate. My criteria eliminates the necessity of making such arbitrary judgements; instead, my basis for wanting <æ> but not <ƿ> in entries is that the former is usually used in modern editions of OE texts and modern scholarly works about OE, while the later usually isn't. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Hazarasp: Well, there’s no reason to be worried about ae versus æ inasmuch as it is the latter that was used predominantly. Therefor æ gains weightage as a fullfledged letter. It is exactly for this reason that all those in the support side do not care about uu, which was used in early texts before ƿ became the standard. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 22:07, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

   My point has nothing to do with the frequency of <ae> versus <æ>; I'm asking why you think it's worth replicating <æ> when you don't support replicating other features found in the vast majority of OE texts, such as <ſ> (arbitrarily deeming <æ> a "distinct letter" by fiat is not a satisfactory solution). Read my comment more carefully. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   It's not exactly true nobody cares about uu, I've seen it in manuscripts several times and I wouldn't mind having alt. forms with it as well, alongside with ƿynn forms. In the perfect world where ƿynn is not ignored, ƿynn forms would be the main and uu forms - alternative. But that's Utopia. Ƿynn is almost never used, only slightly mentioned, I don't see this tendency ever to be changed, but those entries were something, they showed ƿynn, showed that ƿynn were there, in Old English words, and it mattered. Why can't those entries be back? Are they too much trouble? They were special, they didn't make Wiktionary worse. It was worth it. Birdofadozentides (talk) 13:22, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   "In fact, I would be happy to see w spellings banned" - banning the spellings which are nearly universally used in modern works on Old English because of some silly originalist fetish is a absurdity of the highest order. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 21:59, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

   Clarification: The w spellings may be relegated to being used as a transliteration of the ƿ spellings. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 19:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   What exactly do you mean by that? Automatic redirects? {{alternative form of}}? Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

   Yes, automatic redirects would be nice in such a situation. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 21:51, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

   That still doesn't lessen the absurdity of the situation. There are many other cases where we depart from original spellings because modern scholarly convention is to do so, because typically, people looking for words will be looking for them based on what they find in modern editions, which are more widely read than the original mss. What you are suggesting amounts to making Wiktionary harder to use because you want to satisfy your bizarre ideological cravings. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   "So I find this great opposition towards ƿynn spellings politically motivated." What is this weird dreck? The oppose voters are politically more diverse than most parliaments and I for one don't have any political motivations. You should be more specific about those supposed motives. And watch it with the hyperbole about "genocide". ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:21, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   I do not care to be specific. Hitlerism = Stalinism. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 19:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

   inqilābī, thank you for such support! When I first came here I believed that ƿynn entries could be the main ones, but of it course didn't work that way, I was shown how to create Alt. forms pages and that's how it all started. It's not a perfect way to show that ƿynn was used to represnt these words, but it worked. It was a long way and I tried to add ƿynn entry to every Old English word written with w here. I guess it was my mistake, some words could have been left behind, but I never knew all the entries would be deleted, even when I read the last year discussion, I didn't believe it'd come true. I thought the conversation died out and didn't noticed when it all started again. Now I wish the enties could be back, the way they used to be, but looks like it's going to take a miracle to let it happen. Birdofadozentides (talk) 23:46, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

8. Support According to Wikipedia, wynn was "replaced with ⟨uu⟩ once again, from which the modern <w> developed". Since a single letter was once replaced with a combination of two letters, the original single-letter spellings should be allowed in one form or another. Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 16:14, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
9. Support Even if it's counted as "variant spelling of", we should have ƿ. The history has been given in other responses, but the original latinate orthography used u just as Latin did for both vowel and semivowel. The Angles and the Saxons borrowed the ƿynn rune for a sound which was clearly different from the vowel but not unambiguously writable, and when they did, the letter ƿynn became common. It was distinguished from "þ" (another letter borrowed from runes for the same reason), and from "p" by ductus. The Norman scribes reintroduced "u" or "uu" as continental practice, and the ligature became "w". "w" and "ƿ" are different orthographies of writing the same sound, but one of them was natively Anglo-Saxon, and far more commonly used for the period of that language's active use. And as far as the "we can write that sound 'w' now, so we should" argument, it is disingenuous. We can write "þ" as "th". So when are we eliminating thorn from Wiktionary? For that matter, we can write "ph" as "f". Why do Romanisation of entries exist? What, exactly, is the consistency which is being sought here? --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 21:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
10. Support Leasnam (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

