Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:39, 1 December 2016

Welcome!

Hello, Florian Blaschke, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Although it seems like you've got it pretty well figured out. Nice job on media lengua. Makemi 01:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Norn substrate

Hello Florian, I noticed your good edit to the article substratum. Would you happen to know a source for the Norn example, so perhaps you could add that as well? I tagged the article with the source tag as the current version does not cite any sources. --AAikio 13:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

There are sources (scientific literature, not websites) listed on Norn language, but I haven't checked them out personally, so I'm not sure which is most appropriate. By the way, your name is familiar - I came across your homepage in April or so. Florian Blaschke 15:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your reply. I think I'll try to check these myself sometime if I have the chance; as it happens, I'm also personally interested in cases of susbtrate influence, as this is a topic I do research on. Btw, it's great to notice that there are other comparative linguists around here as well. Maybe we could improve together some articles in this field sometime... I've been planning to edit the comparative method for a while but haven't gotten up to it yet, there are a few things discussed on the talk page that I think would need improvement.`

As for my web site, if you visited it in April it might still have been the older and horribly outdated version. I replaced it with a new version sometime in the summer. And also, thanks for your comment on the Altaic issue on my talk page; there's been quite a bit of discussion on this recently , but this is scattered all over various talk and user talk pages... The original question I've been disputing with user E104421 is whether we should keep the "disputed" tag in the language infoboxes of "Altaic" language articles, as in Turkish language for example. Do you have an opinion on this? --AAikio 07:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This is getting too long, I'm mailing you. Florian Blaschke 11:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use Image:Alestormpromo1.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Alestormpromo1.jpg. I noticed the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Misplaced Pages articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

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Speedy deletion of Alestorm

A tag has been placed on Alestorm requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a band, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not assert the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for musical topics.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the article (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the article's talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Stephenb (Talk) 15:01, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Avant-garde metal and art music

Thank for this great job, you did. I had already checked what you corrected. And I'm satisfied with what you did so far. I didn't checked everything yet. Thank you very much. I wish I could master english like you.

Does avant garde deviate from the basic principles or the tonal language?

Well to reply to this question, it depends what we mean by "avant-garde". Because it's a term that can be used loosely and differently according to certain persons who use it. If by" avant-garde" we called any music ahead of their time or any non standard music then no, avant-garde doesn't necessarilly deviates from the tonal language. However musicologically and historically speaking the term "avant-garde music" has stongly been associated with the radical tendencies of modernist music including atonal music, twelve tone music, Serial music, Stochastic music, Concrete music, electronic art music, spectral music, etc... All these modernist tendencies are characterized by a general rejection of tonal language. So my specification about tonal language concerned the fact avant-garde metal despite its name doesn't necessarilly rejects tonality like avant-garde music often does. In this regard avant-garde metal is closer to the experimental approach of postmodern music than modernist avant-garde in music.Frédérick Duhautpas (talk) 09:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Just wishing you a wonderful First Day of Spring {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}! ~~~~

Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Metal#Genre delimiters

You're invited to the above. --Bardin (talk) 14:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Britney Spears as complex as classical music?!

Thanks for your request, But I don't have much time to reply for the moment.But I think I' m going to surprize you, if I tell you I actuallly second many claims by this guy. Actually there's a misunderstanding going on here. He doesn't say" Britney Spears is as complex as classical music" as you seem to believe. No, he says that criterias (such as modulation) used to point the complexity of classical in this article are wrong or misguiding, because use of such elements can be found in popular music. Which is correct. Those criterias in this article are naively worded. Anyway even though he exagerates a little bit concernign BS and even if he omits some specifications, I mostly agree with him concerning things about Modulation, Repetition, Variation. They just are not criterions of compelxity at least the way it is worded. Concerning polyphony/counterpoint, the issue is a little more complciated. Yes even counterpoint is sometimes used in popular music. But that's here the root of another misunderstanding going here I'll have to dissipate when I'll have time. Actually the kind of counterpoint or variation used in popular music is quite different from the classical tradition one . Classical one is generally more codified and regulated than the one used occsaionaly in popular music which is much freer and more instinctive. Which make it far more difficult to master.Frankely speaking I doubt anyone can give an example of Britney Spears using Bach's complex mastery of Fugue. Here's the point. However another latent misunderstanding is to confuse complexity with superiority. Many people hear "superiority", when using the word "complexity". Which is completely misguiding. Because complexity doesn't necessarilly make music superior. This confusion is a source ( I think) of many heated debates. Because people believe by claiming Classical compelxity, one states superiority over their favourite genres...Frédérick Duhautpas (talk) 21:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Terminology: Renaissance fair, de:Mittelaltermarkt, Medieval festival

In the process of moving images to Commons and sorting them, I've realized that we seem to have two categories on Commons for the same thing. commons:Category:Medieval festivals seems to cover such events in Europe, while commons:Category:Renaissance fairs covers such events in the US. In this (English) Misplaced Pages, the articles are named "Renaissance fairs" (or "faires" or "festivals"), and point to the similarly named categories on Commons, while the German Misplaced Pages calls (what seems to be the same thing) Mittelaltermarkt and points to the Medieval festivals category. As far as you can tell, are these describing essentially the same thing? If so, we should probably merge the categories on Commons; what are your thoughts on which name they should merge to? Commons says to use the English language term, but I don't know what terms are used to describe this activitiy in the English-speaking world outside the US, nor if it is as common elsewhere as in the US. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 14:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

They don't seem quite the same to me. commons:Category:Medieval festivals seems more related to historical reenactments in historical places , and commons:Category:Renaissance fairs to the American-style fairs. In the first category, while obviously there's nothing medieval or Renaissance in the US, there are plenty of historical forts, parks, etc. where historical festivals are played out. They may be of later timeperiods, but they share an ambience of historicity and location. However, the Renaissance Fairs are much more like theme parks, and however much they aspire to "authenticity", they are more fantasy oriented. Only the subject matter is the same. Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

So perhaps Renaissance fairs and Mittelaltermarkt are essentially the same thing, and should both point to commons:Category:Renaissance fairs, while commons:Category:Medieval festivals should be linked to an article on historical reenactment, perhaps Medieval reenactment, and used for more authentically inclined events? cmadler (talk) 12:24, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent suggestion. Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 21:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree; this solution makes sense and is even an improvement over the current state, in being more precise and separating events geared towards fantasy from those with aspirations towards authenticity. In my opinion, "Renaissance fair" is a suitable translation for the German term "Mittelaltermarkt". Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I will start making the changes. Could you put a note on de:Diskussion:Mittelaltermarkt about this, explaining the changes and reasoning? My knowledge of German is not at all up to the task. Also, maybe the US Renaissance fair phenomenon should be mentioned in the German article? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 14:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I've written something on the talk page. Hope it is OK that way. Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories‎

Thanks for fixing that, careless of me. Dougweller (talk) 21:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

List of German expressions in English

re - Etymonline is not a particularly reliable source, but the Merriam Webster entry is fine - it's the first reliable citation I've seen (and I have searched previously), even if it only says that it is a "probable" derivation. If you have such a citation, it should be included in the text though, so I've added it.

However, as for your edit summary "rv again: WTF are you trying to say?" - this falls below our project's civility standards. Please consider that the editors you are dealing with can be politely spoken to as reasonable people. Knepflerle (talk) 10:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if you felt offended, but it wasn't meant in an offensive way at all, just to point out my bafflement as your statement didn't make any sense to me. Perhaps it's because of my linguistic training ... but there is no way that foosball could somehow be an "independent development" that I could think of, and that's just so vague a way to put it that I didn't know what to make out of it. (You mean, like, some weird English dialect that shifts > that the word would fortitiously have been loaned from? I just don't see it.) After all, you didn't doubt any of the other entries, either.

Thanks for fixing the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: Moves of Orders of magnitude (length) articles

Hi Florian, I've only moved those articles to import old edits from the Nostalgia Misplaced Pages. The moves of which you speak appear to have been made by John J. Bulten (talk · contribs) in May 2008, and he noted his justification for them at Talk:1 metre#Rename proposal. Graham87 00:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Chenoua language

Talkback

English "dialects"

I'm moving the discussion here because it does not really belong on the Talk page.

As an aside, I wonder if children raised in (say) rural Southern England without exposure to other varieties of English (through mass media, especially TV), only the local/regional dialect/accent, might not also have major difficulty understanding (say) American English, when first getting in contact with it, just like you had with South African English. After all, American English might conceivably have diverged from Southern British English even more since Shakespeare's time than South African English has diverged from Southern British English, which, after all, has happened much more recently. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

American English, probably not. But they would have major difficulty understanding people from Northern England. If you were to show a film like "Kes" to a hypothetical person from southern England, he'd have as hard time with it at first as an American would, if not more so, simply because of the pronunciation. American English hasn't "diverged" as much as it has "converged", being a "consensus mixture" of southern, northern and West Country accents.

By the way, both the South African boy and I were speaking the same "dialect" of English (Standard English), which is extremely similar whether it's spoken in South Africa, the US, Ireland or Great Britain, except in pronunciation. The difficulty I had was solely due to pronunciation. The only term he used that I didn't understand was "noughts and crosses", which in America is called "tic tac toe".

It takes a lot more than differences in pronunciation to make two varieties different dialects. There have to be substantial differences in lexis and grammar as well. The differences between Standard American, Standard British, Standard South African etc. are far too small for them to be considered separate dialects. On paper, it would be extremely difficult to distinguish them were it not for the minor differences in spelling and the occasional give-away lexical or grammatical differences.

If you want to find truly divergent dialects of English, you will find them only inside Britain, in Yorkshire, for example. Differences between dialects within Britain are far, far greater than differces between Standard British and any oversees variety, including American, with the possible exception of African-American English, which even I cannot understand without focusing, and even then only when they are speaking directly to me, and not among each other.

Strangely, for Dano-Norwegian, the opposite is true. The language is extremely uniform in Denmark, the motherland, and very diverse in Norway, where it is an introduced language. The reason is that Norwegian Dano-Norwegian was highly influenced by the related Norse language which it displaced, whereas American English was not influenced by the completely unrelated Native American languages, except for a few lexical borrowings. Contary to popular belief, American English has hardly been influenced by immigrant languages, except, again, for a few lexical borrowings.

By the way, I studied in Germany (Regensburg and Oldenburg). For comparison sake, the difference between English and Scots is far less than the difference between Hochdeutsch and Niedersachsener Plattdeutsch. It's more like the difference between Hochdeutsch and Bayrisch. The difference between American Standard English and British Standard English is about the same as the difference between Standard Hochdeutsch as spoken in Munich and Standard Hochdeutsch as spoken in Vienna, Berlin or Hamburg.Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the difference between the SBE vs. SAE and the SBE vs. SAmE examples. In both cases, the main difference is in pronunciation. Of course I'm not talking about the written language. A "monolingual" speaker of SBE would scan the SAmE pronunciation of, for example, bottle as bardle. Of course the SBE speaker would understand the sound correspondences involved after a short time (and that's exactly what must happen in the case of children first exposed to an accent different from their own), but initially, the unfamiliar pronunciation would stump them as the SAE pronunciation has stumped you. The catch is, even if the differences are small, there is still some learning effort involved, it's just so automatical (and in the case of BE vs. AmE at least, so early in life) that people don't realise they have learned a new system, even if it is mainly only a phonological system.

I know for a fact that people from Northern Germany frequently complain about the accent in Munich (especially subway drivers and policemen are notorious for often having a thick Bavarian accent), and depending on the strength of the accent either find it alien or hard to understand. Bavarian dialect, as opposed to Standard German, is positively unintelligible to them (unless they spend years in Bavaria), although Bavarian dialects do not seem quite as divergent from Standard German as Swiss German dialects are (this may have been different in the past, though), and the dialect of Munich in particular is strongly influenced by the standard language and much less distinctive than more rural dialects. That "Prussian" foreigners struggle so much with the local linguistic features (younger people in particular only speak a very slight, generalised South German accent that I barely recognise as distinctive, though my own accent seems to be stronger even though I tend not to be aware of it unless I get to hear my own voice recorded) is especially curious in view of the observation that through TV, Northerners should have become more familiar with Bavarian, and vice versa (in fact, Bavarian at least in the form of the accent is considered to be very popular nowadays in Germany), and I'm at a loss to explain how it is possible that in practice, the difference is still so momentous.

By the way, I'd like to point out that the terms accent, dialect and language are ill-defined in linguistics and I use them rather intuitively, which is why I prefer the more technical term variety. As closely related as varieties often are, as subtle as the differences between two varieties can be, my point is that despite the significantly varying learning burden, some sort of learning – even if only in the form of barely conscious "accomodation" – is virtually always involved.

A final remark: I'd say you are severely overstating the case if you claim that the authentically (Western) Norse dialects of Norway have become displaced by Dano-Norwegian entirely. Especially in Western Norway, distinctive local dialects that can be shown to have developped from Old Norwegian without any break are still in place and well and alive, despite all foreign influences, and form the basis for the modern Nynorsk standard. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:04, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Jomon period

Hallo! I found you through your edit comment in this edit. I agree that consistency in dates is a good thing, but am wondering how to achieve this for articles on Japanese history since the dates are not always fixed. With older periods, new archaeological finds are pushing those dates further back in time (in fact in this case there is some evidence for a Jōmon-Yayoi transition as early as 500 BC) and even for more recent periods, different definitions can lead to different transition dates (I started to collect various definitions here in case you are interested). If you have a good idea how to point out (with a footnote,...) that dates in these cases are not fixed, please let me know. Also if you want to add to User:Bamse/Japanese historical periods, feel free to do so. bamse (talk) 15:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see the problem here. There was likely no sudden transition, at least not one that would have taken place at the same time all over the Japanese archipelago. Instead, there was most probably a period of several centuries where the two traditions existed side by side. Presumably, the Yayoi tradition slowly spread towards the east and north, gradually assimilating the previous inhabitants culturally (unless they were displaced or fled to the east/north). Therefore, depending on the exact place in the archipelago, the Jōmon period ended at quite different times, which is exactly what the overlap explicitly indicated in the table implies. In the far north, there was never a Yayoi period at all. That means, even if Yayoi started earlier, Jōmon didn't necessarily end earlier, as well.

Anyway, as long as the discussion is still ongoing and the dating still in flux, it's best to stick to the traditional date. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Fully agree. But in some later transitions (Asuka->Nara,...) there are different dates depending on definition and it is not always obvious which to chose in articles or for the infobox. In these cases, I think some kind of note could be useful. What do you think? bamse (talk) 16:31, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

BTW, you don't happen to read kanbun, or have a translation of the Shoku Nihongi at hand, do you? bamse (talk) 16:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not a specialist on East Asian languages, literature or history at all, so I can only really apply what I've learned about the subject from Misplaced Pages itself. But it seems that the start of the Nara period is quite consensually defined as 710, because of the move of the capital to Heijō-kyō in that year. Of course such delimitations are always to an extent arbitrary, but in this case, the periods do seem to have established precise definitions. I notice that the alternative dating at Asuka period is not sourced, so I would be sceptical and hesitate to assume that there is really a difference in opinion in this case. But as I've cautioned, I'm not conversant with the subject. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Gallo-Italian languages

I went ahead and rewrote the page on Northern Italian languages to reflect its title properly and to try and reflect some of the debates. I do agree that the normal grouping of Gallo-Italian is with Gallo-Romance rather than Italo-Romance, and like you I suspect that the tendency on the part of certain Italian linguists to group it with Italo-Romance has an ideological basis. I'm not too familiar with Hull's work but I doubt that the term "Padanian" has currency in scholarly circles beyond Hull himself, which means it probably doesn't meet the notability standard of inclusion. On top of that, the "Padanian" concept seems to have been appropriated for political purposes by northern Italian separatists trying to invent a unified northern Italian ethnic identity, which is a further caution against its inclusion. Benwing (talk) 00:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, the problem with "Padanian" is that it's not a commonly-used term among the specialists. We need to follow standard terminology, otherwise we are veering into original research territory. As for your other statement: The discontinuous territory of the current Rhaeto-Romance languages strongly suggests that R-R languages were once spoken over a significantly larger territory, and later displaced by neighboring languages. In a situation like this, it's natural that words will survive from the former (substrate) language, including e.g. words with palatalized /tɕa/ or similar. But this doesn't imply that Venetian, even the Venetian spoken in former R-R areas, was once more of a Rhaeto-Romance or Gallo-Romance language. It may indeed be the case that certain Italo-Romance features have diffused from areas to the south and overlaid themselves onto Gallo-Italic languages of northern Italy ... Of course, it may also be the case that Gallo-Romance features have diffused from the northwest and overlaid themselves onto languages that were once more Italo-Romance in character, or (even more likely) that there were various waves of diffusion of features coming from various directions at various times.

As an example, Giacomo Devoto, in his book on Italian dialects, relates a traditional anecdote where a Tuscan and a Genovese speaker were competing to see who could produce the most vowel-heavy and consonant-light sentences. The Tuscan said Io vidi un'aquila volare "I saw an eagle flying", to which the Genovese responded E êia e ae? "And did it have wings?". Devoto says the modern Genovese dialect is less extreme in this respect, more like E avea e ale? In this case, features closer to the standard language have clearly diffused from elsewhere in a way that eliminated the more unusual aspects of Ligurian speech. But in general it's difficult-to-impossible to figure out how such diffusion has happened -- and in many cases, to separate out diffusion from internal developments -- without direct evidence of the older speech. Indirect evidence embedded in the vocabulary is often interpretable in various ways.

If you want to insert some statements about such diffusion, you should be careful (1) to try and see which are the prevailing views rather than a particular theory you happen to like, (2) to make sure the statements you insert are actually representative of what individual scholars say, (3) to quote secondary rather than primary sources. For example, claiming that specific Italo-Romance features have been overlaid on specific modern Gallo-Italian languages is very different from a generic statement such as that the "Padanian" languages as a whole were once Gallo-Romance or Rhaeto-Romance. (It's not even generally agreed that the Rhaeto-Romance languages are a subset of the Gallo-Romance languages.) In addition, Hull's PhD thesis is a primary source. These are generally non-ideal for Misplaced Pages because they are trying to advance particular theories rather than summarize consensus, meaning they are much more likely to be non-representative of overall views. Benwing (talk) 03:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I cannot quite agree here. With proper attribution, sourcing and context, even views that go beyond current scholarly consensus can be mentioned in Misplaced Pages articles, especially if they are still well within academic credibility and conform to academic standards – truly fringe views coming from outside of the academic/scientific community, of course, should not be mentioned at all unless they are notable. However, there is a wide continuum (hypothesis, conjecture) in between consensus (theory) and crackpottery (speculation – more specifically, unbridled, careless, fanciful speculation at odds with known facts, and often motivated by ideology and wishful thinking). If we were applying your strict standards to all of Misplaced Pages, Koch et al.'s recent attempt to interpret Tartessian as a Celtic language – which strikes me as rather implausible on the face of it, even disregarding the implications attached to the idea, and, judging by the comments on Talk:Tartessian language, Koch's analysis is so flawed methodologically that this view is unlikely to ever become consensus – should be completely excluded, though even I, despite my profound scepticism of the idea and loathing of its aggressive promotion on Misplaced Pages, have no qualms accepting mentions in relevant articles in principle, as long as the reader is not misled into receiving the impression that the classification of Tartessian as Celtic were more than a view esposed by a marginal group in historical linguistics. Hull's view, even if perhaps not that conclusive or compelling after all, is clearly reasonable and possible in principle. Koch's views on Celtic, Renfrew's views on Indo-European, or Vennemann's views on Germanic and pretty much everything else, while quite sensational as things go in this field, and well-received outside specialist circles, are, for all their revisionist fervour involved in its promotion, rather lacking in their methodological rigour, violating principles such as regularity of sound change (Koch), the Uniformitarian Principle (Renfrew, by assuming a much more static and homogeneous prehistoric past), and a host of other principles (Vennemann). These are unconventional to eccentric views, even if "fringe science" may be too strong a descriptor (and in the case of Renfrew, very much dependent on the academic discipline). How about Mario Alinei's Paleolithic Continuity Theory? It violates the UP even more egregiously, and leads to assumptions that make Blut und Boden nationalists rejoice, implying that modern ethnicities and languages have essentially been in place all the way back to the end of the last glacial period, that Latin, with various regional forms, has been present in Italy since the 2nd millennium BC – and that Etruscian is an archaic form of Hungarian, apparently. Alexander Häusler, a well-publicised archaeologist, seems to endorse the "theory". Misplaced Pages respects it, it even devotes an entire article to it, even though the "theory" ventures even deeper into la-la land. Let's not even get started on creationism and other examples of pure bullshit "science". Are you honestly ready to get rid of all that junk completely? I would be on your side, let's make Misplaced Pages consensus only and throw out everything just slightly without the scientific mainstream – but that would be a radical break and I'm not sure if you'd be willing to accept the consequences of that principle. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Another example is the classification of Austronesian languages, where the results of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database have been used in preference to the traditional classifications established through handbooks, and older classifications are frequently not even mentioned anymore. That's quite blatant recentism, spread through hundreds of articles. I'm not particularly happy about the way the older scholarly work has been treated in this case, especially as the results of the ABVD, which are essentially based on lexicostatistics, are given far more credence than they deserve, compared to traditional arguments for subgrouping and the comparative method. This is certainly excessive in the other direction, compared to your conservative approach. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

In short, your refusal to allow Hull's views even mere (not even necessarily prominent) mention in the article you entirely contradict the established practice in en-WP which is to give notable non-consensus views not ample, but at least limited mention where appropriate. WP does not limit itself to being a summary of the relevant handbooks in an academic field. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:23, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: Japanese language

Hi Florian, this phenomenon occurs because the import process links the 2001 edits to the the wrong place. It happens because The previous/next edit links work by revision ID's, not dates, and affects most UseModWiki revisions to some extent. See User:Graham87/Page history observations#Revision ID numbers. Graham87 03:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Quasihuman | Talk 10:27, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Replied again on User talk:Quasihuman#Merge "Insight", "Eureka effect" and "Aha! effect"?, thanks. Quasihuman | Talk 15:20, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I've started the merge discussion at Talk:Aha! effect, if there are no opposers after a week or two, I'll merge it then. Thanks, Quasihuman | Talk 15:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Lexikon der indogermanischen Nomina

This is very interesting! Can you tell me where to get the book? The webpage of Freiburg University looks as if the LIN were still underway. Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that the title has changed to NIL, perhaps that's the reason why you weren't able to find it. Even Amazon carries it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:25, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

By the way, have you heard about this? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Sounds really interesting. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:43, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

RE Talk:Selena

I responded to your comment on the talk page of Selena. Best, Jonayo! 06:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Word about AfD courtesy

Hello, although not strictly enforced, when nominating articles for deleteion it is a widely accepted courtesy to inform the good-faith creator and major contributors to the article of the discussion. I have informed User:Varsijousi who pretty much single-handedly created Lake numbers in Finland in September for you. Thanks, hydrox (talk) 18:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of doing that, but forgot about it and also didn't read further in the instructions. Sorry. Thanks for your help. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Tartessian

You should not base your love or hate of a subject on the state of its Misplaced Pages article. It's only the internet. The internet is full of stupid people, and the subject of Celtic studies tends to attract all sorts of muddle-headed individuals. They all have internet access, and some of them will invariably end up messing with Misplaced Pages articles.

If this means the Tartessian language article is broken right now, you can either try to fix it if you have the patience and motivation, or you can simply tag the broken article for cleanup and move to some other topic that catches your interest. At some point, the confused and agenda-driven crowd will get tired of Tartessian and flock to some other topic-du-jour, and there will still be ample time to fix the coverage of Tartessian then.

Obscure topics like "Tartessian article" have it comparatively easy. They only get attention at the rare occasions when they make some kind of headlines. By contrast, editing articles that attracts religious zealots (and, most of the time even worse, anti-religious zealots), such as Yahweh is much much worse, as there will never be a time without any confused and/or stupid people messing with it. Also much worse are articles about fringe theories or crackpot ideological movements and the like, say, such as Afrocentrism, Matriarchy, The Zeitgeist Movement or David Rohl, because these will also be invariably be disrupted by adherents.

I will be happy to help fix the Tartessian article once the pov-pushers have moved on. It's usually enough to sit out their interest and then revert to the last sane version of the article, perhaps with a brief paragraph added to summarize the incident that sparked their interest in the topic.

Happy editing, --dab (𒁳) 11:07, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Kardashev scale

Thank you for editing the article. My concern was that the numerical conversions appear to be done by Misplaced Pages users. Do you feel that this is acceptable and does not constitute original research? You could comment here: Talk:Kardashev_scale#Source_used_for_numbers. Regards. Shawnc (talk) 12:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

The fibula

I left my first reaction on my talk page. Might as well keep discussions together. Ciao.Dave (talk) 19:37, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Hallo Florian. I looked into it a bit and left a reply for you on my page. Bottom line: I think the scientific evidence has epistemological priority.Dave (talk) 22:24, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Eureka effect/Aha! effect merge

Just to let you know, I've finally merged the two articles, per your request at my talk page. Sorry for the long delay. Because everyone agreed with the merge, and there was no clear consensus about what the name of the final article should be, I decided to be bold, and merge Eureka effect into Aha! effect, mainly because Aha! effect is the bigger article, the merge would be easier that way. A separate move discussion could take place to decide the name if you wish. Thanks, Quasihuman | Talk 13:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Fine to me. I tried to clean up the article a bit; did you find my edits helpful? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Scythian languages

I'm not sure what's going on in this article. An editor dropped in a huge chunk of stuff he clearly didn't write and with references that don't have enough information to verify them. I'm guessing this is the source, do you agree? If so we don't do massive copy and pastes from other language Wikipedias without attribution, and we still have the verification problem. I've asked the editor to explain their actions on the talk page, perhaps we shoudl wait until he does. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 07:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that's clearly a translation of the material from German Misplaced Pages.

At least the Turkic (not to mention Mongolian, Mordvin, Romance and English) etymologies should be treated as suspect – especially given that they do not refer to Proto-Turkic reconstructions, but Modern Anatolian Turkish (or in one case, Modern Bashkir) words, forms which are about 2000 or 2500 years younger. Proto-Turkic was probably spoken sometime in the 1st millennium BC, so – apart from the generally dubious practice of explaining Scythian material as Turkic (or something else) rather than Iranian – this comparison would at least be temporally plausible. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Just looked at the history, he's the author of that material in the German Misplaced Pages. Thanks for your comments. Dougweller (talk) 21:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Translation help please

Hi there. I'm wondering if you could be of any help at this article: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Moscow). The editor who mostly wrote the article is a native Russian speaker and his English is poor. The article needed extensive copy edit work to bring it to where it is today, but we have all left the newspaper translation section alone, I suppose because none of us speak Russian (see the talk page #6). As far as I can tell you don't speak Russian either, but I wonder if your knowledge of words and syntax could improve the translation? Thanks for looking at it! Gandydancer (talk) 15:08, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

My Russian is very basic, and my English isn't perfect, either, but I've left a comment on the talk page concerning the expression which you seemed most interested in translating; HTH. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The thing is Florian, I am just so unhappy with the present translation. It is my impression that the news reporter said that the cathedral was just grand! in the style of the old churches that one sees in Europe. He seemed to see it as on a level of great art or great music. If you look at the translation on the article page, IMO, it just won't do! It is my impression that Orange Pumpkin can't see how bad it is because his English is so poor. I asked you on the talk page if you were willing to do a complete translation. If you do not feel quite competent, do you think I could ask on the Misplaced Pages help page for a person very competent in both Russian and English? Though actually, reading your English and your suggestion to use the word "perfect", I'd guess that you are quite competent... Gandydancer (talk) 18:17, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, I'm fairly competent in English, but not in (especially literary) Russian. I just went from your translation – I used it to guess at the meaning of the original text without analysing the original itself.

I agree, the best solution would be to consult a Russian speaker with a more than decent grasp of English. It would be useful if he could give us both a fairly close, literal translation and a loose one.

I've just asked a buddy for help. I'll post his suggestion to the talk page. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Florian. Some very good people helped with the article--I'm so impressed with the amount of work that went into it and how well it turned out. Besides Orange Pumpkin's tremendous amount of work, I knew an excellent copy editor that went through it--and then you helped... We should give him a group barnstar? Gandydancer (talk) 21:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a good idea! You have my blessing to act in my name. My own contribution was tiny, after all, it only concerned a single paragraph out of dozens. :-) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:23, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for attention at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Linguistics#Requests_for_attention regarding Diasystem

Hi. I am requesting your attention to a dispute over the content of Diasystem. An administrator who is a regular participant at WikiProject_Linguistics is threatening me. Please read my post at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Linguistics#Requests_for_attention (the first new post in that section in 12 months!). If, after reading that post and the version of the article as of 5:10, 2 March 2012, you want to know more, please read Talk:Diasystem and/or write me. Thanks. Dale Chock (talk) 06:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Suffix

Hello Florian, I did not write this part, as far as I know, maybe I do not remember, but I would not have written that this way. There are two different suffixes in the ethnic names in French with two different etymologies (VL -ēse and OLF *-isk), that is the reason why some ethnic names are in -ois : danois, gallois, chinois, etc. and others in -ais : irlandais (OF irois), portugais, hollandais, etc. There is a confusion between the two suffixes. The feminine form of some ethnic adjectives in OF was -esche : danesche cf. la danesche parleure 'the Danish language', more danico = la danesche manere, englesche cf. la gent englesche 'the English' (Chanson de Roland), all replaced later by -oise or -aise. Yes, the suffix -esque was borrowed from Italian -esco in the 16th, when words ending this way were borrowed : pittoresco > pittoresque. The Norman-Picard -esque (corresponding to OF -esche) does not seem to have something to do with that : it is only found in toponyms nowadays, such as Englesqueville, Anglesqueville. See further explanations for example (French) .Nortmannus (talk) 22:40, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup! I was not aware of the difference between those two suffixes. I thought it was simply like était vs. étoit.

Another passage I have found there which is a bit strangely phrased, but which I could not fix:

/r/ becomes uvular sound: trill /ʀ/ or fricative /ʁ/, (replacing the rolled 'r' formerly often used by the clergy).

Apparently, this means that while the change from front (alveolar) /r/ to uvular trill took place already in the 18th century or so, the archaic /r/ articulation survived in the clergy for a longer time – but for how long? Early-mid 20th century perhaps? In that case, it should read "(replacing the rolled 'r', which, in the early 20th century, was still often used by the clergy)". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

De rien ! euh..I do not know exactly what it means too. Yes, I read somewhere, that the royal court used to pronounce the rolled 'r' possibly to the 18th century (later there is no more king..) and the people of Paris did not. The upper clergy did probably pronounce the way it was at the court. I do not think it was the case anymore after the French revolution. Concerning the priests, the lower clergy, I think they pronounced the way it was in their native region. The rolled (in the langue d'oïl regions) was concentrated in Berry, more generally the center of France, Burgundy, some parts of Anjou, the southern part of the Orne and the southern part of the Manche departements in Normandy, and so on.., but I do not know exactly where else, solely among the farmers born before the second world war. In Normandy, that I know better, except the specific case of the south, I do not think that people ever pronounced the rolled , because early traces of its total fading (in certain conditions and consonantic environments) are mentioned in the documents for example Thuit-Hébert is mentioned as Tui Herbert in 1216, but somewhere else Pont-Hébert is mentioned as Pons Heberti in 1260, same thing for Le Plessis-Hébert as Plaiseis Herbert in 1190 and Saint-Martin-le-Hébert as Beati Martini le Hebert in 1250. Today modern Norman surnames Hébert, Bénard, instead of Bernard. In the Val-de-Saire patois and in the Cauchois the /r/ disappears totally in all the cases f.i. : French curé 'Pfarrer', Valdesairois tchué , cauchois cué. It probably exists in other patois too, but I do not really know. For people with a bit knowledge, the rolled 'r' is still very typical berrichon and bourguignon. For people from Paris, it is part of the stereotypical farmer accent, so that they advertise for Norman camembert with a typical Berry or Bourguignon rolled 'r'. That is the only thing I know about this subject. I never studied the question. Another thing : there is a popular pronounciation in Paris (that tends to disappear) the pronounciation of the 'titis parisiens', where they had developed a sort of prothetic /a/ before the /r/, that is (was) less marked in Paris than in Rouen and in le Havre, where the popular class still use it (myself for example, when I am with people having this /ar/, I automatically get it, because as a kid I used to hear it at school, but my parents do not, because they are from the countryside) : we can call it the Seine valley accent. Good evening.Nortmannus (talk) 19:17, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see; to me, when I hear formerly, that doesn't mean "more than 200 years ago", so formerly often used by the clergy sounded as if the alveolar /r/ had been used by the clergy in somewhat more recent times, so that linguists of the 19th or 20th centuries or even Wikipedians of the 21st century could even personally remember clergymen using this pronunciation in their childhood, or were even able to document it in current use. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Median Empire

I think this needs to be turned back into a redirect - it had been a redirect for years until someone gutted Medes in January and added it to this. The material was restored to Medes. We also have an edit warrior on both claiming it was a Kurdish dynasty. Dougweller (talk) 08:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Is all the info in Median Empire already found in Medes? If so, it's a duplicate, and you can simply turn it into a redirect. Otherwise, just merge any remaining useful information from Median Empire into Medes. Misplaced Pages has no need for redundant articles or even forks. But you know all that already, so I'm not sure what you're intending with your request – are you trying to secure my support, or reassure yourself of a consensus for the merger? Let me assure you that you have my support; in general, having separate articles about an ancient polity and its ruling ethnicity is probably the typical case, but we know very little about the Medes and the Median Empire, and the history of either, so a separate article for the polity is not necessary. I believe there is even serious doubt about what exactly the nature and extent of the rule of the Medes was and whether a "Median Empire" as traditionally conceived even existed. Also, it is unclear to whom exactly the term Medes even referred. Presumably, it was a cover term anyway, or at least the Greeks applied it to (Western) Iranian-speaking groups in general.

There are Kurdish POV-warriors attacking the German version of the article, too, and I have no sympathies for them, but I've never heard anything about Kurdish being Southwest Iranian before. I've never seen it classified as anything but Northwest Iranian and therefore into the same subbranch as "Median" at least, even though there is just not known enough about "Median" to be certain of its status versus Kurdish.

Only if we had good reasons to think that the common ancestor of all Northwest Iranian varieties was spoken about 2500 years ago and not considerably earlier or later, we could identify Proto-Northwest-Iranian with "Median" and draw a direct (at least linguistic) connection between "Medes" and Kurds, but we could not identify them specifically as (at least linguistic) ancestors of the Kurds. Kurdish on its own doesn't seem to have that great a time-depth, so Proto-Kurdish was likely spoken too recently to attempt an identification of the "Medes" with the linguistic ancestors of the Kurds specifically, as opposed to other groups, such as the Baluchi, so yeah, that identification is inherently dubious even if Kurdish and Median are both Northwest Iranian. Parthian is a much better fit on a temporal basis alone, and its intense contact not only with Persian but also Armenian, and Windfuhr does identify Parthian – "albeit with a Median substratum" – as the language Kurdish descended from. However, Jost Gippert thinks Zaza is closer. The problem is that, apparently, Persian has exchanged a lot of vocabulary with other Iranian languages, especially Northwest Iranian languages, which has muddled the distinction between Northwest and Southwest Iranian and wrecked havoc on the isoglosses, with Kurdish and Baluchi appearing most influenced by Persian vocabulary, Zaza much less and Gorani even less. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Ten Lost Tribes

Thanks, careless of me. Dougweller (talk) 12:02, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

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Baltic and Belarusian&Russian

To prevent misunderstanding. I've deleted the text because this is definitely an original research. There isn't Baltic substratum in Belarusian and Russian, it's a bare fact accepted by mainstream Russistics. I've read a great bulk of russistic literature including special works which deal with the history of the Russian language but I've never seen that some researchers mention this substratum or that any substratum made an impact if any on the development of the language. There are not any traces (except for, maybe, a dozen or little more borrowings) of Baltic languages in Belarusian and Russian.--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 10:40, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Dacian language

Hi Florian, thanks for your hidden comments at the above article; I'm currently copy-editing it and I appreciate your help in clarifying the text. I haven't reached that section yet, though I'll bear this in mind when I do. I'm not an expert in the subject of dead languages so if you see me doing something that doesn't make sense, feel free to revert or correct my work. Sometimes it's all too easy to alter meanings without realising it. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 20:21, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Niue sword

Florian, I believe it is somewhere in the Balkans. John D. Croft (talk) 06:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Star Carr House

Hi Florian, I appreciate your point but I think you'll find that all the relevant material has been merged into the main Star Carr article but just made less prominent as the house is actually one of the less important aspects of the site's findings. The Star Carr house article was created by non-experts responding to the press release and news coverage in summer 2010 - it never should have been created as a separate article. Among archaeologists the house is referred to as a 'structure' as calling it a house can mislead the public about the permanence and nature of the occupation. I ensured I got the agreement of several people from WikiProject Archaeology and WikiProject Yorkshire before I went ahead with the redirect. I hope you understand but am happy to discuss it further. Thanks, PatHadley (talk) 08:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Min / Middle Chinese

Hi,

From what I understand, although Min cannot be traced back to Middle Chinese, that does not mean that it split off earlier. Perhaps it's a contact effect; I don't know the details. I had made that claim in a few articles and had been corrected. — kwami (talk) 15:30, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Who has disputed that, and on which grounds? Note that Historical Chinese phonology#Branching off of the modern varieties treats that issue in quite some detail, and the description sounds fairly convincing. Also, it makes no sense to say that Min cannot be traced back to Middle Chinese without having split off earlier (and I have no clue what kind of "contact effect" would provide a way out of this conundrum), unless the relationship between Middle Chinese and the modern varieties is completely different from the way it is described in Historical Chinese phonology#From Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese. Perhaps the person who disputes the issue has a heterodox view of historical linguistics (especially with regard to tree structures), in which case it will be very difficult to communicate and their views are possibly irrelevant for our purposes anyway. Admittedly, I'm not a Sinologist, but still, I have gone through the (apparently) traditional (and consensus) account given in Historical Chinese phonology (as I was initially sceptical, too) and it sounds sensible, while its denial does not – pending the arrival of more detail.

This reminds me of a Tibetologist who, on a talk page in German Misplaced Pages, voiced suspicion regarding the unity of Tibeto-Burman, suspecting that most of the groups assigned to it were only quasi-relexified forms of neighbouring non-TB groups (along the lines of Siangic, which is, however, isolated), which I can only take as meaning that, for example, Kiranti languages would be structurally Indo-Aryan with TB vocabulary, which possibility I think we can easily rule out. It may well be that, as Blench surmises, Siangic is not the only case of isolates mistaken for TB because of TB loans, but the German Tibetologist's idea just makes little sense and is probably easily disproved, even if people who voice scepticism regarding TB partly have a point. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

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Etruscan alphabet

I see that you created this stub about the Etruscan alphabet back in the day (so long ago!), complete with various abbreviated references to the technical literature, such as Rix and Jensen, which are still present in the current version of the article, now titled Old Italic script. However, you forgot to add the titles of the works referenced to, and have not done so later, either, so the references are now hanging in the air and no-one knows for certain what you meant, and as a consequence (and due to the dearth of further expert input since then), the article is still left without any proper bibliographical references. Could you recover them from your memory and add them after all this time? That would be awesome! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I was just reverting to a previous version. I have no idea what those references are to. They were introduced in this edit by Damian Yerrick (t c). (wow, 10 years old.) Good luck. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 16:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Substrate languages

Hallo, I see you are interested in the problem of substrate languages. I am not a professional linguist, but came across this issue while researching the background of the prehistory and protohistory of Latium.

I discovered that many toponyms there are neither Italic nor Latin nor Etruscan: e. g. Caenina, Medullia, Ameriola, Amitinum, Tibur, Praeneste and river names such as Astura, Cremera, Albula, Ufens, Arro etc. Since then I read something I found online by Italian and Spanish linguists on the problem. I found that Italian lniguists have been aware of the problem and have written a lot on it since the 1920s, especially V. Bertoldi, C. Battisti, G. Alessio, G. Devoto etc. They have used the term Mediterranean to denote this substrate. It looks that some words may be IE while other not. A new insight has been given by the linear B tablets which bear some word reflected in toponyms, mainly poleonyms (such as Dizo, Vareke, Manth, Othr). The issue is unclear as most words are certainly not IE.

I wish to point that Wp articles on the subject do not deal with the Mediterranean substrate in toponymy. But it is important to explain some phenomena in Latin such as the devoicing of the voiced aspirates where one would expect a voiced outcome such as e.g. rutilus reddish and Rutuli (compare Sicel litra and Latin libra). Alessio sees this as a reflex of a substrate he calls Tyrrhenian due to Sicel-Ausonian influence. He and Ribezzo think Sicanians were the original not IEsized Sicels. Etruscan was a late comer and aspirated the p>f as palatum>fala(n)do.

As far as I can see these toponyms are spread on an area which looks too vast to be ascribed to just one of the known ethnonyms: e.g. Na(h)r (Umbrian river), Ne(h)r which is found in Syria (the river of Antiochia) and beyond for river and also the word nero' Etr. neri for water, found in South India.

As for river names I found at least 4 Albula, Esaro in Calabria and I do not understand why Krahe, according to the Wp article, writes these topnyms are not to be found in the Balkans: I left a note on the talk page of old european hydronymy. Although the ethnicities may have been known with different names it looks there was a great uniformity in usage: In Liguria there are many such toponyms, I would say they form a majority but many are found where no record of a Ligurian presence is extant. Unless one supposes Ligurians had inherited them or they were the same people as the Sicanians as A. Sergi thought, which may well be but does not explain these finds farther to the East, at Creta, in Anatolia and in the Caucasus.

I would suggest adding some paragraphs on the issue in the related articles.

Sorry for being so long.Aldrasto11 (talk) 06:14, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Dalmatian vowels

Hi Florian. Somehow I missed your message when you sent it.

Unfortunately I don't know much about Dalmatian vowels, although I imagine what you say is true, that it follows the Western Romance (7-vowel) system rather than the Eastern Romance (6-vowel) or Southern Romance (5-vowel) system.

It looks like it has vowel deflections that are similar to the Italian dialects that would have been opposite, i.e. those on the east coast of Italy, about halfway down. These have rather radical deflections that are said in Giacomo Devoto's book on Italian dialects to stem from "Illyrian" (presumably meaning the pre-Latin language of Dalmatia), evidently due to a large amount of cross-Adriatic trade. If I remember aright, these deflections are similar to those of French: e.g. all mid vowels are affected but usually only in open syllables, of the sort /ɛ/ > /ie/ or /ia/; /e/ > /ei/ or /ai/; /ɔ/ > /ue/ or /ua/; /o/ > /ou/ or /au/. Usually there are additional complications caused by metaphony, where a following /u/ (e.g. from -us or -um) or following /i/ triggers raising or diphthongization (in both open and closed syllables), and when diphthongization would already apply, a different diphthong often results. Sometimes final /a/ may trigger a lowering-type metaphony.

From the example text, forms like doi, so, to suggest a Western Romance vowel system (otherwise /u/ would be expected).