    @Leasnam: qu'est-ce que le fuck? --{{victar|talk}} 23:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

    eh, c'est comme ça Leasnam (talk) 23:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

    @Leasnam: c'est bon. jouir de la cause perdue --{{victar|talk}} 00:51, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    :) Leasnam (talk) 05:10, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    It's going to end soon, and not in a good way. I'd like to thank everyone who supported this vote, thank you for your great comments, for having discussions, for being here. It means much and I don't feel like it was in vain. Birdofadozentides (talk) 10:04, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    @Birdofadozentides: True. This is a historic vote, and I congratulate you for having created it! And furthermore, gaining 10 support votes is no small achievement; we are losing just because there happens to be more people who were bent on killing ƿynn and now are against its resurrection. On the other hand, it may well be that this vote ultimately could ring the death knell for w entries. In truth, it is good that we are about to lose it, because now we would never have to strive to have a second-class status for ƿynn entries in the form of nonlemma entries. We have a few alternatives on hand which we can ask for after some while (not too sooner though, lest ƿynn-haters jeer at us!). I shall discuss about those options with you later. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 17:25, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    inqilābī, I would have never done it without Dentonius, it's half their vote, they edited the text of it and were the first person to vote. If they hadn't answered to my November Beer parlour first message, I actually would have left, maybe for good, I was about to. They suggested this vote idea. Now I don't really to do what to do next, I thought to restart this vote after 6-7 or more months, but I guess it's not the best idea. Thank you for your great comments. Birdofadozentides (talk) 22:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    @Birdofadozentides: Honestly, if you start another vote on this, I would aggressively seek for your ban on en.Wikt for being a disruptive editor. With all your edits now reverted, you haven't contributed a single thing to the project beside this vote and whatever related discussions. You're way better off waiting for someone else to take up that mantel some day. --{{victar|talk}} 04:24, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

    @Victar:, well, you are wrong, I added some translations and words to Related terms. I'm not saying I'm going to start another vote now or soon, it'd be idiotic. Deleting all the entries was the worst that could happen to me on Wiktionary, and it happened. Thanks for the advise though, it actually would be better if someone else started the new vote. Birdofadozentides (talk) 12:51, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

    So, like, 10 edits. 👏 --{{victar|talk}} 07:29, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

    And people say that wiki-communities are homes to bullying, abusive behaviour, which actively drives away people from contributing. I wonder where that impression could possibly come from. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 07:35, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

    One's editing track record on the project speaks far louder than their words. --{{victar|talk}} 16:19, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

    From BOADT's point of view, his track record was fine: he, like some other editors here, feels wynn entries are useful and a net positive to the project. That his good-faith efforts got erased because most people here (myself included) don't feel wynn entries are desirable does not take away from that fact. Belittling the effort he has put into this website, even if it is a kind of effort you and I ultimately disapprove of, is a bit petty. The entries are deleted now anyway and this vote has failed - let it rest. No need to make it personal (even if some support voters have done that already) and no need to kick the guy when he's down. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 16:29, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

11. Support This ain't no 7-bit disco. – Jberkel 23:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

1. Oppose full-fledged entries, but I still prefer having hard redirects from wynn entries to w-entries rather than having the wynn entries as empty pages. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
2. Oppose, cf. the discussion at Wiktionary:Votes/2020-09/Removing Old English entries with wynns and especially the BP discussions linked there (which have not been linked in this vote, even though they are highly relevant). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 16:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   I have added those links. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