Also it looks like:

1. /a/ > /uo/ (/date/ > duote, /tata/ > tuota, santificuot), but /an/ > un in the prayer (pun, cotidiun) but uan in the story (puan, bonduanza), which has other cases of /a/ > ua (puarte), possibly in closed syllables?
2. Final /u/ is usually dropped (but raigno).
3. /ɛ/ > /i/ under metaphony (sil, cf. Italian cielo < *cielu).
4. /ɛ/ > ia otherwise (tiara < */tɛrra/; cf. also malamiant, stiass in the story below; this is similar to Romanian).
5. /e/ > ai, possibly only under metaphony (raigno presumably < */reɲɲu/, venait presumably < venetu), but daic presumably < */deke/ < *de:kit is non-metaphonic.
6. /ɔ/ > ue in nuester (< */nɔstru/), nuestri; both are metaphony contexts although might not matter. /ɔ/ > ua in muar "I die" < *mɔro, a non-metaphonic context.
7. /o/ > au in naun, tentatiaun; but > ua in debetuar < *debetori; possibly a difference of metaphony and/or following n or r? In the story, /loro/ or /loru/ > louro; not sure whether this is metaphonic. Might be the same as ua in the prayer, in a slightly different dialect.

Benwing (talk) 01:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Afanasevo

Hello. Regarding the dating of human and material findings please see p. 247 & 266 (appendix 1). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.71.19.40 (talk) 05:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I've checked the sources and they do not support the statement made in the article. There is no contradiction as the dates given are only the upper limit of the range afforded by the precision of the measurement, the range spanning several centuries. Fortson gives 3400–3300 BC as the dating of the earliest wheeled vehicles attested within the Kurgan/Yamna horizon, which period he considers the latest stage of the community speaking the Proto-Indo-European language (the community identified by mainstream thought with the Kurgan/Yamna horizon) prior to its breakup and spread. This is consistent with a migration of speakers of Proto-Indo-European to the area of the Afanasevo culture and the earliest radiocarbon dates, with a lower limit in the 34th century BC, and a migration between about 3700–3300 BC, the deliberately imprecise wording (by David Anthony, who actually supports the Kurgan hypothesis, which is why it is misleading to quote him as witness against it) leaving open the possibility that the migration happened or was completed only around 3400–3300 BC. Note that thanks to the employment of wheeled vehicles and domesticated horses, the migration may have lasted no more than a few decades. "3500±200 BC" or "mid-4th millennium BC" would be a more appropriate description of the period in question, which spans four centuries, as assuming excessive precision leads exactly to such mistakes. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to go to a disagreement and I don't like fights. If you are sure about that, remove the sentence, I will not object to. Now, since you expressed your opinion, I will kindly answer it. The Afanasevo culture is a disturbing issue for the Kurgan theory decades now long before Gimbutas' death, and is a matter of simple arithmetic: One of the problem of the Kurgan hypothesis (has many) is that between the Yamna culture and the Afanasevo (which is roundly the area covered by the Andronovo culture), it became impossible to find anything older than the 1,800 BC which makes about 2,000 years difference from the starting date of the two other culture. To me this is the main problem with the Kurgan hypothesis, and I thought that no ref. is needed for simple arithmetic. It is also a problem to me for years since that, although they had invented the wheeled vehicles as you say, I don't believe the people at the time travelled or migrated upon them. But the speed isn't the real issue, the real issue with the Kurgan hypothesis is that based on the dates, they had to take planes as to avoid inhabiting any of the intermediate places. I don't have myself an answer as to how that happened as to try to implement it, an agenda so to speak, so I don't have a reason to go to a disagreement over that, I only don't see reasons not to present the issue even though I don't have and I haven't seen any answer about. As for David Anthony, I never tried to mislead anyone as you say since both his dates and the ref. is not mine. Since the sentence only have to do with the dates saying "more modern archaeologists are giving more compatible with the evidences dates at around 3700 to 3300 BC", which is true and referenced, I don't think that misleads to anywhere. Again it is the date by itself that is embarrassing for the theory, not me or D.Anthony. Only by misleading about the culture's real date can someone save the integrity of the theory, which is what Gimbutas and her followers really did for some decades now. For me to know it is enough, if you think that it's not good for the readers, go ahead and remove it. It is also OK by me. --94.71.15.10 (talk) 16:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The only disturbing and embarrassing thing here is your complete failure to provide anything resembling a convincing (or even intelligible) argument. I have explained to you why simple arithmetics does not cut it when the dates are this rough, and that's why the real experts, unlike you, do not see a problem (Anthony would certainly have had the intellectual honesty – and the prudence! – to admit if this were a problem at all, especially a problem this obvious even to the layman); you've become far too much caught up in excessively precise dates. A difference of a hundred years simply does not matter when it comes to carbon dates many thousand years into the past. The Kurgan people did not need planes to migrate quickly and without having to inhabit the intermediate areas, they had carts and horses, and your assertion that they did not use them to travel is simply your personal belief, backed up by no evidence and no authority I have encountered. Prior to the modern age, people would simply avoid settling in less suited places and concentrate in suited areas (preferentially near open water such as rivers and lakes and at sea coasts, and in particular, close to river mouths and confluences), with vast areas of the continents staying complete wilderness (especially in the Eurasian steppes of the Bronze Age, this is only expected), so your expectation to find continuous settlement traces everywhere with no geographic gaps in between is simply unrealistic. Also, your assertion that Andronovo and Afanasevo cover roughly the same area is simply completely wrong, as a quick look at the maps at Andronovo culture and Afanasevo culture reveals. Your 2000 years difference, too, comes out of nowhere. Yamna: mid-4th to mid-3rd millennium, Afanasevo: mid/late-4th to mid-3rd millennium, Sintashta (recognised as predecessor to Andronovo): late 3rd millennium, Andronovo: most of the 2nd millennium. By the way, the Kurgan hypothesis may not be the ultimate truth, and I do not deny that there may be problems, but it simply fits the evidence better than any alternative interpretation, and affords a reasonably convincing narrative in broad outlines. The Anatolian hypothesis, for instance, has even more serious shortcomings. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I note that with your final comment, you're basically constructing a conspiracy theory of the kind "the truth is suppressed by mainstream academics" (not including Anthony, who's a follower of Gimbutas as well, although while he does not mislead about the date, you are accusing him of ignoring the alleged discrepancy) – I'd recommend to assume good faith. Those carbon dates were not known until recently anyway, so accusing Gimbutas and her followers of consciously misleading about the dating of Afanasevo is an unreasonable accusation in the first place. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

In-migration to Aberdeenshire

Hello! I reverted your change in the Aberdeenshire article from "in-migration" to "immigration". The source quoted uses the word "in-migration", and I think there's a difference of meaning. "Immigration" would imply people moving from other countries, whereas "in-migration" can imply regional movement within a country. Best wishes, --Deskford (talk) 19:58, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

A-ha, I've never encountered this word before and neither Misplaced Pages nor Wiktionary have an entry on it, hence my assumption that it is a spelling error or hypercorrection. Perhaps a would be in order. Alternatively, let me propose a term like internal migration or a paraphrase like migration within the UK as clarification. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think perhaps "inward migration" would make the meaning clearer. As I understand it, the article is referring to all migration into Aberdeenshire, whether from within the UK or from abroad. --Deskford (talk) 10:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I see. So in-migration can also be a synonym for inbound migration, and out-migration for outbound migration? (By the way, just curious: Wouldn't you normally say "I've reverted your change"? As a non-native speaker, I reverted your change strikes me as something I often myself say inadvertently but that I thought was strictly speaking wrong, the simple past being specifically for narration and dated events, the present perfect instead revolving around the issue whether something has happened at all.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:50, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Classification of Catalan

You might have not noticed that the discussion Talk:Catalan language#unneeded classification is a consequence of your reversion of one of my editions. For this reason, I expect you to give some kind of answer to my comments in that discussion. Cheers Jotamar (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm again waiting for an answer from you in the same discussion (Talk:Catalan language#unneeded classification) Jotamar (talk) 17:57, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm again waiting for your response in Talk:Catalan language#unneeded classification. Jotamar (talk) 16:59, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Pytheas

Not sure if you want to help tackle this, but see Talk:Pytheas#Major problems with the Thule sections. Dougweller (talk) 08:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I lack the (math/science) competency necessary to judge the technical details involved in these arguments. But as a quick fix, how about commenting out the problematic (unattributed and quite possibly OR) passages? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Etymology and borrowing

I wonder if you would care to comment on the borrowing among the Mediterranean cultures during the European Bronze Age/Classical antiquity. Why is there dismissal of borrowing from languages other than Greek and Latin, as exemplified by the contemporaneous use in for example the Regensburg amulets, and I think also Badenweiler find? More specifically, I read your tribe etymology contribution, but an alternative to Latin was not offered Crock81 (talk) 01:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see your point. The standard etymology for Latin tribus sees it as an old derivation from well-attested Indo-European roots, not as a loanword. The derivation can have happened at any point between the Proto-Indo-European period and the Proto-Italic period, but for internal reasons as well as existence of the Umbrian cognate is probably not more recent than Proto-Italic. While it is not impossible that the word was borrowed into Latin, perhaps from other Italic languages or even Celtic, there is no way to demonstrate that; it looks every bit like genuine Latin with regard to morphology and historical phonology; nothing unexpected or suspicious about it, and the morphemes trēs, tri- as well as fu- (as in fuī, futūrus, fuat, forem, fīō) are also well-attested both in Latin and other Italic languages. I have no idea what you are alluding to with the Regensburg amulets and the Badenweiler find. Care to elaborate?

That said, borrowing has been going on all the time, both in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age as well as classical antiquity of Europe, but for natural reasons, borrowings from Greek and Latin are easier to demonstrate and also quite frequent, probably most frequent, in classical antiquity. Nothing in the section you linked to, or in my comment, dismisses the possibility of borrowing from other languages. I am at a loss to understand how you arrived at that conclusion; it's completely out of the blue. I am moreover mystified because it is easy to find lists of words in Misplaced Pages for example for words from French words which have been proposed to be borrowings from Gaulish. Many words are assumed to have been borrowed from Celtic (and later, Germanic) languages into Classical Latin and Preliterary Romance ("Vulgar Latin"), in particular, so it's clearly not all about borrowings from Greek and Latin. There are even words that are suspected to have been borrowed from languages such as Etruscan or Phoenician into Latin, and many words in Greek are known or suspected of foreign origin, too, but our scant knowledge of most possible source languages remains when trying to argue for or against such proposals. Loanwords from Old Persian, Sanskrit/Middle Indic or Aramaic (or other Semitic languages) are definitely known in Greek, though. There are Germanic words which are thought to be from Celtic, some early (such as the word for iron, most prominently), some later, some mediated through French or other Romance languages; there are lots of borrowings everywhere in the world, in every period, it's simply that it is often not easy to make the case, first that some word is a borrowing at all, second where the origin is. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:38, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No one ever spoke "Indo-European", never mind "Proto-Indo-European". Its a theory based on proposed hypothesis about how languages change. Historical phonology is also a guessing game since there are no recordings pre-dating the late 19th century. We just rely on the structure of the human anatomy.

I think that the amulets used three languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. You say that "Loanwords from Old Persian, Sanskrit/Middle Indic or Aramaic (or other Semitic languages) are definitely known in Greek, though." Interaction between Greek and Latin speakers with Hebrew speakers predate both Celt and Germanic histories of interaction, or Aramaic as lingua franca. Jewish presence in Greece dates at least to the mention by Strabo in approximately 85 BCE that Jews could be found in all the cities of the eastern Mediterranean (VII 7 4). However, after the Maccabean victory most agree that many Hellenized Jews left Judea. The Talmud records Alexander the Great passing through Jerusalem. Even if only that is taken for a beginning of Koine-Hebrew interaction, it would be enough. However, Jewish sources suggest maritime trade throughout the Mediterranean dating to (suggested) before the establishment of Rome! So why not consider Hebrew cognates?

Perhaps based on the above you have detected that I am not a professional linguist, but I offer a suggestion that evolved over years after a particularly 'heated' discussion with a friend some years ago, so I have been reading a bit since. The suggestion is that the current theory on the evolution of languages is based on establishing logical connections between word A in language X, and word B in language Y and extrapolating the relationship. However, most people don't function logically, and certainly I think in the ancient times those that were not given to study logic borrowed words in a less-than-logical fashion.

For example, a vignette - welcoming a non-native speaker in, and pointing to a chair, while pronouncing please sit, may well be interpreted by the visitor as his cultural equivalent of relax, and when he returns, assuming he has an average memory, he will relate that the word for relax in my language is pleesit. As a novelty, pleesit becomes all the rage in that society, and soon becomes a loanword in that popular culture, just like saying OK for post-Soviet era Russians, displacing the native word for relax (otaru). 1,000 years later a linguist finds that a people who lived 500km from me had a word for a chair which was plast, and extrapolate that plast and pleesit found in the visitor language located 1,500km away at the time are cognates for the word chair!

The reason I mention the tribe, is because I did find a Hebrew cognate of tribus in Hebrew, but I'm not sure it 'fits' the way linguists think just now because it doesn't mean tribe in Hebrew, though a phonetic match.

The original discussion I had wasn't about Hebrew (I'm not a Hebrew speaker), and I only started looking at Hebrew after trying to work out which cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean could be influencers, and the Hebrew speakers were both mobile, 'networkers', and possessed writing, which to me made them prime candidates. Crock81 (talk) 01:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

No one ever spoke "Indo-European",

There is no single Indo-European language, but in the sense that speakers of Russian, Czech, Croatian, Bulgarian, Polish (etc.) can be said to speak Slavic, exceedingly many people in the world speak and historically spoke Indo-European.

never mind "Proto-Indo-European".

How would you know for certain? Why should this language (whatever it may have been like, nobody claims any specific reconstruction can be more than imperfect and fragmentary) not have existed? Are you trying to say that Proto-Romance, Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-Goidelic, Proto-Brythonic, Proto-Slavic, Proto-East-Slavic or Proto-Indo-Aryan were never spoken by anyone, either?

Its a theory based on proposed hypothesis about how languages change.

Language development (as current mainstream historical linguistics understands it to work, derived from the direct observation of language change throughout attested texts) is only a theory just like evolution is only a theory. Read Evolution as fact and theory to understand the scientific sense of "theory" –, which is not "a guess(ing game)".

Historical phonology is also a guessing game since there are no recordings pre-dating the late 19th century.

There are certainly recordings, only no sound recordings. Again, analysis and reconstruction is the key. Your suggestion that the phonology (as opposed to the precise phonetic details) of an ancient language such as Latin – or even a recent language stage such as Early Modern English – is inherently unknown and can only be guessed at (in a "shot in the dark" way, the results being of dubious validity, and every proposal equally valid) is, frankly, laughably uninformed. Are you aware that phonology, too, is an abstraction, and in some ways quite similar to the reconstruction of earlier language stages? Do you have an idea how many competing analyses of Standard Modern English phonology exist? Just because a language is attested in sound recordings does not mean that its phonology is certain! On the other hand, it does not mean that phonology is only a guessing game, as long as the language to be analysed is attested at all.

We just rely on the structure of the human anatomy.

What you are saying is essentially the same as creationists who insist that Tyrannosaurus rex is only a wild guess since the species is only reconstructed, not directly observed from living specimens. Or pseudo-archaeologists/pseudo-historians who deny the existence (or relatively early dating, in the case of creationists) of prehistorical societies because they are only reconstructions, not based on direct observations of living people. You have no leg to stand on, and with your lack of basic understanding of science you are venturing deep into the realm of pseudoscience.

I think that the amulets used three languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

More details please.

You say that "Loanwords from Old Persian, Sanskrit/Middle Indic or Aramaic (or other Semitic languages) are definitely known in Greek, though." Interaction between Greek and Latin speakers with Hebrew speakers predate both Celt and Germanic histories of interaction, or Aramaic as lingua franca.

No, it most certainly does not.

Jewish presence in Greece dates at least to the mention by Strabo in approximately 85 BCE that Jews could be found in all the cities of the eastern Mediterranean (VII 7 4).

Speakers of both Latin and Greek have interacted with Celtic speakers at least since the 4th century BC, and in the case of Greeks it must have even been longer, as Herodotus already writes about them in the 5th century and contact with Celts occurred at the Greek colony of Massalia (modern Marseille) from the 6th century on, for all we know. Aramaic had been a lingua franca in the Ancient Near East since the 8th century BC. Even Hellenistic Judaism precedes not a single one of these dates, and I am not aware of any evidence for any kind of Jewish diaspora in Classical Greece or the Aegean. Please do me the favour and at least read up on basic historical facts before you attack historical linguistics.

However, after the Maccabean victory most agree that many Hellenized Jews left Judea. The Talmud records Alexander the Great passing through Jerusalem. Even if only that is taken for a beginning of Koine-Hebrew interaction, it would be enough. However, Jewish sources suggest maritime trade throughout the Mediterranean dating to (suggested) before the establishment of Rome! So why not consider Hebrew cognates?

Cognates are not established through borrowing. You mean loanwords. I am not aware of any evidence for Hebrew (as opposed to Phoenician) contact with pre-Republican Rome, the Etruscans or any other people of ancient Italy that early. Note that Celtic, too, not only Umbrian, has cognates with Latin tribus: Old Breton treb "subdivision of the people", trebou (glossed as turma, which is the Latin word for "crowd, flock" and also designates a subdivision of the Roman cavalry) and Old Irish treb "tribe". Anyway, why should dubious loanword etymologies be considered for words which already have accepted derivations that are in any event simpler and more plausible (as they do not require any – in this case, rather far-fetched – additional assumptions)?

I note that you have even refrained from mentioning what Hebrew word exactly you have in mind. Is this motivated by some sort of rhetorical strategy? I don't see how it is supposed to help your case, and the omission makes no sense I can discern – unless it is accidental, which I will assume just to be nicer than you deserve.

Perhaps based on the above you have detected that I am not a professional linguist,

To say that your lack of expertise was glaringly obvious would be a huge understatement. But lack of expertise is not shameful at all – unless accompanied by know-it-all arrogance, belligerence and a priori complete disrespect of experts. You display a typical case of the Dunning–Kruger effect just like Randy in Boise – you are lucky that you have received another reply from me at all! Also, tellingly, pseudo-etymology is the classic playing field of wannabe linguists. At least you don't try to derive all Latin words (or even all words of all languages in the world) from Hebrew, apparently ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, Florian, spoken like a true professional linguist.

The Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European 'languages' are theories, but they in no way can be compared to scientific theories. The former was invented by a clerk amateur.

Yes, I do say that "Proto-Romance, Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-Goidelic, Proto-Brythonic, Proto-Slavic, Proto-East-Slavic or Proto-Indo-Aryan were never spoken by anyone", if only because Romans predominantly spoke Greek in preference to their mother tongue Latin, which the Hebrew sources suggest is 'Semitic' in origin.

There is absolutely no way to compare language theory and the theory of evolution. There is for example no Carbon dating of sound. As for attested texts, they are very fragmentary indeed. Far more so than fossils because of the very late emergence of writing, and the effect social change and production technology effect on the materials used.

When I say that "We just rely on the structure of the human anatomy.", I mean just that, so you should address the common sense meaning and not invent what you think I mean. You know full well that the human sound organs did not change significantly over the past 3-4,000 years, but the accenting of speech changes periodically in many cultures and in fact in many communities within these cultures. Even if written records of these communities exist, we have no way of reproducing these accent changes and the dialects. Even today in England nearly 50 dialects exist, but records suggest that the 17th and 18th century saw many more than that. A similar situation existed on the European Continent, and every other continent on the planet, accounting for the variety of languages among indigenous populations now. There is no way to reconstruct the many extinct and assimilated dialects and accent changes through written record analysis.

I think you are just being obtuse. Language is made in the urban centres that also represent the power cores of the community and society as a whole. Celts were not found in Greek cities, and neither was Aramaic. Greeks are known to be notoriously xenophobic (see, even the word is Greek), and yet Jews are reported in all the Greek cities. It probably meant that Jews interacted with Greeks having learned Greek language. Hellenised Jews certainly did, and the Jewish High Priest was able to converse with Alexander the Great when he entered Jerusalem. That is 4th century BCE. This sort of interaction within the centres of language production was far more likely to generate mutual borrowing than occasional contact with the Celts seasonal trading on the Greek periphery.

I would say that you are not aware of any evidence of pre-Republican Roman contact with Jews because no one looks for it. Since the declaration in the highly anti-Semitic European society of 1863 that Hebrew is not the root of all languages, as was the accepted theory at the time, all works proposing this were simply pronounced unscientific, and eventually archived, so don't look for any mention of them in Misplaced Pages. The experts, was in fact Müller and not Jones, who now emerged and pronounced what would become the Aryan theory of languages, changed to Indo-European officially after 1939. Everything was quite tidy. Aryans emerged from somewhere in Persia, invaded the Indus valley, then turned around and headed to unpopulated Europe. Greeks too arrived from that direction, so could be included. And the Latins? Linguists would make them 'fit in' since they couldn't really exclude the Romance languages and deny 'scientific confirmation' to the romantic nationalism sweeping Europe.

This is why you can now call me a "wannabe linguist" playing with "pseudo-etymology", while the "Language development as current mainstream historical linguistics understands it to work" is "scientific". But, I don't mind ad hominems. I know I'm human and prone to mistakes, which is apparently genetically impossible for mainstream historical linguists.