3. I second Mahāgaja, Oppose full-fledged entries, but I do encourage redirects. --Robbie SWE (talk) 16:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose What does “the creation of entries” even mean? At the most entries would only be soft redirects, unless this vote suggests we should have arbitrarily mixed main forms. But why, if there are software redirects anyway? Nobody links them likely, the SEO is negligible. Plus I am against this vote because it is a waste after there already having been a vote, while I have not voted at that vote because Old English is outside my fields of interest. But such constant voting is not constructive and I vote to protect the result and counterpoise canvassing; if this vote has the opposite result it is really frivolous and discredits all decision-making at Wiktionary. Fay Freak (talk) 16:29, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Fay Freak, ƿynn entries used to exist as alternative forms/spellings to main Old English words written with w like weorold, there were never redirects. Nothing will happen to the main forms, they will just have one more line added to Alternative forms. I only wish it was possible to create these entries again and that is this vote's purpose. Birdofadozentides (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   Hm, I see alternative form-type soft redirects are usually considered entries, at least if the page WT:STATS is representative, while main forms are “gloss entries” there. Theoretically “entries” could mean “full entries” double-u soft-entries redirect to. Fay Freak (talk) 17:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Fay Freak, no, they existed like alternative spellings of main words, that's all. Like cweðan, this word is a perfect example to show how these entries used to be. Birdofadozentides (talk) 18:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Fay Freak, I'd like to invite you to reconsider your position. Old English words were written with wynns. Why wouldn't we want to document that here? — Dentonius 21:17, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Dentonius: Because of not considering it a sufficiently distinct letter. Like the long s. Few are otiose enough to create English, German, or Dutch entries with ſ. Or Latin entries in scriptio continua. Rightly so. That something can be encoded explicitly does not indicate it should be encoded explicitly every time. There are details that are known without needs being represented. Fay Freak (talk) 22:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   As I mentioned somewhere before, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, "long s" is a variant written form of the same letter, while "wynn" is actually a completely different letter from "w". Mihia (talk) 00:01, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Mihia: That’s an arbitrary essentialist stance. It can be visually as different as it lists and it is still the same. The e in Kurrentschrift is also nothing at all like the ideal e, and yet it is completely interchangeable. Similarly at some point in the Middle Ages, some blokes wrote a certain textual position wynn-style. Whether it is “a variant” or “a different letter” is no actual matter. Fay Freak (talk) 00:21, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   Fay Freak, but how can it be no matter, when in one case it's a variant of a letter and in the other case it's a totally distinct letter? Mihia is absolutely right. Old English has many special symbols and without them it won't be the same, why should ƿynn be ignored? Birdofadozentides (talk) 21:19, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Birdofadozentides, we use these little "special symbols" in when covering Old English at Wiktionary because they're standard in modern works on OE or editions of OE texts, not because "it won't be the same" or because we consider them to be "distinct letters". Wynn is not used in (most) modern materials covering OE, so it doesn't get included. Simple. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 13:45, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

5. Oppose Blindly following the "actual orthography" of a language only leads to confused and confusing entries. The relationship between the Wiktionary page title and the orthography of a language should be thought about carefully instead of proliferating alternative forms. DTLHS (talk) 23:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   I wonder whether you could give any further explanation of how listing Old English words as they were actually written in Old English (I should say in addition to modern transliterations) could lead to "confused and confusing entries", because I have to say that I am at the moment mystified, not to say baffled, both by the result of the previous vote and by the reiteration of some "Oppose" votes here. Mihia (talk) 23:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

   I am opposed to alternative form entries in general. Forget it, I don't feel like getting involved in this vote. DTLHS (talk) 00:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   DTLHS, I'm sorry, but you are involved, you have voted. Why are you against alternative form entries? They show different sides of a word; spelling, pronunciation, local differences. Birdofadozentides (talk) 21:28, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   I already crossed out my vote. We operate under the tyranny of entry titles. It obscures the fact that a word can be spelled many different ways and yet still be the same word. For this reason I see no value in creating "entries" (a Wiktionary invention that has nothing to do with words) for alternative forms, or misspellings, X system spellings, or any other variant spelling paradigm. DTLHS (talk) 21:44, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   DTLHS, I'm so sorry, I haven't noticed you crossed out your vote when I was writing it. I guess sometimes there can be too many entries, but I think each entry has its meaning. How otherwise different spellings can be shown? Probably the information about them could be mentioned within the main page entry, so there would be no alternative forms. I don't know, maybe it would be better. But it's not how it works here and what I like about alternative entries is that every form of a word has kind of its own space. I see that you don't like it. Birdofadozentides (talk) 22:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   Vote restored. DTLHS (talk) 19:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

   I'm intrigued. How would we, without alternative forms, deal with differences in British vs American spelling? Use one of them as the standard, redirecting the other spellings? Putting aside how hard it would be to keep this consistent (not to mention the probable fight about which should be the standard), what would we do with pairs like humour / humor which we couldn't redirect either way as both have sections for other languages? --Droigheann (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

   @DTLHS (Hello- quick question: I was reading over the debate and saw your statement above that you are "opposed to alternative form entries in general". I do a lot of work on what is called "alternative form" entries- I am currently adding a ton of citations for some alternative forms and synonyms of geographical terms. Were you referring to 'alternative forms' in the sense of the way that a letter/character/symbol is written, or were you talking about opposition to any entries for alternative spelling forms (like Beijing-Pei-ching)? I would appreciate any clarification, links or guidance you could give me. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2021 (UTC))

   I am opposed to the way the software we use forces us to split up alternative forms. A page title is just a number in a database. There's no reason why one entry cannot accommodate all information on the various forms of a word, other than the technological limitations. DTLHS (talk) 00:14, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

6. Oppose. We had a system that worked poorly, with a lot of redundancy. We now allow users to search with wynns and land on entries in the normal orthography used for typed Old English. Hard redirects are also a valid option that can be explored, but going back to a redundant system because Birdofadozentides has an aesthetic fascination with the letter wynn is absurd. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:38, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   Being able to type or paste e.g. ƿynsum and land on wynsum, which, incidentally, does not even mention the fact that ƿynsum is how it was actually written in OE (let's assume I am right with that example), really is not the point. The point is that in any language there should be entries for how words are/were actually written in that language. Otherwise, we may as well not list any words as they are written in e.g. Japanese, or whatever. We might as well have only modern Latin transliterations for every language. Mihia (talk) 01:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   It is just an imbalancedly descriptivist stance and again a paralogism, since the conclusion from what there has been to what we should have is not automatic, but runs through a lot of filters until appearing on browser screens. This argument “it has been written so” or “it has not been written so” has less and less bearing. In describing language, we cannot but deal with how words should be written. So the sentence is that in any language there should be entries for how words actually should be written. (The actuality here of the normative element is what is described. You might now decide how much normative there was in the wynn use.) Fay Freak (talk) 02:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   Fay Freak, "In describing language, we cannot but deal with how words should be written. So the sentence is that in any language there should be entries for how words actually should be written". Yes, and that is exactly why I wish ƿynn entries to be back. Because in Old English the letter w didn't exist. It's a modern tendency to use w instead of ƿynn just because someone many years ago decided it'd be easier. If the vote were successful, there would be less entries than before, because there would be only entries to main (like weorold), not to other alternative forms of main words (like worold, woruld) and not within Old English Reconstruction section. Birdofadozentides (talk) 21:49, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