In your haste to dismiss me ("I note that you have even refrained from mentioning what Hebrew word exactly you have in mind") you even missed the word tribe, which I did mention as the subject of this request for comment. Yes, I do think that the Latin tribus is in fact derived from a Hebrew word. Tarbut, Hellenised Tarbus, that means 1. BH an increase, brood, 2. PBH rearing, educating, 3. NH behaviour, way of life, etc. Teerbut means cultivation, taming, domestication in the Hebrew Bible (Kline, Etymological dictionary of Hebrew), i.e. concepts that at the time would have defined the extent of a tribal domain through physical evidence (dykes, field walls, plantings, and corrales for animals). The root is Ravah, to become much, many or great. Why do I say that Tribus and Tarbut/s are cognates? Because the Hebrews ultimately and always referred in introducing themselves by also mentioning their fathers and grandfathers, and tribe-of-origin in Israel, and so this would have invited constant requests for explanation. Romans did not have tribes! They only needed the word to describe others. The Hebrew word was a perfect loanword as Greeks preferred their city-state as identity rather than tribal affiliations which were rural, and therefore less prestigious, rural inhabitants being less civilised by "living in nature". The difference in phonology is due to the omission of vowels in Hebrew, so the Latin speakers had to rely on memory for pronunciation even if they could read Hebrew, and over time vowels became mangled. And how did an ancient Hebrew speaker introduce himself? For example Joseph bar Ephraim bar David mi'shevet Zebulun. You are correct on the status of Aramaic as lingua franca, and this helps to date the time of contact with Greeks because bar is the Aramaic equivalent of ben, son, in Hebrew. From this we get the Greek BarBar (yes, I know Greeks referred to Carians)Crock81 (talk) 13:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, so you're really Randy in Boise and a Hebrew-root-of-all-languages crank, just as I suspected. Haha. It's not ad hominem because I'm not attacking you personally, only the ridiculous views you hold and the "method" you are using, which is able to "prove" anything. You're completely clueless about linguistics and history and have disrespected me from the beginning, how's that for ad hominem? End of discussion, you're wasting my time. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Persian suffix -stan

Hi. Can you review and verify -stan article? I think lead section has wrong and incorrect linguistic details and info. If you can, please add sourced material to this article. e.g. etymology or the history usage of the suffix. Also at wiktionary. Thanks. Zheek (talk) 23:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

What exactly should be incorrect there? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:57, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Nothing, but maybe lead section needs more sources to make the article better. Zheek (talk) 15:04, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Cute Cat video

I think the video is the perfect example of the quote " Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats," which is the centerpiece of the 1st half of the meme. If you don't agree feel free to remove it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The Aurunci and the Ausones

I am working my way through some problems with citations to EB1911, and I came across your comment of 15 May 2012. I had a look at Smith and have modified the articles Aurunci and Ausones to reflect that work (I also created a couple of others relating to the subject copied from Smith as they were short and easy to do (Aurunca and Ausona (ancient city)). Please have a look and see what you think (as I think it addresses the issue you raised), and if you think that you need to do so please edit my contributions mercilessly :-)

-- PBS (talk) 11:06, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, I did a little proof-reading and tweaking in Aurunci, nothing substantial, though. The names appear clearly related, pointing to a common origin, even if the tribes had become distinct in the historical period. It's very easily possible that the self-designation of the Aurunci was something like Ausones, and Aurunci the name given to them by the Romans. The etymologically identical self-designation Ausones could then also have been transmitted through the Greeks as a name for the tribe in Southern Italy. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Bactrian language

Would you please review this new changes (diff) on article Bactrian language? Thanks. Zheek (talk) 13:07, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Bactrian happens to be a Bildungslücke of mine (a gap in my education), but the changes look completely OK, nothing suspicious, no warning signs. The IP seems to know more about Bactrian, its history and the relevant literature than I do. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Common name

Hi Florian, just noticed your contribution to Common name. Quite reasonable, but I missed it at the time. I have addressed your objections (I hope) and invite criticism. Rushing at the moment. Cheers. JonRichfield (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

The example from Moby Dick does not really fit your explanation, as the common name whale in English contains no hint at folk classification (at least none that would be apparent to the modern-day speaker: it has been suggested that the ancestral form in Proto-Indo-European, *(s)kʷálos or the like – from which the Proto-Germanic form *hwalaz "whale" descends –, originally designated a sheatfish, and was perhaps ultimately borrowed from Proto-Uralic *kala "fish"). In Dutch (walvis), Middle Low German (walvisch) and Modern West Frisian (walfisk), however, the common name does literally mean whale-fish; note that in Modern German, Walfisch exists as a familiar variant of Wal, but is not the most used name.

(As an aside: Perhaps *hwalaz itself still referred to sheatfish, as German terms for them are Wels – plural Welse – or Waller, obvious derivations from the Proto-Germanic word. The Germanic word might have been transferred to the whale only relatively late, as Germanic expanded from Northern Germany into Scandinavia.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:57, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Verification request

Hi Florian. Can you verify Scythians lead section? Recent changes does not match with the sources and only support one theory. Some sources like Britannica say they are ancient Iranian peoples (Iranian stock). But recent changes replaced "Iranian" with "Iranian-speaking". I think the lead section is biased and needs editing to covers valid theories. Both "Iranian-speaking" and "Iranian origins". Thanks. Zheek (talk) 14:57, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Now it's more OK and much better. Edited by Dougweller and has a better lead. But it will be helpful if you contribute. Zheek (talk) 16:27, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Please comment

Hi. Please comment: Scythians: Consensus for the lead section: Iranian people or Iranian-speaking people. Thanks. Zheek (talk) 10:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Retracted sibilants

Hi there. I know it's quite hard to do, but have you succeeded in finding any sources describing the presence of retracted /s z/ in Dutch (=also of course Frisian, Dutch Low Saxon, perhaps northern Limburgian), English in Scotland (got a source only describing Glaswegian), Icelandic, Danish (=also Faroese??), Norwegian etc.? Or any of these? I'm 100% sure I heard it also in Swabian dialect(s?) of German. But I couldn't find any more sources than the Glaswegian one. Perhaps you've had more luck? That would be a major improvement of phonetic articles in my opinion, apart from separating dental sibilants and sibilant affricates from the alveolar ones (which I'm still doing). Cheers. --Ahls23 (talk) 13:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, haven't had a lot of time for Misplaced Pages lately. Not really, but I haven't looked either, to be honest. Judging from the talk given by Aurelijus Vijūnas, they're present in Dutch (not sure about Frisian and Dutch Low Saxon, but possible if only due to areal conservatism, and even more expectable in the case of Limburgian in the light of both extremely close areal and genetic relationship), Icelandic and Faroese, and as for Romance languages, in Castilian dialects as well as Catalan. I fear this point is severely understudied because linguists and phoneticians do not give enough consideration to the often subtle differences between the sibilants, which they aren't trained to hear, either. By the way, I think the "retracted" sibilants are better described as "post-alveolar", a term not to be confused with palato-alveolar (i. e. ) or alveolo-palatal (i. e. ), although post-alveolar sibilants are admittedly quite similar to alveolo-palatal sibilants, only the place on the tongue where contact is made is slightly more front (laminal or even apical), which explains why the Middle High German s in particular is often described as alveolo-palatal. Palatal, palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal, post-alveolar, alveolar – to say nothing of the retroflexes – that's quite a mouthful! Unfortunately, Postalveolar consonant treats a more general class of sibilants, while I mean the place of articulation immediately to the back of the alveolar one only. When there's not even an established term for the type of sound in question, no wonder it is so poorly known and wrongly described. Pace Postalveolar consonant#Point of tongue contact (laminal, apical, subapical), it's not even always apical, and hardly retroflex!

In any case, I don't find the merger helpful, quite the opposite.

The only thing I could do is look for the hand-out I got from Aurelijus and glance through the bibliography. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't mind a late reply at all. I might be wrong about Frisian, but they for sure are present in Dutch Low Saxon. Only speakers farthest north (Groningen province for example) may pronounce an ordinary alveolar , as that's their usual realization of Dutch /s/. Surinamese speakers also don't use postalveolar . Their accent is like a cross of the Amsterdam and general Belgian one. I've never heard it in Afrikaans as well, but who knows - there are so much languages spoken in South Africa. You never know if there isn't a regional accent influenced by a certain language with such feature.

Yes, it's also because IPA is a minimalistic tool. The available IPA symbols/possible sounds to pronounce ratio is like 1:5 or higher.

Indeed they are similar to palato-alveolars. I think "depalatalized " describe these consonants quite correctly. Yes, it's a very subtle difference, the tongue is one or two milimeters more front when I'm pronouncing the postalveolars ( are in my native language, Polish).

It's also because there's no proper symbol for it. Consonants described in Catalan are in fact, from what I can hear, slightly or not palatal at all. Therefore they're also rather postalveolar .

I get it. I like to call postalveolar "postalveolar s-type sibilants", whereas I call "postalveolar sh-type sibilants", since I'm using these symbols when transcribing Slavic languages (in place of /ʂ ʐ/, as they have only some retroflexion, rather than being full-on retroflex like in Chinese.) German also aren't palatal at all so I prefer to stick to the old name "postalveolar" (that's how IPA called them about 20 years ago), and use a superscript to indicate some retroflexion when needed. It's not even non-standard to do it... IPA states explicitly that you can use every single letter as a diacritic. Not that I care what they say, since most of what I write using IPA is for myself. I'm not a professional phonetician.

That'd be great. Take your time, and thanks very much for helping. Even one sourced language more would be better than nothing. --Ahls23 (talk) 04:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I managed to find sources for Finish and Icelandic. I've put them both on Voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant. --Ahls23 (talk) 04:13, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

See now Talk:Voiceless alveolar sibilant#Merge with Voiceless apico-alveolar fricative (again). I'd appreciate your comments, even if you aren't a professional phonetician (although it seems you aren't active on Misplaced Pages anymore). I've seen that Aurelijus has posted his work about sibilants in Indo-European languages to Academia.edu. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:43, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Updating GeoWhen links

--Ricordisamoa 14:14, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Your post to my talk page

Is that ok now? Dougweller (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep, thank you. Seriously, this guy ... People whose command of English (or reading comprehension, or attention) is this poor should not be allowed to edit en-WP. The dab hatnote is prominent enough. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:36, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

We do have WP:Competence which is only an essay but we block people at times for very poor command of English. Dougweller (talk) 10:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Corea as a former name

It is to my knowledge that Corea was rather a term used in continental European languages, whereas Korea was the term used in the English language. Therefore, Corea is a name formerly used in non-English languages. What's your take on this? I don't mind Corea being explained in the names of Korea later in the article, but I don't think it belongs to the first sentence. 02:06, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Let's take this to Talk:Korea#Corea, OK? I'm copying your question there. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:20, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Beaker culture

Just saw your response to an old talk page post, did you see the latest posts? Dougweller (talk) 15:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually not, thank you. If anything, the genetic evidence actually puts the nail in the coffin of the attempt to identify the origins of the Bell Beaker phenomenon with Indo-European, not to mention Celtic! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, just wondered. Dougweller (talk) 09:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Narmer Palette

The words obverse and reverse appear nowhere else in the article, so I was bold and plugged the tags where they did appear, without bothering to open discussion on what's essentially a trivial matter. What I think is worth citation is calling "obverse" one side of the palette and "reverse" the other. We could, a priori, say that the side depicting Narmer smiting his enemy is the obverse. Is there scholarly consensus on the side of the palette that should be labelled as such?

Nicolas Perrault III (talk) 22:05, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

What if we renamed the sides "Smiting side" and "Serpopard side", as I did in the images' names? This would be superior, in my opinion, to "obverse" and "reverse" if there is no scholarly consensus on the naming of the sides. However, if there is a consensus, the obverse-reverse option would be preferable, as we'd want to reflect standard use rather than making up names on the go.

Nicolas Perrault III (talk) 22:22, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Done!

Nicolas Perrault III (talk) 22:41, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Old Persian

Hi,

Regarding OP. /rθ/ > MP. /hl/, isn't it /θr/ > /hl/? I'm not an expert, just asking because I've seen sources has reconstructed the root of MP. gōhr (< early MP. gōhl) as OP. *gauθra-.

According to this, if I understand correctly, MP. gu- is from vu-, but I've read somewhere that generally vV-, where V is a vowel, becomes gu-. For example, MP. gul "rose" is usually considered to be from OP. *varda- (not *vurda- etc. AFAIK), and MP. Guštāsp is from OIr. Vištāspa. --Z 15:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Nothing of this contradicts what I wrote. Indeed, i generally becomes u after word-initial labials, and the example OP. vazrka- > MP. buzurg indicates that the same is true for a (thanks for pointing that out), although in this case /v/ does not become /g/ but /b/ (as usual before /a/), which indicates that you misremembered the rule and it is only the vowel rounding that's general, not /v/ > /g/ (relative chronology seems to indicate that the colouring of /a/ was later than that of /u/). That said, OP. could equally have had *vrda- rather than *varda-, and the fact that MP. does not have **bul seems to point to *vrda-. For OP. /rθ/ > /hl/, compare OP. *prθu- > MP. puhl (with rounding) and OP. *Parθava- > MP. Pahlav (no colouring here, by the way, which indicates that the rounding of /a/ occurred only after /v/, another indication that it's not part of the same rule). Also note that /θr/ is rare in OP. because Proto-Iranian *θr became /ç/ in OP. and /θr/ therefore only occurs in Medisms. I wasn't aware that it also results in /hl/ in Early MP. For example, the already mentioned Čihrfar has the expected /hr/. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:04, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, you're quite right. Yes OP. /ç/ becomes /hl/ in MP., actually MP. puhl ("son") is from OP. puça- ("son"), the OP. word is attested. --Z 17:05, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

But MP. pus is also attested (and even the normal word, which is also continued in ModP. pesar, from the MP. oblique pusar), with /s/ being the regular continuation of OP. /ç/ (don't forget MP. sē "3" and sīh "30"). Therefore both the native Persian form and the Medism (or Avestism, possibly) are continued. The same kind of doublet is found in Book Pahlavi pās ("watch, guard", continued in ModP.!) besides pāhl, where Manichaean MP. has even the Parthian borrowing pāhr. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes, I totally forgot pus.

I thought about *vrda- today, which you suggested as the true OP. form of MP. gul instead of *varda-, but there's a problem: we have Sogd. ward, Parth. wār (OIr. ard gives Parth. ār, e.g. *sarda- > sār), and the syllabic r is always recorded as ərə in Avestan AFAIK, while here we have Av. varəδa-, so the evidences point to OIr. /varda/. If we assume what you suggested is correct (MP. gul < *vu... < OP. *virda- < OP. *vrda- ?), then it seems the syllabic *r in OP. *vrda- should have been developed from *ar, is it possible? --Z 05:45, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm not suggesting that. The apparent fact is simply that OP. reflects the zero grade and the other Iranian languages a full grade. Check Wiktionary: there are possible cognates in other Indo-European languages which also seem to reflect the zero grade, so OP. wouldn't be isolated. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Glockenspectre

Tnx fr yr msg about this item. See the Talk page for my feedback. jxm (talk) 00:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Bashkardi language

Could you clarify this, and fix the Bashkardi article to match? Currently we say it's NW Iranian (as does Ethn.) Also, shouldn't Lari be in the box? — kwami (talk) 02:06, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Ethnologue is simply wrong in this case, as in many others. Bashkardi underlies areal influence by Baluchi, being surrounded by it on three sides, but in origin it is closer to Persian. Bashkardi language has already long been fixed, haven't you checked it? Also, why should Lari be in the box? It's a subbranch within Southwestern Iranian. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Michael Corballis

hey florian, we just started a article about . Maybe be you like to contribute! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Janus von Abaton (talk • contribs) 16:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

No substantial changes or additions, only some quick copyediting. Hope it helps! Looks good to me now. Well done. Thanks for notifying me. (By the way, next time simply click the "add section" tab.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:03, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Dougweller (talk) 20:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Pacific Ocean

I saw you had a note in the talk page for the Pacific Ocean about some 'Tepre Pacificum nonsense'. You may be amused to know, (or depressed I suppose) that 'Tepre Pacificum' is now well entrenched in the internet (first page of a google search), it is described in a 2011 book on galleons and is the name of a range of swimwear. Amusingly there are critiques of that book on galleons that judge it to be rushed with a poor bibliography. However, it does mean that there is now a print reference to 'Tepre Pacificum', perhaps I should re-instate it into Misplaced Pages (just kidding). - Pondfox — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.165.80.175 (talk) 12:20, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Should you really decide to do that, be sure to add a link to File:Relationship between Misplaced Pages and the press.svg. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:55, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Three Requests

Hi. I need your help on these topics:

1. Please write your opinion about this: Talk:Lithuanian language#Suggestion: Adding an IE words comparison table to this article.
2. Mahidevran Sultan's etymology section is dubious. I'm sure that Turkish borrowed all of her name and her alternative name(s) from an Iranic language (Kurdish or Persian). Your review and verification is necessary.
3. -stan is my favorite article. One editor suggested to me to use an old German book about IE etymologies. I forgot the name of book. Do you know good sources for Persian or Middle Persian words?

• Please reply back at my talkpage. Thanks. Regards. Zyma (talk) 17:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

An article for "Archaic language"

En Misplaced Pages lacks an article for "Archaic language" term. Are you interested to start an article for that? --Zyma (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply on my talk page. Can you discuss this according to genetics and linguistic researches?

• Are Eastern Iranians and Western Iranians two different group? --Zyma (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

January 2014

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.  Bbb23 (talk) 00:37, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Century spans in the Ancient Greek article

Hi Florian,

I noticed that you had reverted my change in the Ancient Greek article: the switch "nth centuries" to exact century ranges. I think the latter is far more clear, and the date range is immediately clear to the reader (at least it was to me). I was wondering if you wanted to discuss this matter here. I'll go ahead and switch it back, (temporarily) for now. Arjun G. Menon (talk · mail) 14:37, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

No offence, but I just don't think exact ranges are a good idea, and they tend to be avoided in the literature too: they are simply misleading. Usually, periodisations are very approximate, but this is not necessarily obvious to lay readers. Archaic Greek doesn't suddenly switch to Classical Greek in 500 BC, for example, which your phrasing suggests. The text does not even say something like "ca. 500–300 BC". One effect of this illusory precision is to suggest Greek was already written in 900 BC, but there is no evidence that it was. At the earliest, it may have been written at the very end of the 9th century, because the earliest known shapes of the characters are closest to Phoenician letters of the first half of the 8th century. Your conversion was overly mechanic, ignoring the intent of the given dates. I also think that the centuries are clear enough. I think we can expect our readers to understand what "5th century BC" means too when we expect that they understand "500 BC". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Record temperature variations

{{talkback|Joseph A. Spadaro}}

Thank you!

Ordspråk

Red sky at night: sailor's delight.

Red sky in the morning: sailor take warning.

Raud himmel kveld, gjetargut har hell.

Raud himmel morgongry, gjetargut vil få bry.

Morgenrøde gir dage bløde.

Kveldsrøde gir morgen søde.

Abendrot, Schönwetterbot.

Morgenrot, schlecht Wetter droht.

--Hordaland (talk) 01:51, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Latin regional pronunciation

About OE in the Russian tradition. Most Russian textbooks state that it is pronounced as German Ö or french EU, both are or (e.g. ). The one edited by V. N. Yarkho uses IPA notation: "as German or French or English ". Some textbooks, particularly older ones, state that OE is pronounced as Russian Э, the same as E or AE. In Russian loanwords from Latin, OE becomes Э/Е (foederatio->федерация) but occasionally Ё (Moesia->Мёзия).

The Ö/EU sound of OE is not the only non-Russian sound in the Russian tradition of pronouncing Latin. There are also:

H. Initially it was equalized to Russian fricative Г ( or ), which was the norm in some Church-Slavonic-derived words. However, later the sound merged in Russian to the plosive , which is also spelled as Г. The tradition of pronouncing Latin retained a distinct sound, so it became to be equalized to Ukrainian Г or to English and German H . In Russian loanwords from Latin, H generally becomes Г , but this is considered unacceptable when pronouncing Latin itself.

L. Russian textbooks prescribe the "middle-European" pronunciation of L , neither velarized nor palatalized . In Russian loanwords from Latin, it may become either.

AU, EU. There are no such diphthongs in Russian, but there are in Latin. In loanwords they become either АУ/ЭУ (disyllabic) or АВ/ЭВ.

About Latin J in the Spanish tradition. 19th-century books state explicitly that it should be pronounced as Spanish Y. In Spanish, Latin J may become Spanish J or Y when word-initial or after consonants, but always Y when intervocalic. And in Italian, Latin J often becomes GI, but it is not read as GI in the Italian tradition of pronouncing Latin! Burzuchius (talk) 16:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

The point is that there is simply no in Russian, and Russians usually can't pronounce this vowel, so it makes no sense in a Russified pronunciation of Latin. The usual approximation of is ë. See Russian phonology#Vowels. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:19, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I am Russian, and I know the Russian phonology. OK, for OE may occur when Russians pronounce Latin, like for H, or for L, disyllabic for AU, or vowel reduction. But none of these is standard in the Russian tradition of pronouncing Latin. Textbooks prescribe non-Russian sounds. (On the other hand, palatalizing consonants before and changing to after are not banned by Russian textbooks.) Burzuchius (talk) 18:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is descriptive, not prescriptive. The question that interests both readers and editors: How do Russians actually pronounce Latin in practice? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:07, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Which begs the question "what Russians". I suppose quite some of the Russian Latin speakers indeed manage to utter the prescribed sounds. I suppose the page is very much about the tradition among the scholarly, not about the average man in the street. Thus prescribed sounds are interesting, even when correct pronunciation is less common. On the other hand, also common enough "wrong" pronunciation should be noted. --LPfi (talk) 11:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

No doubt some Russians manage to produce foreign sounds because they have learned it. I'm not assuming Russians are less apt at learning foreign languages and pronunciations than others. Still, even having the skill of producing a foreign sound does not mean you'll necessarily do it all the time when it is called for because it's easier to stick to the sounds you use regularly; and when pronouncing an ancient language, people are generally even far less motivated to get it "right", or don't even know what is "right". Similarly, when pronouncing a foreign word, name or phrase in the context of one's native language, people tend to ease up and assimilate the word to their native phonology, since switching phonology in the middle of an utterance (even twice or more often in quick succession) is difficult, a strain on concentration, distracting for everyone and prone to mistakes, unless you are truly bilingual (as in, you use both languages regularly and speak both on a native level). For example, even highly educated Germans usually have a more or less strongly pronounced German accent in English. I have a strong accent, too, unless I make a dedicated effort to suppress my accent, but it is very difficult and I'm sure I still make mistakes. There's nothing awkward about admitting that.

So if, say, 90% of Russians (native or even monolingual Russian speakers, not Tatar speakers or something) have trouble pronouncing , , or and further 5% can pronounce them in principle, but often replace them by more familiar sounds, it is misleading and unrealistic to describe the prescribed pronunciation (I understand it is based on the German tradition, and I suspect the palatalisation of consonants and backing of is only not banned by textbooks because the authors weren't aware of these subtleties or didn't consider them important enough), at least exclusively. I support the idea of at least a footnote "often/frequently replaced by ...". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:47, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

You see, if the table were to give the prescribed pronunciation, you could as well write "for Russian, see German column". That's patent nonsense.

As for Spanish, I'd like to see a concrete citation, because pronouncing Jesus in Hispanicised Latin differently from Jesús in Spanish would be confusing as hell. Latin pronunciation usually follows the pronunciation of Latinisms and, in languages that traditionally use the Latin alphabet, the tradition of reading the vernacular (standard) – which is why the Italian analogue is misleading (j does not occur in native Italian words). A literate Spanish speaker is as used to reading j as /x/ (and never /j/) as a literate English speaker is to reading j as /dʒ/ or a literate French speaker is to reading j as /ʒ/ (and never /j/). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:25, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

The 19th-century grammars I have shown state that Latin J should be pronounced as Spanish Y. I cannot exclude the possibility that the Spanish ever pronounced Latin Jesus and justitia like Spanish Jesús and justicia, but I do not know any Spanish word where intervocalic Latin consonantal I became Spanish /x/, whereas in English and French, /dʒ/ and /ʒ/ are regular offsprings of Latin consonantal I in any position. For example, English project and French projet, but Spanish proyecto; English majuscule and French majuscule, but Spanish mayúsculo. Did the Spanish ever read Latin projectum and majusculus with /x/?

By the way, there is a collection of old Spanish dictionaries in . In Spanish, the small letter j was already used at the end of the 15th century(!), but Latin in Spanish dictionaries does not appear to be written with j until the 17th century.Burzuchius (talk) 13:01, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It is true that (even in inherited vocabulary) Latin /j/ is partly reflected as Spanish /j/, but at least in initial position, the most common reflex is /x/ (before back vowels) besides /j/ and zero (/j/ appearing before front vowels, zero in unstressed syllables – where /j/ was apparently secondarily lost –, reflecting a merger of /(d)ʒ/ – from Classical /g/ before front vowels and also /dj/ – with /j/ which may be secondary and specific to Castilian Spanish as Portuguese lacks it, and the development /j/ > /dʒ/ – spelled Z – is already attested quite early, in Imperial Latin inscriptions). As for j, it is simply a Renaissance modification of i and therefore I don't see how the difference matters. As far as I know, Old Spanish uses i and j interchangeable for /ʒ/, and there would still be a tradition as early as the 12th century in Spanish to read i~j as fricative before (initially, perhaps only: back) vowel at the beginning of a word, such as in iuntar or judios (in Jherusalem with jh apparently to indicate /ʒ/, modern Jerusalén /xerusaˈlen/).

I would still like to see concrete citations for your claims: not just "the 19th-century grammars I have shown" (Google searches not being acceptable citations), but a concrete, specific grammar and page number, which could then be added to the article, and a concrete dictionary which consistently (!) shows j (for Old Spanish /ʒ/ = Modern Spanish /x/, but not /j/?) in Spanish but not (for Classical /j/, presumably?) in Latin (another circumstance which would be quite unexpected, as it contradicts J#History and de:J#Herkunft, rendering me sceptical). Is that so hard for you? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:49, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

19-th century grammars: , page 191; , page 4; , page XXXVII; , page 3.

Old dictionaries (yes, I am also surprised): . The case mentioned by me is used in the 1495 Nebrija dictionary and in some dictionaries that follow. Perhaps Nebrija (see also ) was the first to distinguish i and j in Spanish (the majuscules in his dictionary are written identically but alphabetized separately: J before I; on the other hand, Y is alphabetized as I in this dictionary); Trissino did so in Italian, and Petrus Ramus was I think the first to do so in Latin and French. I do not know the situation in Middle High German. Burzuchius (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

However, Nebrija did the same with u and v: distinguished them in Spanish, but not in Latin. In his grammar () he says something about pronunciation of Latin and Spanish, but for me it is difficult to understand how he distinguished the sounds of Latin consonantal u and Spanish v and whether he did it. It seems that for Latin he advocated a sort of restituted pronunciation (even earlier than Erasmus?). Burzuchius (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Florian asked me to comment. IMO the entire table in Latin regional pronunciation is problematic. To some extent, modern pronunciation of Latin is necessarily prescriptive; it also varies depending on context. For example, the table claims that Latin v is pronounced /v/ in English but this is obviously wrong in the context of a Latin class, where /w/ is used. In English, at least, there are multiple different pronunciations used in different contexts:

• In a Latin class, an approximation to Classical Latin pronunciation is used, although different students will succeed to varying degrees in non-English features, e.g. in distinguishing vowel length.
• When singing Latin, Church Latin pronunciation is used. In this case, the tradition is very strong and singers generally make a strong attempt to pronounce words "correctly" so you will find a lot of consistency.
• When pronouncing Latin words in botanical names, or as species names, an anglicizing pronunciation is used; hence c before i or e becomes s (not /k/ as in your Latin class, or /tʃ/ when singing), vowels are anglicized (ficus has stressed /ai/), etc.
• Latin words in a medical context, as names of stars or constellations, in a legal context, etc. use a similar pronunciation but there may be more idiosyncrasies.
• When Latin phrases have been borrowed as such in English (quid pro quo, de facto, ceteris paribus, habeas corpus, etc.), the pronunciation generally is the same as for botanical names, but will probably be more idiosyncratic. Almost certainly there are conventional pronunciations of such phrases that differ from how the words would be pronounced according to botanical-name rules.

So at the least the table needs to indicate which pronunciation is being described in which language, and under which circumstances these pronunciations are used.

Evidently in Russian there's an additional complication that the prescriptive tradition that corresponds to the English botanical-name pronunciation dictates non-Russian sounds that are probably reproduced imperfectly by the man on the street. Of course, in such cases there may be no real consistency of pronunciation. Similarly, the average English speaker doesn't really have any idea how to pronounce unfamiliar Latin phrases and just guesses or asks someone else. Hence e.g. I'm sure you hear canis with all of , , by different speakers. I think in this case the table should indicate both the prescriptive and common pronunciations with notes distinguishing them -- BUT, you need sources for the common pronunciation! Don't just use your intuition of what you think native speakers will do. Benwing (talk) 22:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Benwing. I'd just like to point out that reconstructed values are already indicated in the first column, so obviously this is not meant. Church Latin pronunciation, if you mean Italianate pronunciation, essentially corresponds to the Italian column, so this is not meant, either. What the table intends to show is indicated in the lede: general features of regional pronunciation, adapted to the native phonology of the main languages. It does not intend to display every detail, only some broad strokes. In the case of English, the traditional English pronunciation of Latin, which of course features some variations in detail, is the tradition which the table seeks to describe. Most other traditions are not nearly as divergent, so they are better to account for. Also, there is the problem that both current prescriptive and common pronunciations do not necessarily conform to the older (for example, early modern) regional pronunciation tradition, and may have been updated in some respects to conform to the reconstructed classical pronunciation more, which is not only the source of the current modern Latin pronunciation of English, but also some of the variations in the traditional pronunciation are caused by academic prescriptions.

That said, if you all agree that the consonantal Latin i (j) is always pronounced as /j/ in the Spanish tradition when pronouncing connected texts, as opposed to Latinisms assimilated to Spanish orthography, and most importantly, relevant sources are added to the article, there will be no more opposition from my part. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:40, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Silesian

There is a chance to end the conflict: Talk:Silesian_language#If the name with the words of dialect, language, Polish are POV, what the name of the target. Please vote, which option is better according to You. Regards, Franek K. (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Tiernamen

Ach, Gott! Ich dachte wann ich lies was du sagtest dass Du sprachtest ueber Tiananmen Square, nicht Tiernamen! Ich war mit einem Chinesichen Freund an diesem tage. Es war sehr aufwühlend. Wir beide weinten. Fuer mich ist das nicht sehr erotisch. In jedem Fall, man muss auf Spanisch sprechen um erotisch zu sein. Vergib mir wenn ich nicht gut spraeche. Es gibt mehr als 25 Jahre seit ich Deutsch spreche. μηδείς (talk) 05:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Diese erotische Lied (ohne Hundenamen) ist von La Lupe. Ich wohnte in der gleichen Straße wie sie in New York, bevor sie starb. μηδείς (talk) 05:06, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Tut mir leid, daß Du es mißverstanden hast. Es war nur eine Anspielung auf diesen Spruch. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, là, là! ¿Una loba de Cuba? ¡La lingua español me gusta muy también! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, The Far Side! Ich hab alle seine buecher. Kein problaem. Ich missverstand dich nur sehr kurz. Ich wollte nur ein bisschen mehr privat sein, deshalb antwortete ich hier. μηδείς (talk) 05:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Tambien te gusta mucho el español? (Vergib mir dass mir faltan las tildes.) Pues, tendras que escribirme de aqui en adelante en español. Lo hablo casi como nativo. Me enoja que no sabia durante su vida que yo vivia vuelta de la esquina de La Lupe.

Has visto las peliculas de Almodovar? Son mis favoritos, aun mas que de Hitchcock y Kubrick. Las ultimas pelis que he visto en aleman son Untergang y Das Leben Der Anderen, que eran ambos excelentes.

Seran las siete de la mañana donde estas, y aqui casi son la una voy a acostarme en unos minutos. Quiero saber porque has estudiado PIE, y si has leido las obras de Nikolaus Poppe o de Bjorn Collinder. Soy aficionado de ellos. μηδείς (talk) 05:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Siento muchísimo que no haya respondido más temprano – demasiadas pestañas abiertas. A mi me gusta mucho la lengua española sí (y que mi teclado tiene todas las carácteres especiales y diacríticos que hago falta para el español), pero no sé hablarlo tan bien como has visto.

No he visto las películas de Almodóvar, y no he visto muchas películas generalmente. Pero he visto Moebius, en castellano subtítulado, película muy buena. Última peli que he visto yo es Agora, excelente también (gracias a Richard Carrier para la sugerencia). Una de mis favoritas es Dogma. Aún no he visto Das Leben der Anderen, pero los productores son de la misma escuela que yo, aunque no recuerdo sus nombres de antes.

La viñeta no es de Gary Larson, sino del artista alemán Steffen Butz, como indicado a la página ligada. Larson ha influido varios artistas alemanes, creo, p. ej. Martin Perscheid.

¿Qué variedad de castellano preferés? Mi enseñante era porteño. Me gusta mucho la cantadora Tarja Turunen, quien es finlandesa, pero vive en Bs As junto a su marido porteño desde hace muchos años, y tengo amigos argentinos (en la web), que ha aumentado mi simpatía para el Cono Sur.

He estudiado filología comparada porque mi han fascinado las lenguas europeas modernas y antiguas y sus origines, y las etimologias de las palabras principalmente. Con las obras de Poppe y Collinder no soy muy familiarizado. Collinder, ¿es defensor de la afinidad de las lenguas indoeuropeas con las lenguas ugrofinesas/urálicas? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

No te preocupes, no me importa el tiempo que se haya pasado. Te defiendes muy bien. Estoy descargando Moebius ahora mismo. Tienes que ver Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, Atame, y La flor de mi secreto. Son increibles. Tambien Sin noticias de Dios, que no es peli de Almodovar, pero que parece a sus obras. Pense que Gary Larson se habia retirado, pero entre Butz y el no hay diferencia detectable. Yo preste Agora de la biblioteca, pero no la complete. Trabajaba en el World Trade Center y no me gusto la tema.

Supongo que prefiero Mexicano y Castellano de Madrid. Por la mayor parte aprendi español por los mexicanos. Hay muchos caribeños donde vivo. Pero confunden sus eres y eles. No tengo ceceo, que me gusta cuando lo oigo. Pero entonces lo mimico cuando miro una peli. Pregunte sobre Collinder y Poppe porque tengo muchos de sus libros, y han escrito much en aleman.

Si, Collinder escribio sobre las lianzas entre PIE y PU. Lo creo por la mayor parte. Si eso te interesa, tienes que leer Languages Relations Across Bering Strait por Michael Fortescue. http://www.amazon.de/Language-Relations-Across-Bering-Strait/dp/0304703303/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393796469&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=fortecue+bering

μηδείς (talk)

English and that penis length thing

Hi! You reverted my deletion of Pullum's analogy here on the basis that Misplaced Pages is not censored. I didn't delete the sentence out of prudishness. I deleted it because it isn't useful in the article. The paragraph in which the sentence was written describes the difficulty of word-counting, not the richness or precision of a language. The Pullum reference arrives with no introduction; it's out of place. That's why I deleted it. You said Pullum's analogy is "spot on." Could you please clarify? Qoby (talk) 02:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Pullum's quote elucidates the point made several sentences before: "Comparisons of the vocabulary size of English to that of other languages are generally not taken very seriously by linguists and lexicographers." Possibly, the two sentences should be moved so that they are adjacent, making the relevance of Pullum's comment to the context in the section clearer. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Grassmann's Law and Germanic

Greetings. I noticed you were an Indoeuropeanist. I've long wanted to ask one this question. I'm looking for examples of Germanic words of PIE origin showing Grassmann's Law did not apply in Germanic. So by Grimm's Law Germanic words of PIE origin showing two voiced stops, that is words of the form gw—g, gw—d, gw—b, g—gw, g—d, g—b, etc. I can't think of any. On a related matter what do you think of the following versions of Pokorny on the net: at DNGHU (Incidentally who are those DNGHU people?) at UTexas Austin, or this one I haven't even figured out how to use which resides here and is apparently connected with the name of Sergei Starostin, or this one by Gerhard Köbler. Finally do you have any idea when Leiden is gonna finally deliver the PIE dictionary? (So far they've only published etymological dictionaries of the individual languages). Cheers. Thanks. Contact Basemetal here 05:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Off the top of my head: wikt:Appendix:Proto-Germanic/bindaną, wikt:Appendix:Proto-Germanic/bidjaną, wikt:Appendix:Proto-Germanic/beuganą. Enough as a first sample? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

As for the DNGHU people, I haven't investigated the matter, but I've always assumed them to be hobbyists, essentially conlangers/auxlangers. The idea to use reconstructed PIE as a basis for one's conlang/auxlang is pretty neat. I wouldn't use their materials as source for reconstructions, though. Considering that Pokorny is incredibly outdated (although not completely useless, for an expert Indo-Europeanist at least, as a database or metaphoric quarry for raw material), I haven't really examined the online copies in any depth – what I occasionally saw when I randomly happened upon a web copy of Pokorny (which is sometimes handy if you want to look something up really quickly) looked accurate enough, but I cannot vouch for any of them. Yes, it's Sergei Starostin's website, and his son is now in charge of it. Köbler's dictionaries are quite handy too, but he is a scholar of law apparently and historical linguistics is his hobby, so I would never trust him and his materials over the relevant experts.

Generally, I'd say it's best to consult the writings of scholars with relevant qualifications and specialisations, for example when investigating a Germanic etymology, it's better to consult works by scholars specialised in (medieval) Germanic philology (and preferrably Indo-Europeanist linguists, not medievalists, unless the focus is on a specific attestation and its interpretation), rather than Celtologists or even Iranists because they often, if not usually, get at least details (if not more) wrong, and of course, even the Germanic experts usually disagree on certain details, especially in reconstructions. Fields like historical Germanic or Celtic linguistics are incredibly specialised and that's because there is so much to know, which makes it difficult for generalists to compete with the level of a specialist, so even for a historical linguist it's preferrable to co-operate with one, or at least solicit advice. For example, Slavic accentology (intimately connected with Serbo-Croatian and Slovene dialectology) is a field all on its own, or Old Irish laws, or the Maya script or the Maya calendar for that matter, where there are only a handful of experts in the world, or possibly only one or two (although that's not unique to linguistics; for example, in mathematics such incredibly narrow specialisations exist too, and no doubt in biology and physics and elsewhere).

Sorry, I don't know when the Leiden project is due. I wouldn't be surprised if they had no clue even themselves. A project like this is absolutely huge. Martin Kümmel plans a web version of the LIV, but I wouldn't count on it materialising soon, either. Such big projects take years and years to complete.--Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:09, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Please comment

Hi Florian. Please comment on Talk:Iranian peoples (current last section). Both Iranian peoples and Persian people articles need your review and edit because of recent mass changes. Thanks. Zyma (talk) 22:29, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Which changes exactly need review? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The problem is solved (related ethnic groups parameter). But this one needs some review: Caspian race. I think content does not match with cited sources (the mentioned ethnic groups). That article targeted by some sock puppets and I want you to review it, please. I want a stable/better revision to prevent socks' activities. --Zyma (talk) 02:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

If you cannot access the original sources to check them, my recommendation is to go through the revision history with a very fine comb, checking edit after edit from the beginning on to detect suspicious manipulations. As a general rule, you can be confident that the edit where someone first added an assertion with a citation to go reflects what the source actually says; if any user (especially IP user, or logged-in user known to be problematic) later changes the assertion without explanation, you have reason to assume that it is a falsification. Of course, this problem would be much less acute if people always added quotations to citations, especially for books and other sources not available online. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:15, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Graeco-Phrygian

I've started a Graeco-Phrygian article if you'd like to add anything to it. — lfddersmitten 00:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Brixhe has a useful rundown of the most striking Graeco-Phrygian parallels (isoglosses) in Woodard, Roger D. (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor (2008), Cambridge University Press, p. 72. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 9:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Recent unreliable changes on Afanasevo culture and Andronovo culture

Hi. Just see Afanasevo culture and Andronovo culture. Edits by user1 and user1 who targeted many articles with ridiculous claims (non-RS, non-expert, non-scholary). Thanks. --Zyma (talk) 18:29, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, so I can't stop an edit war. The article needs to be locked. I see you have notified Doug too, good. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:15, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Aram Khachaturian

You might be interested in a lively on-going discussion regarding the pronunciation of Aram Khachaturian's name in English at Talk:Aram Khachaturian#"Bastardized" pronunciations. It doesn't seem any closer to resolution than it did five days ago. Perhaps you can help. CorinneSD (talk) 01:34, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Proto-Balto-Slavic language

There's a question there about a paper that you shared a few weeks ago. Could you give input? CodeCat (talk) 01:44, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Book: The Origin of the Indo-Iranians

Hi Florian. It's a good source and I think it will be helpful if you want write that new article:

• The Origin of the Indo-Iranians (main link) Google Books

Regards. --Zyma (talk) 18:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh yes, I know this book. Still, writing decent articles is a lot of work and I don't think this book is nearly enough for this subject. I would have to assemble a small library at home. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:47, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Born a broad

] EEng (talk) 03:52, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Having been born abroad (at least from an Anglophone perspective) and having grown up there too, I fear I am lacking quite some cultural background to fully appreciate the joke and allusions contained therein. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Don't let the photo distract you (though I've sugmented the caption, and see A_Night_at_the_Opera_(film)#Cast). The important thing is the diff linked from the caption, and the link that diff contains. Are you being coy with me because of our broken engagement? EEng (talk) 14:11, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I was inattentive and missed your reply in the diff. (I want a (Annoyed grunt)nut now for some arbitrary reason – the Rule of Punny, probably.) Well done. And half of your income and property, after which I'll magnanimously forgive you (I'm still not sure of your gender and whether you know my gender, but then I don't want to come across as part of the heteronormative patriarchy, and the money is much more important to me anyway). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

What's an annoyed gruntnut? EEng (talk) 13:20, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I (Annoyed grunt)n't know. I wanted a (Annoyed grunt)nut, not an annoyed gruntnut. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Are we agreed, then, that this man Play-(annoyed grunt) epitomizes all that is fine and admirable, right and just, in man? If so, you may administer my spanking. See also EEng (talk) 13:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Nothing? No? Tough audience. EEng (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I intended to reply but forgot it. Nice one! What search terms did you use to come up with that gem? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

@EEng: Having dug deeper into the whole transgender business, I just discovered a precedent. Turns out the pun dates back to at least 1953!

Note that it is – increasingly, I think – common for trans women to describe themselves as, effectively, "born a broad", arguing that gender is not determined by the content of your pants.

Apparently we are still engaged (my memory is hazy on that point). So, do you still intend to marry me? :-) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:58, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Well hello again. I do remember vaguely being engaged to you, but I can't remember the circumstances. Have you visited the museums lately? EEng 00:23, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

I have now! I am very amused. So, I saw that, in real life, you bear a female name? And one I happen to like particularly much! I am delighted! :-D --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:33, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Just so there's no misunderstanding, it's my last name. My first name is a boy-name. EEng 03:54, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

JFTR: I did realise that, I was only joking, dearie. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:26, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Vikings vs Norsemen

Hello. I've noticed that the discussion on the talk page has degenerated to a debate over the meaning of the term. To avoid any continuation of this argument, I've proposed that we merge those two articles under the name "Vikings" and address the debate over the proper meaning by creating a new page about the raiders/traders/explorers under a name such as "Viking (activity)" or "Viking (pirate)". If this is acceptable to you (or if you have concerns over this being implemented), please weigh in on the issue, as it is difficult to establish a consensus with only two people involved. Thank you, MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:42, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm considering asking for third opinions on WP:RD/H. Or would that be considered illicit canvassing? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:56, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Vote on Merger of Vikings and Norsemen

There's a more formal vote going on at the bottom of the Vikings talk page. Your vote would be appreciated. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:40, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Are these sources expert or valid?