7. Oppose duplication. Support soft redirects, hard redirects, automatic conversion, whatever. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
8. Oppose, mostly per Mnemo and Fay Freak. The point about long s, made here by Fay and elsewhere by -sche, is a good analogy. We do not allow attestable entries like aſſaſſin as separate from assassin either. If Birdofadozentides on the other hand wants to add quotations where wynn is attested, that is to be welcomed. I also prefer preserving long s in quoted text. Similar points can be made about legion graphical variants; I don't think we allow Palaeo-Hebrew alternative-form entries either, jsut to name one.
   Agnostic about hard redirects (perhaps with soft redirects allowed in the very unlikely cases where there are other L2s with wynn), strongly opposed to soft redirects in general. Also, the proposal is very unclear, it is not explained what kind of wynn entries would be allowed. :/ ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Lingo Bingo Dingo. It's not a good analogy at all. Modern German reforms its orthography all the time. All the times it wrote "s" differently, it was still modern German. Another thing is, I wouldn't argue let's throw out ß because the Swiss use double s instead, for example. In Old English, the wynn was used. It changed over to "w" in Middle English. — Dentonius 19:40, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   ß and ss contrast in the more usual German orthography, though, with the first one used after long vowels and diphthongs. It is less analogous to wynn than long s. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:43, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Lingo Bingo Dingo, but long s is a graphical variant of the letter s, while ƿynn is an absolutely different letter. The analogy is not correct. Birdofadozentides (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

   @Birdofadozentides Of course wynn's history is distinct from w's, but if you let that criterion lead you to treat it as a different letter that is essentialism. You might as well include various forms of shorthand as alternative forms on the same basis. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

9. Oppose both on its merits and because there's no reason to overturn a recently-decided vote. Imetsia (talk) 21:56, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
10. Oppose We make departures from attested forms in several other places (e.g. the example of long s given above). Changing Wiktionary to be based around attested forms is not viable, as it would require the reworking of a good portion of our entries, exponentially increase the amount of entry maintenance required, and bring us out of conformity with other publications that don't use attested forms. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 04:05, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

    To comment on the above vote: I am trying to come up with my vote on this issue, but it's hard for me because I am not well-versed on this issue. I believe 'all attested forms should have an entry', but that may be because of my own 1) incompetence with coding and 2) unawareness of normal practices for dictionaries. In my ideal, I do actually want "Wiktionary to be based around attested forms", but there are apparently some limitations on that according to those in opposition here. In my idealistic world, I don't consider "reworking of a good portion of our entries, exponentially increase the amount of entry maintenance required, and bring us out of conformity with other publications that don't use attested forms" as legitimate arguments against the idea that Wiktionary should have an entry for every attested form. They are short-term concerns surely, but could not qualify as reasons to avoid creating a more perfected form of Wiktionary. That's just my thoughts. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    @Geographyinitiative: Two points 1. Wiktionary must not only be based around attested forms, it must also be predictable where and when information is found. By not including wynn at all it is ensured that a reader instantly and directly gets to a main entry presenting all the information whenever he inputs an Old English word with double-u, and editors don’t have to deal with by-pages when cleaning up entries en masse. 2. You may consider whether having Latin pages not distinguishing u and v or being in scriptio continua is “more perfected”. Surely it is more messy, and the interest in certain kinds of perfection is low, at some point you gotta get to the point and therefore leave over the disputable details which in the end make you angry more than they theoretically rejoice by perfection. If you don’t then your idealistic world wins neither. Pettifoggery is a subversion tactic surely the 50 cent party employs and a war it wins in. Gotta see the forest for the trees. Whether the egg comes out of the chicken white or brown, it is still an egg. Wynn or double-u … Fay Freak (talk) 15:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

    Every language has special symbols. And when one of them gets ingnored all the time just because it's easilier it's not right. Those entries were a way to show that ƿynn was there, in Old English words, and even though this double-u tendency runs the world of Old English editions, ƿynn is not forgotten. People could also see the words written with ƿynn, the way it's supposed to be. What would happen to Old English, to all languages if all the special symbols were written the way modern people like it? The languages wouldn't be themselves anymore. Speaking of authentic Latin enties, I would gladly support the idea. Birdofadozentides (talk) 16:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