Please see these diffs:

Odd claims. Specially in White Croats and Jasz people. Also, can a genetics researcher judge about linguistics (first diff)?! --Zyma (talk) 02:36, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

No, he cannot. It's also a non sequitur because the Azerbaijani and likely also Altai have mixed with Indo-European (Iranian) peoples, too, they are far from representative of ancient Turks (for whom we'd need ADNA). Also, the phrasing is weaselly and dishonest: "It is unknown if the Kurgan cultures spoke IE or Turkic", while literally true, tries to suggest the possibility that they spoke Turkic. 5000–7000 years ago! Nobody spoke Turkic back then, because Turkic did not yet exist, just like Germanic, Persian or Aramaic did not yet exist. That's at least 3000 years too early. Faux's study seems not to have been peer-reviewed, therefore it is not citeable. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, or on Misplaced Pages, really good citations. I don't know about that Russian-language source (those place-name etymological speculations bode ill for its seriousness, though), but to expect that readers and editor scan read Russian or otherwise swallow the citation unexamined qua argument from authority (by giving quotations without translations) is inadmissible. Unless the blatantly mainstream-contradicting sources can be shown to be cited favourably in mainstream sources, ideally widely cited, they can be assumed to represent a fringe view.

I'd delete all of them as WP:UNDUE (although the citations on White Croats look better, and the possibility of Oghur influence doesn't sound completely nutty – but since that article is about the White Croats, not the Croats, the whole part about the origin of the Croats is off-topic: it's unclear if there even was a connection). You may wish to consult WP:FTN (and perhaps WP:RSN) because of the Pan-Turkist spin. Those people desperately latch on any study which fits their worldview, even if mainstream science contradicts Pan-Turkism. They regularly fail to pay attention to Iranian-Turkic mixing. Isolated studies with conclusions contradicting mainstream science are irrelevant. You can find such studies for everything and anything, and without examining the studies in detail, also methodically, their merit is impossible to assess. Reading abstracts does not suffice. Compare How to read and understand a scientific paper. I doubt that Hirabutor is an expert who can competently assess sources. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:03, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you. The main problem is that they use a lot of alternative accounts to push their POVs. As you said, these people are on a quest to reject any scholary facts just because of ultra-nationalistic stuffs and pseudo-history in their countries. I'm tired of them, because that's a non-stop quest and they won't stop their edits. Another problem is that many editors and even some admins don't review and verify their edits. And if you undo their edits, new problems will occur. --Zyma (talk) 23:14, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

For example. See this diff. Nice summary and conclusion! Pure biased and POV edit. --Zyma (talk) 23:23, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that the conclusion of the editor is completely different from the conclusions of the sources and (s)he intentionally misleads, hence runs afoul of WP:SYNTH at least. You might wish to check what the sources actually say. As I remember from the TV documentary about Jeannine Davis-Kimball's work that I once saw (I think it was the "Secrets of the Dead – Amazon Warrior Women" PBS one, only in a German version), the striking thing about Meiramgul is that she looks Mongol/East Asian for the most part, but has partly blond hair, pointing to some European (or Western Eurasian) ancestry, which completely fits, not undercuts the European ancestry of the Sarmatians (while Turkic peoples are of Eastern Asian origin with some extent of European admixture). I also noticed the completely wrong link to Eurasian (mixed ancestry) that was added in the same edit. Eurasian in this sense is an essentially modern phenomenon (usually referring to individuals, not ethnic groups – although many Turkic-speaking groups can be described as an early instance of this kind of mixture) and was clearly not intended. I mean, it says "western Eurasian", not "Eurasian"! That means a person from the western part of Eurasia.

I can't really do more than you, though. I'm not an admin, nor a genetics expert, so I don't know why you keep turning to me of all people. You should remind people of the Turkocentric POV-pushing on WP:FTN and ask for advice. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

By the way, people need to keep in mind that any East Asian admixture among Iranian- or Tocharian-speaking peoples does not necessarily point towards Turkic presence at all. Uralic and Yeniseian influences are at least equally possible, and there were almost certainly further, now unknown groups once who have disappeared without clear traces, or only in tribal names which do not permit us to determine their linguistic affiliation. So Turkocentrism has no leg to stand on. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

This research also supports placing Turkic origins in Mongolia (as traditionally thought) rather than further west (as in Turkocentrism), and it shows that Europeans (probably Tocharian- or Iranian-speaking groups, or both) must have ventured into Mongolia and mixed with the locals. The only way to save Turkocentrism in the face of this is to place the origins of the Turkic peoples in Europe, making the Kurgan horizon Proto-Turkic, which is nonsense, as I have explained. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:58, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Would you please write your opinions about this "Genetics section" on Sarmatians talk page? It will be helpful for other editors. I ask other editors - editors who are familiar with genetics studies - to review and verify the whole section. Should I submit my request on Fringe theories board? --Zyma (talk) 14:16, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Should I start something like this – Talk:Scythians/Archive 4 – again? If you remember, I asked your help/opinion, and you participated. Good points by you and the others. But the result was not good as what I expected, because one editor rejected other comments and he wanted to insert his personal analysis on the article. Another problem was that he and some others didn't attend to that consensus and everyone of them wanted his/her own version! I think I should remove those articles from my watchlist, because there is an endless battle between Iranians, Turks, Eastern Europeans, Slavs and etc. I don't know why all of them interested on those dead nomadic peoples?! The greatest achievement by those nomads was their attacks against civilized nations (Persian Empire and Roman Empire). --Zyma (talk) 15:07, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to simply link to this discussion? I see no need to repeat everything. Yes, please do contact the fringe notice board. After all, it's a systematic problem that affects lots of articles throughout Misplaced Pages. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:32, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Good question, by the way. Heh, don't forget the Hungarian nationalists! Although they seem to actually prefer to dissociate themselves from the steppe peoples and associate with the Sumerians and Etruscans, who were much more civilised at least. Perhaps it's the romantic appeal of the steppe peoples – and the importance they have due to the association with the Proto-Indo-Europeans. (And the Mongols.) Had Renfrew's original idea been accepted as correct by the scholarly mainstream, and the whole Kurgan thing been entirely abandoned, we might not have these problems and debates because nobody would give a damn about some ancient steppe barbarians (except, presumably, fantasy fans). Too bad that the evidence points the other way – wouldn't, say, the Minoans be much cooler ancestors to point to? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

What many outsiders don't seem to get is that the Kurgan idea is actually not that attractive on the face of it – Renfrew's original Anatolian hypothesis is much neater and, from a subjective point of view, much more preferrable for scholars, I'd say, if there were really primarily political, ideological or other unscientific reasons for the choice, as outsiders like to insinuate. No seriously, if wishful thinking were at the basis, you'd claim that your own people is not just one descendant of some random unimportant tribe in the middle of nowhere that simply got lucky, mixed with various entirely unknown other ethnic groups, but the chosen people of some higher being and inherently superior – oops. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:03, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. My points and no need to repeat and I save this conversation (useful if I return to WP). It seems that they started their project: user1, user2, user3, and this Iranian pov-pusher. Then I'm sure we'll have plenty of odd claims in the future and a lot of works for all involved editors. You've mentioned Hungarian nationalists. I should say Turk nationalists are far beyond them! Because they claim "Turkic-ness" of everything on earth. From Asia to Europe, and even America! Admins should decide about this case and participate on those topics, because we can't watch everything on WP. And when they use a lot of alternative accounts, then admins should take the necessary actions. I've experienced bad results on all of those articles/topics, and I think I should abandon all of them. Because as I wrote in above comment, this is a war between different groups for that "HONORARY" Barbarian nomads. There is no place for NPOV editors to easily edit and contribute to those articles and give good info and details to readers. Thanks for your attention. I hope more editors like you, join WP project in the future. I decided to retire and leave En WP, because I don't have enough time to deal with all of these peoples: Arabs, Turks, Azeris, Iranians/Persians, Hungarians, Slavs (my cousins, because I'm Slav too), Eastern and Southern Europeans and etc. Regards. Bye and Good luck. --Zyma (talk) 05:14, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

That's why I keep saying we need pending changes, or even better, flagged revisions, to mitigate the problem of fringe POV-pushing (often motivated by nationalism, but also "PC" pushback where outsiders attacks the mainstream view because it's unpalatable to them and they ignorantly suspect nationalistic – or other ideological – motivations, or happen to align themselves with competing nationalist – or other ideological – interests, evidence and specialist consensus opinions be damned), and subtle forms of vandalism which cannot be detected by lay editors looking out for merely formally suspicious edits. We simply don't have enough expert editors, and our WP:RANDY-enabling policies actively drive experts away. Superficially informed, often well-meaning, outsiders with their own axes to grind (to say nothing of spin-doctors with positively harmful agendas) are far worse threats for the project than outright vandals and schoolboy/schoolgirl nonsense, which is quickly detected and undone. Subtle manipulation is far more pernicious. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Either we bring in thousands of experts (for many areas, college and university students may suffice) to monitor most articles and engage with problematic editors, or we limit editing somehow, or introduce flagged revisions.

Given that Misplaced Pages has no deadline and the original idea of producing a Nupedia-style encyclopedia collaboratively has been effectively abandoned, we need some other form of quality control. Our articles cannot remain preliminary products forever, if we aim not to misinform the world. Misplaced Pages has real responsbility now. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:40, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Adding images to the article/Circassians infobox

Hi, I want to add some images to the Circassians but I cannot. I have added so many photos to the various atricles but I cannot add this time. Is there a problem with Misplaced Pages about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lamedumal (talk • contribs) 10:59, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

No idea. I can add images myself; I've tried it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:58, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. l am going to try again. Lamedumal (talk) 12:19, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry! l have deleted your reply:/ Lamedumal (talk) 12:22, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Already restored. Does it work now? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes:) Lamedumal (talk) 12:44, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Rûm and Southwest Paleohispanic script

Would you happen to have some information regarding these two articles? I have not been able to find much in the way of reliable sources. --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Eurovision Invitation!

	You are cordially invited to join WikiProject Eurovision!
	You appear to be someone that may be interested in joining WikiProject Eurovision. Please accept this formal invitation from a current member of the project. We offer a place for you to connect with users who also like Eurovision and facilitate team work in the development of Eurovision articles.
	If you decide to join the project, please add your name to this list, and add the project talk page to your watchlist.
	I hope you accept! - Wes Mᴥuse 23:28, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Columbus and the Bimini Triangle

You seem interested in Columbus, have you seen the attempts to add him at List of Bermuda Triangle incidents‎? Dougweller (talk) 08:50, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Karasuk Culture

Hi Florian, could you check/look at the Karasuk culture? lt seems to me kindergarden. 176.219.137.214 (talk) 20:22, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

lt is same for the articles of Afanasevo culture, Andronovo culture and so forth. 176.219.137.214 (talk) 20:34, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Could you be more specific, please? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:38, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

My suggestion is using "pending system" in order to prevent these articles from systematic trollings and vandalisms of various ethnocentrist users and ips. 176.219.137.214 (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, I can't do jack. Do tell 'em at WP:FTN, you've got my backing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:54, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmm...ok, thanx. l'm going to mention these problems there next time. And you are sophisticated enough to be an admin "according to me". Again, thank you. 176.219.137.214 (talk) 21:01, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to be an admin, it's not that awesome to be one, to put it mildly. User:Dougweller is a better contact person for history-related topics. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:05, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

lf the same problems continue, im going to contact with admins to request them for using the pending system. Your link is useful but tiring. l mean WP:FTN 176.219.137.214 (talk) 21:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Pending doesn't effect established editors though. Florian, what is going on there? I see and a post on my talk page. Dougweller (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Yagmurlukorfez is apparently triggered by the word "Caucasoid (race)" and didn't like my edit at Andronovo culture, exposing his Turkocentric bias. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:00, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, just looked at that. I know nothing about the IP he's complaining about either. I'm off to bed soon. Problem editors usually trip over themselves and fall. Dougweller (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Help

Hi. Are you an admin? I have a problem with my computer, I cannot add sources to the articles. For example, I want to add these sources to the article Wusun about Tocharians but I cannot:

• The Indo-Aryan Languages

“The historical context and development of Indo-Aryan”, Colin P. Masica, p.48

• Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics, Gerard Clauson

• Turko-Mongol Rulers, Cities and City Life

p.24,

• Turks and Khazars: Origins, Institutions, and Interactions in Pre-Mongol Eurasia

Peter B. Golden

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=AOhIAQAAIAAJ&q=wusun+tokharian&dq=wusun+tokharian&hl=tr&sa=X&ei=bpOcU8_iEOTb7AaphYHgDw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAzgK

• Forgotten Worlds: From Atlantis to the X-Woman of Siberia and the Hobbits of Flores, Patrick Chouinard

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=ollnAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT118&dq=wusun+tocharian&hl=tr&sa=X&ei=UJScU_CjJ6qw7AafiYCQCg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=wusun%20tocharian&f=false

• Journal of Chinese Linguistics,

Project on Linguistic Analysis, 1999 p.154

• Ancient bronzes, ceramics, and seals: the Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection of ancient Near Eastern, central Asiatic, and European art, gift of the Ahmanson Foundation

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, Glenn Markoe p.163

• Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society

1980 p.480 — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArordineriiiUkhtt (talk • contribs) 19:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Ahh, I have just read your message page. You are not. I am going to ask another, bye. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArordineriiiUkhtt (talk • contribs) 19:47, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not an admin and I have no idea what could be going wrong. The article is not protected, so you should be able to edit it. Simply try again. If the problem persists, check the suggestions at Misplaced Pages:New contributors' help page. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. And that is just an example. I have many sources about Greeks, EOKA but I cannot add them to the articles. EOKA is wrong title. It is EOK-A. It shouold be changed. How can I change the title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArordineriiiUkhtt (talk • contribs) 19:53, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Help contains useful links, too. As does the box on your own talk page. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:59, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. I am going to read it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArordineriiiUkhtt (talk • contribs) 20:07, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Cory Doctorow#Cory Doctorow and Creative Commons

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Cory Doctorow#Cory Doctorow and Creative Commons. Thanks. Xb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 01:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)Template:Z48

Schwi

Please see Talk section 13 for Stress and Vowel Reduction in English RoachPeter (talk) 06:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I have replied there. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:27, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Occitan - original research

I notice that you have recently made some useful additions to the lead of the Occitan article. I have some useless "Original research". I'm at present visiting my 90 year old French mother-in-law who lives in a village near the Rhone in the Gard department of southern France. She was born in the village as were her parents (and her husband). Her parents spoke the Provençal dialect of Occitan as their first language but always spoke French to their daughter - as did her grandparents. Thus my mother-in-law can understand "patois" (Provençal) but has rarely if ever spoken the language. My wife is in the same position - she was brought up hearing her grandparents (and others of the same generation) speak patois and can understand it. Nowadays Provençal expressions are occasionally introduced in their French. They have never read or written the language. In the village, this appears to be generally the case. Nobody born after the first world war speaks patois as their first language and importantly, nobody born after WWI spoke patois to their children. If this pattern is repeated across the south of France, as seems to be the case, then very few people now speak Occitan as a first language and the only people who can understand the language are old. The number of speakers listed by the article ("Recent research has shown it may be spoken as a first language by as many as 789,000 people") seems grossly optimistic (unless Catalan is considered a dialect of Occitan).

A quiz at meal table this evening gave the following:

• house - maison/casa oustau
• head - testa/cap
• small - petit/pichon (pitchoun)
• buy - achaptar/crompar (achesta)
• hear - entendre/ausir
• to be quiet - se taire/se calar
• fall - tombar/caire
• more - p(l)us/mai
• always - totjorn/sempre

I can't vouch for the spelling. Aa77zz (talk) 20:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much! That is very interesting to learn. Unfortunately it is not surprising to me to hear that there are only very few fluent native speakers left. They must be from the oldest generation still alive – so they must be centenarians! I thought Occitan was still the common colloquial language until 1950, but from what you say it must have been largely confined to the elders, or at least adults, already in Vichy France. (I wonder if Jeanne Calment still spoke the local dialect of Arles and if anybody ever thought to ask her about that. She would have entered school right at the time of the Jules Ferry laws.) It would be a good idea to study Catalan first for young people interested in their Occitan heritage, as it provides an occasion to learn an actually useful foreign language.

Surprisingly, Alsatian does not seem to have suffered equally. It still has a considerable presence and the older generation in Alsace still speaks it, apparently.

Does the French of your relatives exhibit any peculiarities with regard to pronunciation, syntax, word use or the like? Any peculiar expressions? So they still use some Provençal words and phrases spontaneously?

I wonder if the Occitan dialects are really so well-researched that there is no point in fieldwork, interviewing remaining speakers and semi-speakers – but in any case, it would be a useful practice, or especially dry-run for (aspiring) linguists who plan to do fieldwork in more exotic locales. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:19, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Somewhat curiously, our article Meridional French does not include any speaker estimate ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Fix article

Can you fix this section? Uyghur_people#Language User:Hzh wants someone with linguistics experience to edit the section because of some problems he had with my edits. This was my corrections to section before they got reverted, I need someone to confirm that the information in there is correct

Right now it has blatant errors like mentioning Old Turkic (which is not part of Karluk) and doesn't differentiate between Old and modern Uyghur.Rajmaan (talk) 21:51, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

not the first by far

the GM pages have been worked on for quite a while by several folks. nothing there has not been discussed. as per WP:BRD please discuss. thanks.Jytdog (talk) 21:50, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Please direct me to the section where the hatnote is discussed. It is blatantly opposed to Misplaced Pages style conventions; essentially a "See also" list of associative links disguised as a hatnote. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:54, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

June 2014

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.  — MusikAnimal 00:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Your revert in Galaxy

Hi, I think you are mistaken with this revert, according to the first sentence of the second paragraph in the article Milky Way, it is still classified as spiral with bar(s). Even if some of the data is contradictory, why would the galaxy article have to reflect that? Greeting, --Xario (talk) 21:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

See the next edit. I have reverted myself. I still think the article shouldn't portray the issue as cut and dried. Barred galaxy seems to be certain, but the number of major arms is, I understand, unclear. I'm not a natural scientist, though. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) You might ask User talk:Modest Genius or User talk:Vsmith. CorinneSD (talk) 02:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

OMG, I am so blind. The power of notifications. Oh well, thx and sorry, --Xario (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! ♥ Solarra ♥ ߷ _{♀ 投稿 ♀} 04:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit-warring

I've informed MusikAnimal that Ragdeenorc is edit-warring again at Kurgan. Since you've been making the same amount of reverts, I guess this will have consequences for you too. For which I'm sorry, but hey, you really should have gone to the talkpage,a nd asked for third opinions. Please learn from this for the next time you get stuck into a dispute. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:19, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

This is not a dispute, and there's no point letting yourself draw into endless debates with him. Radgeenorc is a POV vandal inserting completely inappropriate fringecruft. In fact, some highly specific and striking personal quirks, such as bolding quotations, are shared by him with other aggressive Turkophiles. Hence my suspicion that he forms part of a series of sock puppet accounts that have apparently been abandoned in the meanwhile. I wonder why this single-purpose account who constantly hounds and attacks other people personally (yelling "racist", "Nazi" etc.) isn't just blocked for good, done and over it. I have already solicited support, yet nothing so far; I'm left alone fighting this vandal. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:35, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

June 2014

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. — MusikAnimal 15:08, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused why you think continuing to edit war is a good idea. The edits in question are not obvious vandalism, see WP:ROWN. Before anything else, you should talk to the user, via a talk page, preferably the article talk page. I see that you still have not done this. Continually reverting each others' changes without discussion goes against the collegial spirit of the wiki and is deeply frowned upon. This is why the three-revert rule exists, to prevent this type of disruption. Seek dispute resolution if consensus cannot be established. Beyond that, WP:AN/I might be a good place to discuss disruption from a user as you suggest is the case. If you have strong evidence of sockpuppetry, you may also or instead consider opening a case at WP:SPI. But before seeking any administrative assistance you should talk to the user, or else you are asking for another block. — MusikAnimal 15:08, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I have already talked to the user extensively on various pages and explained things (such as on Talk:Kurgan hypothesis) and it is useless because he ignores the reasons (I've already given plenty of reasons in edit summaries as well, I'm not just reverting without explanation), he only responds with personal attacks and wikihounding. See my statements above and on WP:DRN#Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Kurgan. This user is a typical aggressive POV warrior, I'm already all too well familiar with the type. Why are we so much more tolerant to POV-pushing nationalists than creationists?

Note that I actually sympathise with a few fringe ideas such as Christ myth theory or Aquatic ape hypothesis myself but I know better than to engage in pushing my favourite POVs there, especially since the relevant fields are out of my area of expertise. I support Misplaced Pages's emphasis of the mainstream and consensus in science even where I personally disagree with the mainstream. Look, I do know that keeping private beliefs and the state of the art separate isn't always easy, but I agree with Misplaced Pages's principles and strongly believe that its rules need to be enforced consistently to prevent creep of unduly emphasised fringe stuff. It's just harder outside of natural science because in areas such as archaeology, linguistics, Turkology or Indology we have powerful parochial interests, lots of POV warriors and far fewer experts, so it may not be obvious to you that these users' pet "theory" is about as credible as creationism.

Well, so far the user has stopped reverting at least. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	Edit-warring is not the right way to do it, but I understand your intentions. Ignore the harassment; keep up the good intentions. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

You need some baklava & çay, that's for sure ;) Ragdeenorc (talk) 11:29, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I like Turkish cuisine, make no mistake ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

translate article

I need w:de:Fünfsprachenspiegel translated into English. (the most commonly used English name of this dictionary is the transliteration of the Chinese name, "Wuti Qingwenjian" so that should be the name of the English article, I know that the German name is a literal translation of the Chinese). I compiled sources and links over here which I will use when the article is created in English.Rajmaan (talk) 05:16, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

KnowledgeImprator

What do you think about him? I gave him a warning for making unsourced changes and changes contradicting existing sources. Dougweller (talk) 05:43, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Old Turkic alphabet

I saw some discussions regarding Old Turkic alphabet and decided to read the article just out of curiosity. I made a few minor edits. I found a sentence that doesn't read well, but I'm not sure how to fix it, so I thought I'd ask you. It is the last sentence in the section Old Turkic alphabet#Variants. It mentions "religions, Manichaeism, Buddhist,...". CorinneSD (talk) 18:56, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, if you look at my edits in the Revision History, you'll see that I changed "independently" to "independent" in the fourth paragraph in Old Turkic alphabet#Origins. "Independently graphic system" didn't seem to make sense, and I though "independent graphic system" made more sense. But when I went back to review all my edits, I thought perhaps the sentence needed a greater revision than that. I wonder about the adverb "expressly", and I wonder whether "independently developed" would make sense. Can you take a look at that sentence for me? Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Valuable idea?