11. Oppose per Hazarasp and my previous vote. J3133 (talk) 09:29, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
12. Oppose: Embarrassing vote. Let. It. Go. --{{victar|talk}} 03:35, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
13. Oppose — فين أخاي (تكلم معاي · ما ساهمت) 15:52, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
14. Oppose Come on. I think we need a policy that no proposals to undo previous passing votes can be made for a certain period of time (e.g. 6 months) after the vote has passed, otherwise anyone who doesn't like the outcome of a vote can just immediately create another vote to try to undo it, wasting everyone's time. Benwing2 (talk) 02:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

    Agreed, a "sore-loser" clause, if you will. --{{victar|talk}} 06:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

    In my opinion an appeal is justified and reasonable where there is serious and genuine concern that a decision was incorrect, as is the case here. Mihia (talk) 22:56, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

    I.e. arbitrarily. --{{victar|talk}} 06:55, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

15. Oppose Classical Latin did not use U. Yet we use it for Latin entries, because that is how contemporary materials typically transcribe them. Likewise, most contemporary sources on OE use W, not wynn. -- Mocha2007 (talk) 23:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
16. Oppose per Hazarasp Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 08:17, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

1. Abstain --DannyS712 (talk) 04:19, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
2. Abstain - द्विशकारः^{वार्त्ता•योगदानानि•संरक्षितावलयः•विद्युत्पत्त्रम्} 15:41, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
3. Abstain - Although I'm in favour of having wynn entries (per Andrew Sheedy & Widsith) I'm unhappy about the vote coming so soon after the previous one (per Benwing2). --Droigheann (talk) 09:24, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

   Droigheann, but why does it matter so much? Maybe I shouldn't have started the vote, but more than a month passed, I was just afraid this discussion, this topic would become water under the bridge. I didn't know it was supposed to be different. Such a pity it affected your voting, I meant only the best by starting the vote at its time. Birdofadozentides (talk) 13:04, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   I don't think a month is long enough for a sufficient number of people to change their minds or come up with new relevant arguments. (And my voting apparently wouldn't change the final outcome, so it's not such a 'pity' anyway ;-).) --Droigheann (talk) 14:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

   @Droigheann: It does not really matter if your voting change the vote’s result or not, because a vote would either pass or fail, and yet people having interest in the topic support or oppose it. If you have a particular conviction, they you should go for it! Ideally, those who have no conviction are the ones who should abstain. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 16:20, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

4. Abstain Uh, how did this get so heated? —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 22:44, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
5. A few questions before I vote: Was w used at all in Old English, and if so, were wynn and w completely interchangeable? Or rather, were there any words that were always spelled with one or the other or any author who used both differently? Also, what's the current consensus for representing uu/u—are they just replaced with w, or do we have separate entries? —Globins (yo) 22:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

   Globins, no, the letter w never used in Old English the way we know it now. Ƿynn was a letter of Old English alphabet. Sometimes this sound was also represented by u/uu, but during the main period of Old English ƿynn was the main letter for the sound. Yes, the author could decide how to write a word. There's a tendency to write Old English words with w because someone decided it'd be easilier. But I think it's an unfair tendency and it shouldn't be that way. Have a look at Old English manuscripts, at the Beowulf manuscript - http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_vitellius_a_xv_f132r (the second letter). It was ƿynn all along, that shouldn't be forgotten. Birdofadozentides (talk) 22:27, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

   The history is actually kind of interesting. When the Latin alphabet was first used to write OE, there wasn't an obvious letter to use for the /w/ sound. At first, the usual choice by scribes was <uu>, but by the 8th century almost everyone had started using wynn, which was a letter borrowed from the Runic alphabet. This became almost universal. But in the meantime, the use of <uu> had been borrowed by continental scribes, and gradually developed into a kind of ligature. This ligatured form was reintroduced to England after the Norman invasion, and used by Norman scribes there where it eventually took over from wynn. During the very brief transitional period in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, there may be some late Old English texts which use a kind of uu/early w, but essentially OE mostly predates the development of W as a letter. Ƿidsiþ 12:41, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

11-16-5: vote fails. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:27, 9 January 2021 (UTC)