This would be open for rearrangements. --Pass3456 (talk) 21:41, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Cool. :-) That said, I haven't got around to tuning my user page since whenever, so I have no immediate personal need for it right now. Do you still look after the Tarja articles and articles about her albums? Warum labern wir eigentlich auf englisch? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:49, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Die Artikel hab ich seit ner Weile nur mit einem Auge im Blick. Da sind ja mittlerweile auch noch ein paar Andere am Werk. --Pass3456 (talk) 22:05, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Wichtig ist mir vor allem, daß jemand Kompetentes da ist, der die Änderungen überwacht. Es wäre natürlich schön, wenn es zu Tarjas neuen Alben auch richtige Artikel gäbe, aber wenn Du dazu aus irgendeinem Grund nicht bereit bist, ist es auch nicht so schlimm. Hauptsache, der Artikel bleibt ein GA (und darauf achten sollte man schon, daß die verwandten Artikel wenigstens nicht vermüllen, weil die auch eine gewisse Rolle bei den Reviews spielen). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:11, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Dong Yen Chau inscription

Does Coèdes really say that the Dong Yen Chau inscription is from the middle of the sixth century? I checked Thurgood and he really does say that Coèdes dates it to the middle of the fourth. Can you check Coèdes directly? Perhaps Marrison (isn't that Morrison?) misquotes him there and Thurgood only repeats this there.

By the way, watch out for users who try to claim the inscription for Old Malay.

Hello Florian, I was not aware of this inscription. Thank you for teaching me something! :-) I will see if I can get hold of Coedès's book (I may go to the EFEO's library some time soon). As far as the language is concerned, this inscription seems to reveal an interesting point, i. e. the Cham language, whether in the 4th or 6th century, was still very close to what we know of Malay to the point of being understandable to modern Malay speakers. I will have a monitor that point in the article. Best regards, Humboldt 15:04, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

How can you not have been aware of the inscription before? You edited the article yourself! The diff I linked to is you editing the inscription's article! As for the observation that the language of the inscription resembles Malay, I find it entirely unremarkable and I explain this on the talk page and warn of POV-pushing. Orhanghazi's bias is a problem, for it is showing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

You're right. I am of the absent-minded type, especially when I am tired. I agree we must fight ideology to defend science. Malaysian Malays have a problem. It starts with the "abduction" of their country's name since the Malay language originates from Sumatra. As for the understandability of 4th or 6th century Cham, I must agree with you since linguists group now group Chamic and Malayic into the same Malayo-Chamic group in the Malayo-Polynesian branch. It seems this is recent because the classification of Chamic has changed over time... Humboldt 19:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hey, Florian

Do me a favor. I would like to correspond with you (briefly) off wiki, and I see you have an "Email this user" link. For some reason the email I sent you several hours ago came back to me as undeliverable. Can you please send an email to me through wikipedia from my user page, and I will then respond? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 03:22, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I did get a Misplaced Pages E-mail message from you, and have now replied to it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:37, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I, too, hope for a reply some day ... HJJHolm (talk) 07:52, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Without any sort of deadline, I'm bound to forget things or assume it doesn't matter anymore anyway ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:54, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Silk

I've been reading the article on Silk, and I wondered whether the material in the section Silk#Etymology is formatted correctly. The Old English word and Greek word are in regular font, and the English word "silken" is in italics. CorinneSD (talk) 23:01, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Non-Latin scripts are never formatted in italics, since the foreign script already sufficiently marks the material as objektsprachlich (i. e., in a language to be discussed, not the primary language of the text). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:09, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Florian. I think this has been fixed. CorinneSD (talk) 19:28, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Horst Mahler

Hi, I've noticed you have had dealings with User:Timothycrice before, so you may want to keep an eye on his edits in light of this.--89.204.139.88 (talk) 20:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Anonymous editor, I'm wondering if you noticed Die Welt shows that what someone has called "two of the comments made by Horst Mahler" is really one quote: "In der Vernichtung der Juden waltet Vernunft...Milliarden Menschen wären bereit, Hitler zu verzeihen, wenn er nur den Judenmord begangen hätte". By the way, Milliarden is always capitalized, so the fact that it's shown capitalized in this context doesn't mean it's marking the beginning of a new sentence if it's a run-on sentence. The quote consists of two sentences, but it is one quote, so that's why I'm wondering if it was a run-on sentence. Even if it wasn't, it was shown this way in Die Welt.Timothy C. Rice (talk) 21:05, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, we know that you did not notice, because in your edit that made the Horst Mahler article worse, you kept the format as two separate quotes. I, however, eventually went to the trouble of looking up the Welt article, and that's why my suggestion for a better translation than the current article version, made on your Talk page, preserves the Welt formatting with the ellipsis in the middle. (I don't know what the ellipsis stands for: whether it's Mahler's own or whether it was put in by Welt and if so, whether it stands for a few words or several paragraphs.) Timothy, let it go. You are not competent yet to revise translations from German on Misplaced Pages. In addition, your agenda (proving that Mahler was wrongfully convicted of Volksverhetzung) is incompatible with the policies of Misplaced Pages.--89.204.139.88 (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Your agenda (giving unconditional support to the conviction of Horst Mahler) of guilt until proven innocent is incompatible with freedom and reason. It's ironic that you fail to see that when you accuse me of a personal agenda, you're letting us know what your personal agenda is. Since you have a personal agenda, how do we know what translation you're going to put out there? Up to now, no one has aligned the Horst Mahler article with what is in Die Welt, to make it one quote instead of two. I didn't separate it into two different quotes, that was someone else's deed. Timothy C. Rice (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Timothy, your apology of Mahler (where you are literally assuming the role of his advocate) amounts to pushing a fringe POV, i. e., minority view. Misplaced Pages has a Neutral Point of View, which is not complete balance between opposing views (see argument to moderation), but a bias towards the mainstream (the view of the majority of relevant experts). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:21, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Florian, you can remind me that someone can edit using a pseudonym, and I can remind you that they don't have to use one. So what do we conclude after that? I guess I'm thinking of square one again. This is where everyone can tell us what their worldview is, which is useful to think about because we have been discussing the concept of the Weltanschauung.

As for courts of law, we can observe that every man is born free. Then, he suddenly is aware that laws are being legislated here and there. Which one of those laws should be in the books? What is the correct application of the law? So we conclude that the decision of any court anywhere in the world is not anything other than what we know it to be. These are decisions made by imperfect human beings like Justice Martin Rieder who in 2009 accused Horst Mahler of "nationalist whining," even though he was accused in 2004 of Volksverhetzung und Verunglimpfung des Staates. So you start to wonder which one of those two it would be, to their minds. Timothy C. Rice (talk) 23:45, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

It is uncivil to badger people for not registering, and falls under ad hominem. Again: Stick to the facts. What people choose to reveal of themselves is none of your business when it is not relevant to the case at hand. The rest of what you are saying I do not see the relevance of, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:13, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

It's uncivil for you to say that when I'm bringing out the facts. If someone is a certain way, we can be aware of how they conduct themselves. To "come out to the light" is not positive or negative, it's something you do if you want to, and you can remind us that we don't have to do things we don't want to do. Strangely enough, someone might say they don't know that. If there's light in a room, I can step into it, and if I don't, then you can notice. Timothy C. Rice (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

You're bringing only irrelevant ad hominem and your personal interpretations. Cut it out. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:05, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Kuhle

Hi,

Following up on the Kuhle thread at NPOVN. I noticed it went quiet after Tigona added other sources. I've been traveling and don't feel like I have the time or knowledge to properly vet those sources -- are you planning to pursue this further or is the thread going quiet a sign that there are no further objections (aside from, perhaps, the promotional nature of the account)? --— Rhododendrites \\ 16:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I wanted to alert the admins about this because I accidentally found out about it. Glaciology is only a side interest of mine, not something I'm super-knowledgeable in, so I don't intend to pursue this further in the first place. I still think something should be done about it, if only by slapping appropriate tags and boxes (UNDUE, COI warnings etc.) on the dubious and unbiased pages I pointed out, but I feel it's not my job but those of more specialist editors, or admins who've taken up NPOV issues as their field. I've said my piece and that should be enough. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest you had some sort of obligation to follow up. Just curious for my own sake. Tagging the article sounds like it makes sense until we can attract more voices if not specialists. --— Rhododendrites \\ 18:41, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks for asking. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:42, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Map

I thought you might like this one too. It's based on Anthony. Buy it; it's very good. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

PS: I should also make a black-and-white map, which can be copied easily. Might be helpfull for any student writing a paper on the topic, which may help to spread knowledge. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC on "Indigenous Aryans"

I've opened an RfC at Talk:Indigenous Aryans#RfC: the "Indigenous Aryans" theory is fringe-theory. Let's keep it civilised. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:34, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Aryan race

You are wrong about Penka and Gobineau, Gobineau wrote his works on Aryan supremacy before Penka was born, and Penka's work on Aryanism was published the year after Gobineau died.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC on "Indigenous Aryans"

Hi Florian. We've re-ordered the comments at Talk:Indigenous Aryans#RfC: the "Indigenous Aryans" theory is fringe-theory. Yours is placed under the header "comments"; is that the appropriate place? If not, can you move it to the correct section? Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:16, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I've placed it under "Support", given your statement "OIT is as respectable now as Afrocentrism that is, not at all. It's purely driven by politics." Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive edits on articles related to Central Asian history

I've noticed from the revision history of Issyk kurgan that you've earlier been having trouble dealing with additions of WP:Fringe theories on articles related to Central Asian history by banned User:Tirgil34. I'm currently in a pretty much identical situation at the article Wusun, where my attempts to deal with fringe additions of Tirgil34 have been obstructed by ducky IPs and User:Yagmurlukorfez. If you're a German-speaker the edits of the de:Benutzer:Tsaigankuk might of interest. User:Tsaigankuk is proven sock of Tirgil34 and many of his WP:Fringe edits still still stand on the German wiki. Krakkos (talk) 13:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, German is my native language and I edit de-WP as well. Can you point to any specific edits or articles on de-WP that you are concerned about? I was already aware of his edits at de:Botai-Kultur, but the ref he added is in Russian and offline, so I cannot judge its reliability and simply removing it would never go through. I'd love to help you, but I don't know how. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Tsaigankuk is a confirmed sock of User:Tirgil34. Removal of his edits is therefore WP:Policy in accordance with CFD G5. I'm sure this is the case for German wikipedia as well. In addition to de:Botai-Kultur, he appears to have been pushing similar fringe theories on Kangju and Karassuk-Kultur. Further investigation reveals that a large number of Tirgil34's have been active on the German WP, including Benutzerin:Tirgil34, Benutzer:Maikolaser, Benutzer Diskussion:Xantana, Benutzer:Selga, Benutzer:Greczia, Benutzer:E4024 (suspected sock of Tirgil34, confirmed sockmaster in his own right. Still active on German WP), Benutzer:Aparhan, Benutzer:Sirivsk, Benutzer:Wyspiański, Benutzer:ARIusalan, Benutzer:Alpargon, Benutzer:Rämil Kadyrov, Benutzer:BaratK, Benutzer:Ragdeenorc, Benutzer:Muramidase, Benutzer:Hirabutor, Benutzer:Su4kin, Benutzer:Kleropides, Benutzer:Agaceri, Benutzer:Osgoem, Benutzer:Hydneksia, Benutzer:Xteenment, Benutzer:Wylandd, Benutzer:Julbaxsan, Benutzer:Poikdiyma, Benutzer:Radosfrester, Benutzer:Wailbinds, Benutzer:Greentent and Benutzer:Etymologias. I would suggest tagging these users as socks on the German WP and linking it to Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Tirgil34 and Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Tirgil34 through Wikidata. Krakkos (talk) 22:11, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Why don't you try it yourself? I'm not an admin and can't do more than you. Be bold! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I notice that one of his suspected sockpuppets is apparently named after me. WTF? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

As i'm not a German-speaker, it might a little too bold to do this on de:WP. Adding the parameters to Tirgil34's socks seems possible though. Is it common on de:WP to place socks in categories? If so i could do so if you translate the title's Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Tirgil34 and Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Tirgil34 in German. Krakkos (talk) 11:52, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

You may as well use English there, I guess, for this specific reason. Most Germans speak and read English. He does have a sense of humor, using your name, but I understand it's uncomfortable. Just go ahead, and use English. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, most German Wikipedians know English well enough that communicating with them should pose no problem. I have to admit I'm not all that familiar with meta stuff on de-WP, such as how to deal with undeclared sockpuppets, so you'll best ask at de:Misplaced Pages:Fragen zur Misplaced Pages. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Would "Kategorie:Sockenpuppen von Tirgil34" and "Kategorie:Vermutete sockenpuppen von Tirgil34" be in acceptable German? Krakkos (talk) 16:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, apart from the detail that Sockenpuppen, as a noun, is always spelt with capital initial. Also, I've never seen categories to mark sockpuppets on de-WP before; it does not seem to be usual, that's why I recommended you to ask first about the local conventions. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the trend of turanist fringe theory being added on English WP, it seems that much of it is being added from the Turkish WP, whose articles on Central Asian history are so thoroughly infested by turanist fringe that one could consider it a Turanist-Metapedia of some sort. I'm sure the German WP is affected by the same problem, given that the turanist Grey Wolves are Germany's largest far-right movement (WTF). A good example is a discussion you had with the sockmaster User:Tirgil34 way back in 2012, where he adds fringe theory copied straight from the Turkish WP. Suspected Tirgil34 sock User:Yagmurlukorfez has had a virtual monopoly on the Turkish WP article Usun (actually about the Uysyn, not the Wusun) for around a year, in which turanist fringe is pushed to the max as you can check with Google Translate, and has been actively pushing the same theories on the Wusun article at English WP in argue of "neutrality". These issues is something admins should have dealt with a long time ago, and it's very depressing to go through diffs watching the lack of assistance admins have given you in clearing WP of this disruptive editing behaviour.

On the topic of tagging Tirgil34's socks on the German WP, i believe i will have the means to do so later today. Krakkos (talk) 12:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry for the interrupting, but User:Krakkos, you have to stop gossip about me with mentioning my name. I'm always taking notification warning from your stupid accusations and also please stop using that stupid "Turanist" term. You guys don't know what is even that mean. If you keep accuse me like that, I will report you for personel attack. Thanks.Yagmurlukorfez (talk) 13:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, please do so! The Turanist problem needs to finally come to the attention of the admins. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:42, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems like you've been paying attention to the latest developments in the Tirgil34 situation, but i figured i might give you an update on some measures i have taken nevertheless. The attempt to spread awareness of Tirgil34's sockpuppetry on German wikipedia was a complete failure. Marking sockpuppets as sockpuppets is appearantly taboo on the German WP. I have however created a LTA page on Tirgil34, which i will soon expand with more useful info. As can be seen from my editing history, i have also removed pretty much every problematic edit by Tirgil34 and his blocked socks he has made though more than three years. We are talking about a lot of content, and i'm still not finished. I will however. A successful CheckUser was also performed some weeks ago, which resulted in the discovery and blocking of several confirmed Tirgil34 socks. I have filed an additional SPI against suspected socks, which has also been endorsed with some limitations by the SPI clerks. More will follow. Going through all these diffs by Tirgil34 both for cleanup and investigation, it has been frustrating to observe what a large number of Tirgil34 socks you have been editing warring and having lenghty discussions with. There are several interesting users in the current SPI. Check out Aldrasto11 (talk · contribs). He adheres to the Ultra-Fringe view that the Etruscans were a Turkic people, admits that he's on Misplaced Pages to make a point, and has made a huge number of edits on the origins of Ancient Rome. I also highly recommend that you read the section at the SPI concerned with the editor ArordineriiiUkhtt (talk · contribs). Krakkos (talk) 22:21, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, I am not here to make any point. If you read that quote carefully you can see by yourself that I am talking to another user, on his talk page, about my ideas on hydronyms and their origins. Nothing to do with what I contribute to wikipedia articles. Everybody can check the kind of work I have been doing on the Ashina and Wusun articles, I just made those unreadable messes readable. Unlike some others I mind my work. I am not supporting any agenda and limited myself to notifying on the talk page that suppressing opposing views, when referenced to reputable academic literature, is certainly not in the spirit of wikipedia. And yes the view that the Etruscans may have been Proto-Turks deserves attention and should be mentioned in the relevant articles: I do not say it is so, but certainly there is plenty of evidence pointing in that direction, more than about any other imaginable linguistic connexion. The list of Turkic words in Etruscan is very long, starting with the kinship vocabulary, privileged area of semantics, and then magistracies, weapons etc. If a theory or POV disturbs your sleep you should try to grow up...or just forget about it! On the other topics there is indeed plenty of evidence to support the view that those peoples or tribes may not have been Indoeuropeans, particularly the Ashina (the Wusun may have been Tocharians). And as far as their myths and underlying beliefs are concerned they were undistinguishable from those of their eastern and western neighbors, never mind IE or Tungusic. Language is one thing, culture is another and race still another one. I do not care a fig about the issue of nationalism or politics in general which is by definition just outside the scope of serious scientific research. I suspect that the person who attacks me is he himself a pusher (of his own POV): which is a common occurrence and almost everyday experience by the way.Aldrasto11 (talk) 05:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Ehm, sorry, the comparison of Etruscan with Turkic is worse than fringe; it's utterly pseudoscientific, as it involves invalid methodology (collection of random sound-alikes). See Pseudoscientific language comparison. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I humbly and respectfully suggest that you read more, and as far as you can try to be aware of the harmfulness of prejudices. For one thing the article on Etruscan language summarises in an incorrect and biased way an article which is linked and which should be read in full. The Italian uralist Marcantonio in rejecting Alinei's theory acknowledges the lexical correspondences with Turkic: she calls them asystematic, but they are in fact systematic as I said above (we can add the religious area). And after rejecting Alinei's theory she also acknowledges that uralistic studies are themselves biased and unscientific in postulating the ugro-finnic knot which is impossible to prove. Quote: "La situazione dell' area uralica e' delicata e complessa a causa di tre fattori fondamentali: l' assenza di una comune morfologia uralica; la similarita' ai vari livelli linguistici tra le lingue uraliche e le lingue altaiche nonche' quelle paleosiberiane; l' assenza di vere e proprie leggi fonetiche - quelle che sono tradizionalmente definite leggi fonetiche finno-ugricche/ uraliche sono in realta' tendenze fonetiche, spesso condivise, oltretutto, dalle lingue altaiche (si veda Marcantonio 2002:110 ss. con bibliografia ivi citata). Prendendo coscienza di questi problemi alcuni studiosi, pur accettando la classificazione tradizionale, praticamente riconscono l'arbitrarieta' della scelta iniziale di comparare, per esempio, le lingue ob-ugriche (Vogulo ed Ostiaco), con l' Ungherese, o col Finnico, invece che per esempio, con una lingua altaica. Si veda in proposito il seguente passo di Sinor, illustre studioso di lingue uraliche ed altaiche: "I am quite certain that if from all the Uralic and Altaic languages only the Northern Tunguz and Ob-Ugric were known, no one would deny their genetic relationship." Dunque la scelta iniziale degli studiosi considerati i padri fondatori della teoria uralica tradizionale, inclusi Budenz e Donner, era e rimane alla luce delle conoscenze odierne, soggettiva. In effetti, se si leggono le opere originali di questi studiosi, non si puo' non constatare che, contrariamente a quanto generalmente sostentuto, costoro non hanno affatto 'dimostrato' l' esistenza della famiglia finno-ugrica/ uralica (si vedano in proposito Marcantonio, Nummenaho e Salvagni 2001; Marcantonio 2002:37 ss.) Inoltre, anche negli studi di uralistica si riscontra una notevole manipolazione dei dati, pur se non ai livelli raggiunti dal nostro A. (Alinei)...Ma la manipolazione piu' grave, perche' ricca di conseguenze fuorvianti, e' quella che riguarda proprio la presunta ricostruzione del diagramma ad albero finno-ugrico/ uralico. Infatti il nodo uralico ed il presunto nodo intermadio finno-ugrico, non sono mai stati ricostruiti (ne' nel consonantismo ne' nel vocalismo), anche se in tutti i manuali e, purtroppo, talora anche nella letteratura specialistica (Samallahti 1988)si sostiene esattamente il contrario. Per accertarsi di quali siano i dati di fatto basta leggere l'unica pubblicazione che tratta ...nei dettagli e con una rigorosa applicazione del metodo comparativo, della ricostruzione dell' albero genealogoco uralico, il famoso articolo di Juha Janhunen del 1981. ...l'autore mette a confronto solo due dei sottogruppi linguistici che, secondo il modello tradizionale, sono costitutivi della famiglia uralica: il gruppo finno-permiano e quello samoiedo, tralasciando totalmente di mettere a confronto il presunto, fondamentale nodo ugrico.E questo perche'... e' stato impossibile ricostruire tale nodo, nonostante i numerosi tentativi fatti da vari studiosi nel corso degli anni...."In a word Hungarian is not a Uralic language but a Turkic one, as many Hungarian scholars have maintained since the nineteenth century.Aldrasto11 (talk) 02:55, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

LOL! I've met Marcantonio personally, giving a talk at a conference I attended. None of the specialists present took her seriously, I almost pitied her. She is considered a crackpot by linguistic experts. Even Steinbauer with his unorthodox views on Etruscan does not acknowledge any connections with Turkic. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Horrible changes to Dari language

Hi. Can you fix and restore info on Dari language? Good-faith (!) nationalistic editors ruined that article completely. Just compare last good old revision with current unsourced personal writing! Amateur pov-pushing and biased edit to remove every "Persian" or reliable language classification from the article and create a new language! Reminds me Balkan nationalists in 1990, it's in Middle East (different region and culture), but same behavior, same hardcore denials. Awful edits. I don't know why nobody reviews those changes just because they were done by a so-called registered and auto-confirmed accounts?! They did same in Afghanistan etymology section. Changed "Persian" to "Sanskrit"! Too bad for WP. Thanks. --188.159.132.24 (talk) 09:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I restored a slightly more recent version. However, on cursory inspection I cannot see that all mentions of "Persian" had been completely removed, or anything close to it. There were a few unprofessional looking phrasings, and mistakes ("Old Persian" instead of "New Persian"), but nothing that struck me as obviously horrible. Am I missing something? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:15, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Dari language

Hello, Florian -- I see you've been working to improve Dari language. Of course I defer to your vastly superior knowledge of linguistics, but I had to attempt to clarify the sentences in the lede. If I got anything factually incorrect, please forgive me. You'll see I have added a "clarification needed" template and a question for editors.

I have a few concerns about the second paragraph of the lede:

1) I think "By way of Early New Persian" does not help a reader very much. I know it is meant to express something very specific, but it doesn't convey much and is thus slightly confusing. It further complicates an already complicated passage. I'm wondering if a more precise phrase could be used here. If not, then perhaps it could be omitted, leaving the explanation of this detail for the body of the article.

2) It is not clear why, toward the end of the second paragraph of the lede, the word "Dari" is suddenly italicized even though it has already appeared several times in regular, or Roman, font. CorinneSD (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

1) Is "Through Early New Persian" clearer? It's just saying that Dari Persian isn't directly descended from Middle Persian, as previously implied, but via ENP. Actually the sequence is quite easy: Old Persian > Middle Persian > Early New Persian > New Persian (or Modern Persian), which is a dialect continuum on which three written languages are based, namely Iranian Persian, Afghan Persian (Dari) and Tajik. For a key difference, compare Persian phonology#Historical shifts. This is one of the features that the description of Dari as "conservative" or "archaic" is based on. However, on the whole the differences are still small and Dari isn't that archaic, especially compared to Eastern Iranian languages like Pashto, which has partly preserved the Old Iranian case system and even traces of the old accent.

2) For the italics, see MOS:WORDSASWORDS. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I apologize in advance for stretching your patience, Florian, but I'm still confused (I'm not an expert in linguistics but I have done quite a bit of reading in it, and several college courses, and have studied, and speak, read, and write several languages; I just don't know the detailed history of Farsi or Dari; if it's not clear to me, then it might not be clear to an average reader). You said, above, "It's just saying that Dari Persian isn't directly descended from Middle Persian, as previously implied, but via ENP." I don't see where it was previously implied that Dari Persian is directly descended from Middle Persian. Regarding "Through (or by way of) Early New Persian", are you saying that nearly all the dialects of Persian spoken in Iran and the Tajik dialect did not come through Early New Persian and instead developed directly from Middle Persian? If so, how did they bypass Early New Persian? If not, then I'm still confused and don't see why you wouldn't mention the four "steps" in order. (I read the entire article and didn't see an explanation of this.)

In the section Dari language#Vocabulary, there is a table, or chart, with two columns labeled "Persian-Farsi" and "Persian-Dari". All the words in these columns should be infinitives, to correspond to the English infinitives down the left. They should all end in "-dan". In the Persian-Dari column, two alternate verbs are given in each box. For the English verb "to understand", the two Persian-Dari forms appear to be "fah-mi-dan" and "fa-mi-dan". However, the second one of these does not have the "-dan" ending; it has "-di" at the end. I think that is an error, but since I'm not sure, I thought I'd point it out to you. CorinneSD (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

No, no, it's really easy: All mainstream New Persian dialects in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia including the written standards Farsi (of Iran), Dari (of Afghanistan) and Tajik (of Tajikistan) descend from Early New Persian, and via ENP, from Middle and Old Persian.

(There are indeed some dialects that branched off earlier from the mainstream, already in Middle or even Old Persian times, thus bypassing the Early New Persian stage – as it were –, but they are marginal and not counted as part of New Persian dialects. Tat, the language of the eponymous ethnic group, is one such dialect group; it probably results from a pre-Islamic migration from the Persis to the Caucasus.)

It is true that the previous phrasing did not strictly imply direct descendence, but it could easily be understood that way and I tried to prevent that interpretation. If you can find a more elegant way to word this, I'd be grateful.

You are right; the normal Persian infinitive is -dan or -tan, and the ending -di looks unfamiliar. It does look like a mistake; final nun and ye are similar. However, New Persian dialectology is not my forte. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

If it's helpful, consider the history of English. All mainstream English dialects in the world ultimately descend from Early Modern English, which usually means the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible. However, the traditional English dialects of Scotland (known as Scots), of Northern England (Northumbrian), and of Southwestern England (known as Westcountry English and effectively including the extinct languages Yola and Fingalian in Ireland, as well as Pembrokeshire English in Wales) are not descended from Early Modern English in that sense, but from collateral dialects in Shakespeare's time, which is why they are much more divergent while still palpably related, and at least Scots, Yola and Fingalian are often not truly considered part of the English language in the proper sense, despite being descended from Middle and Old English just the same.

Early Modern English and Early New Persian are thus analogous. Middle Scots is contemporary to Early Modern English, but not considered part of it, nor is Old Anglo-Irish (Old Yola/Fingalian); similarly, "Old Tat" (medieval Tat) was contemporary with Early New Persian, but is not conventionally considered part of it.

To add to your confusion, Early New Persian was basically a late Middle Persian dialect that co-existed with many others. (In fact, ENP was spoken in Central Asia along the Amu Darya, where the original language was Sogdian, and not in the Persis, the original homeland of Persian; ENP was basically the result of a Middle Persian colonisation of the Sogdiana and had a Sogdian substratum, along with an Arabic superstratum and a Turkic adstratum. In the 8th and 9th centuries, you can find both texts in Early New Persian and in Middle Persian in Central Asia, all written in different scripts without any strict association: basically, every language could be written in any writing system at the time in Central Asia.) It's just the one that was heavily Arabised and prevailed over the others, replacing them for the most part (probably because it was associated with Islam and the other dialects with Zoroastrianism). Only remnants like Tat continue the extra-Samanid tradition of Middle Persian into modern times. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for the long and detailed explanation and additional information! Clearly written, too. Now I have more articles to read! Can you read all those languages? I will look at the article again tomorrow with rested eyes. Do you mind if I ask Lysozym to look at that table/chart? CorinneSD (talk) 01:25, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Whew, I already thought I had packed too much info in there. To be fair, the definition of the "Early Modern English" stage is not clear-cut and "the KJV dialect" is a narrow definition, but in practice, when people talk about EME, they generally ignore non-Midlands dialects (although ironically, the typical thou/ye distinction has only survived in these peripheral dialects). Northumbrian and Westcountry English haven't skipped the Early Modern stage, they just had their own Early Modern stages different from the standard (Midlands) EME dialect.

Iranian languages you mean? Not spontaneously, but with dictionaries and grammars I should be able to figure texts in these languages out – I don't have a lot of practice, but at least the older languages (Avestan, Old Persian, Middle Persian, Sogdian) I've had classes in, and a bit of New Persian. The similarities are considerable indeed and having a general idea about Proto-Iranian and some general lines of how it developped into the individual languages is very helpful. Kind of like how when you know Latin and one or two modern Romance languages well, and know the basic developments, major differences and isoglosses, you can figure any Romance dialect out relatively easily, see? It's still a lot of work, but you needn't start totally from scratch. It's a head-start if nothing else.

No, of course I don't mind at all. Do ask him, please. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

All very interesting to me. I don't know much about early stages of English; will have to read more (I always wondered about Scots English, though). I've also noticed that on television programs coming from England that there are some accents of British English that I find very difficult to understand even if I listen very carefully; perhaps they're from northern England. CorinneSD (talk) 16:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello

Hello,

You reverted a big amount of edits here ], but you didn't (probably) notice that you also returned an unsourced statement supposing that Dari would be native to Eastern Iran. There's no such source or reference, or on the page itself that confirms this. So that has to be fixed.

Regards

- 84.241.195.240 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 06:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

See Dari language#Dialect continuum. The dialects of Mashhad and Herat are more similar to each other than each is to the respective national standard variety. Do you seriously expect the dialect boundaries to cleanly and precisely run along the modern national borders? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

ANI discussion

This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Krakkos (talk) 18:34, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I would like to hear your neutral view on Ban (title)

Hi Florian, I'm contacting You because very much liked your reasoning and NPOV at Talk:Croats#Origins and Etyomology, and as you have studied Indo-European linguistics, would like to hear your thoughts on the origin of medieval title Ban, the top fifth currently cited sources, and especially the discussion which was held almost a year ago, and the saved revision at sandbox which was discussed about. Every question, point out is friendly acceptable, when you have time. Thanks.--Crovata (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I bother you, but I don't know who to contact. I'm already writing a new revision with newer reliable sources in the sandbox which will differ from the older one (but can still be seen in the sandbox). As then, the etymology of the word will not be considerably changed or even touched, actually, what I'm talking about is that title origin and word origin are two different things. In the old one I followed as role model the Slavs#Research history section, was that a good role model, and what you think about it?

I can't avoid to mention, but user Ivan Štambuk could be competent in etymology, yet, he can't control to interfere his personal POV, apparently due to lack of knowledge and which finds some kind of authority and more relevant to that of mainstream by modern academic scholars, in the discussion. Actually, because of him the old revision was dismissed. I don't deny it wasn't perfect, it needed to be additionally edited, but not simply dismissed, and because of it my intention then was even seen as some kind of threat to the article. He persistently and intentionally denies and ignores, among other, those cited mainstream quotes by modern historians and historian linguists, saying that will remove them if will be added. Calling them obsolete, obscure, or citations even my own POV/OR and invents every other possible fictitious reason to substantiate his personal biased POV so that those information will not be mentioned, and to avoid the real issue of the discussion, yet continues to infinitely and aimlessly to discuss.

I am asking you, if he will not be focused, concise, and friendly any kind to the disccusion and me as an editor, can I relate on you to review the revision when will be over (in the sandbox talk page)?--Crovata (talk) 21:53, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I finished the revision about the title Ban, specifically "Origin of the title" and sub-sections "Etymology" and "Research history". Please give me your opinion in the discussion, and can I include it into the current article revision without any issues? Also would note that in the mean time re-wrote articles on the Origin hypotheses of the Croats and about the title Župan, which more profundly give "the answers" (as there is none official) on the each title origin and whole previous discussion. In the upcoming days will also do a major edit of articles White Croats and White Croatia. Hope for your soon opinion.--Crovata (talk) 14:20, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Our old conversation

Hi, how are you? If you remember we have a conversation about Slavs and Croats a few month ago. Not interested to improved that article(s) anymore? --Zyma (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Interesting article (2015)

Useful for IE-related articles: The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives --Zyma (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Etruscan civilization

Hello, Florian -- Here's a puzzle for you. Can you find a source for T'rasena in Etruscan civilization? See . CorinneSD (talk) 00:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Persian Romani

In case you're interested, Glottolog has added four Persian-Romani languages. I listed them at Para-Romani. — kwami (talk) 23:16, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm wondering if it isn't more like that they're para-Domari. — kwami (talk) 02:41, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Have you read Iranica? Apparently, most of these varieties are (para-)Domari, but some are (para-)Romani. It simply depends, and a term like Ghorbati is more like a generic descriptor (like Popoluca) which doesn't have any connection with the precise classification. We cannot really tease these apart easily; there are so many of these varieties, and they are poorly documented. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:23, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, if you see any improvements to make, please feel free. This isn't an interest of mine, but it does seem to be a rather embarrassing gap in our coverage. — kwami (talk) 04:31, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. Unfortunately, Tsiganology isn't really a special interest of mine, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Kayla Mueller

On 28 March 2015, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Kayla Mueller, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that ISIL hostage Kayla Mueller once participated in the International Solidarity Movement in defending the homes of Palestinians? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Kayla Mueller. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Coffee // have a cup // beans // 00:05, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Eh? I only made two minimal edits to the article, actually. Nothing substantial at all. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:42, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Review requests

If you're interested, please review them. Recent changes: Sintashta, Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, Andronovo culture, and Chariot burial. Regards. --Zyma (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Zyma: Postpone the review. The editor behind these changes, Grathmy (talk · contribs), is probably a sock of Tirgil34 (talk · contribs). See Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Tirgil34. Krakkos (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Krakkos, for letting us know that there's no need to bother. Thank you for all of your tireless work hunting Tirgil34's sockpuppets.

It's interesting that Tirgil34 identifies as female on German Misplaced Pages, like confirmed sock Lamedumal and suspected sock ArordineriiiUkhtt, who got me banned, and apparently identifies or poses as a trans woman. I have to say I wonder what's up there. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:00, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Tirgil34 has recently been very active on Wiktionary through his sock Hirabutor, with which he is primarily engaged in reconstrucing various Proto Indo-European words. For example he claims that the Germanic and Celtic word for horse are of Turkic origin, proving that the Scythians were Turkic. Is this reliable? I would also like to hear your opinon at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Uysyn. Krakkos (talk) 23:25, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

It's a complete non sequitur, of course. Even if we grant that all of this is correct and the sources have not been misrepresented (which I can't be bothered to check right now), a Wanderwort passing through the Scythians does not prove anything about the language or ethnic identity of the Scythians. All we have is a pre-Germanic/Celtic *marko- (hence, dating to Iron Age Central Europe), which vaguely resembles Asian, especially East Asian, horse words. What the origin of this word is, especially geographically, is by no means clear, as so frequently in putative Eurasian Wanderwörter. Note that Kroonen in his Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic says no more about *marha- than "a Germanic-Celtic isogloss", gives a reconstruction *mark-o-, which he identifies as weur, i. e., common Germanic/(Italo-)Celtic, and makes no mention of the Asian horse words at all, clearly not finding them relevant to the etymology of the word, nor informative. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:08, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanup. Tirgil34's version was of course full of OR and SYN. For example it claimed that "This might be an Asiatic Wanderwort... possibly originated in the domestication of wild horses by the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan (3700-3100 BCE)." I have actually checked the accessible sources, and none of them claimed that. It's a complete invention by him. Tirgil34 has a Youtube account with more than 7,000 subscribers, where he is promoting this theory, in addition to claiming that Etruscans, Greeks, Native Americans, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, even Celts and Germans are of Turkic origin. He claims that the Botai culture of "4th-6th millenium BC" is of Proto-Turkic origin, and then that the Wusun of the Han-era as Proto-Turkic. That is, the same Proto-language existing for 6,000 years. He's obviously clueless about linguistics. Appearently, Checkuser identified bad sockpuppets qualify for indefinite blocking at Wiktionary, so the policy is quite clear on how Hirabutor should be dealt with. Krakkos (talk) 23:03, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your effort. Clearly a man (woman?) on a mission. This sort rarely gives a damn for details such as how to use a term like proto-X technically precisely. No idea why no admin seems to care that Tirgil34 and many others of that ilk pollute Misplaced Pages and Wiktionary with straight-out ultranationalist propaganda, misinformation and lies. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:35, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

See now Wiktionary, where Tirgil34 amply demonstrates that comprehension problem. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Semitic languages

Hi Florian, I noticed that you are a German speaker who is interested in languages. Would you be kind enough to help out at Talk:Semitic_languages#German_speaker_needed_-_Eichorn.27s_explanation?

Eichhorn is credited with creating the term "Semitic" in its modern usage, and the 220-year-old work in which he explains his logic for creating the term doesn't translate well via google translate. I have spent a lot of time transposing out the german text (the google books version doesn't seem to have scanned well), so any improvements you can make would be greatly appreciated.

One it's fixed, we will put the most relevant quotes into the body of the english article, and if German editors are interested we could put the same into the de version.

Oncenawhile (talk) 22:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Some falafel for you!

Thanks for your help translating at Semitic languages! Oncenawhile (talk) 07:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad I could help! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:21, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Tirgil34

Hi Florian. Can you please comment on the discussion regarding Tirgil34 and his new socks? here is the discussion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.219.165.40 (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Mutual relations

Florian, as first, on the discussion above by the IP user, which is by the way a sock puppet accusing many editors for being Tirgil34 socks, wrote "Ah yes, I know Crovata ... He insisted on using outdated, cherrypicked literature to support his fringy ideas. Tedious guy and very Tirgil34-like in his monomania". Do you know how much is disgusting to read something so untrue about by an editor who writes only truth and edits only according the WP:NPOV principles? I am saying again, do not fall for editor Ivan Štambuk lies. Obviously you do not know how much there's propaganda by both sides (right or left) among ex Yugoslavian countries. Yes, he is indeed lying about this certain topic because of personal reasons, accusing and pointing false issues about it, and he's not whatsoever an expert on Croatian Early Middle Age history and Croatian ethnogenesis. In March discussed with him at his talk page, found his total bias and lack of knowledge about the whole topic, nonethless invited him to give his view at my sandbox talk page, he still did not accept, was inactive for months, to be active again this last several days and to do what - again storm the article with false accusations.

You are calling me "uncivil and dishonest", where and on what basis? Did you read at all the discussions and his behaviour during them? Mocking every reliable academic scholar or historian which is against his own personal POV? During all discussions with him, he showed only intentional ignorance of the points of discussion. And you're defending him and his personal POV? Please answer me, why?

The discussion at the Ban (title) talk page is wholly set incorrectly (intentionally). It should not be about "including" those sourced, reliable and important scholars consideraations about the topic, yet "removing" them according WP:NPOV, and not on personal biased editor POV. You were welocmed to give your opinion about the discussion, about the sandbox talk page revision, still did not answer me back then. And waiting for "consensus" with infinite duration due to inactivity of editors (intentional), or because there's no constructive discussion (due to personal editor POV which is no WP criteria), is no good.

Please, sustain from reverting the sourced info from the article, and friendly and constructively join the discussion. And am saying again, the removal has to be based on WP principles (there's none), as everything else is unsubstantiated bias.--Crovata (talk) 21:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

With your begging and whining, and repetition of your accusations and insults against Ivan, you're only making things worse. Spamming people with walls of text is uncivil and dishonest too. Despite your insinuations, I do not always agree with Ivan, but I respect him – unlike you, who is just another aggressive nationalist with no relevant expert knowledge to speak of, instead you're just a WP:RANDY. Which means: There is nothing more to discuss with you, because you're just too thick-headed; Ivan has explained things to you again and again and you just wouldn't listen, so he got tired and stopped pointlessly trying to get through to you. You're a hopeless case. Shut up and stop bothering me, please. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Florian, do you know why I invited you to the discussion in March? I will not comment false accusations (of being aggressive nationalist, hopeless case...) as have years of neutral and objective studying, and done multiple constructive edits about the topic you're not aware at all. Ivan is still respected by me, but his bias and lack of knowledge, and intentional wish to be removed reliable sources from the topic have nothing to do with following Misplaced Pages NPOV principles as violating them. I am sorry to write that, but that how it is. Please, reconsider what you wrote, and after few days, friendly and constructively invite you to give your neutral and critical view of the topic here, or on my talk page. This reverts and replying on multiple false accusations is tiresome as am working on several articles. Thank you.--Crovata (talk) 21:28, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Because it's pointless. Discussions with you always move in circles. You've already been told that the whole etymology stuff with outdated, misrepresented or irrelevant sources does not belong into the article. Your false accusations against Ivan are tiresome indeed. You're not objective, neutral or unbiased at all. So finally shut up and leave me in peace. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussions which lead to truth and construction are not useless. For example, to understand how they are not outdated, misrepresented or irrelevant, or the perspective of my intentions and edits. Understanding that is not futile at all. My friendly invitation is still there. Okay.--Crovata (talk) 21:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Sigh...

Florian, is he our genius? Differing from an average Hindu nationalist, he reject OIT, but preoccupied with Andronovo, lndo-European and particularly lndo-lranian homeland. Also his last comments regarding languages of Scythian-related groups (such as Massagates), BB Lal-remember Grathmy's comments-, Turko-Mongols...are also interesting. What do you think? Read the last discussion that was opened by him and decide by yourself.

Note: Our buddy was interested in Buddhism, and it is not so hard to pretend as if he was lndian. 176.219.160.171 (talk) 08:58, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

@Krakkos: You're the expert sock-hunter. What do you think? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

"Sigh" again....Florian, i think the hopeless vandal is watching your talk page-not surprisingly. The "lndian"(!) account stopped editing and just after 1 day, an another one was created for the same purpose. But this time, in order not to be noticed, he avoid particular topics that were mentioned above. This guy must be unemployed or have profits (such as money) for these kinds of edits. 'Cause nobody has such a free time. 176.219.133.189 (talk) 12:57, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

176.219.133.189 Surely there is a similarity between the above mentioned users and Tirgil with regards to the rejection of Bronze Age nomadic cultures of Central Asia as Proto-Indo-Iranian, and similarities with Grathmy in regards to both this and rejection of Indo-Aryan migration theory. These accoutns could however belong to a separate "Indigenous Aryans" promoting sockmaster. If you find more convincing evidence i suggest you file an SPI yourself, and create an account while you're at it. Krakkos (talk) 18:16, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

@Krakkos: l have created and replied you via e-mail. 176.219.134.165 (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Copulating with a Dead Horse

That is, hands down, the funniest piece of "nerd" humor I have seen in at least a month. I even shared it on Facebook. Thank you for that good laugh. It definitely brightened my day. --Taivo (talk) 17:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

My pleasure! I'm glad that my inability to resist a pun sometimes amuses people other than myself :-) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Your opinion about this dubious etymology

Hi. I read this article Kunduz. The etymology section looks completely wrong and dubious. This is the last clean revision. Then an IP user appeared and made these changes. Current revision is more similar to a pseudo-etymology. Even if IP's edit is right, the etymology section turned into a confusing and nonsense section, and it needs cleanup. Would you please verify it? Unfortunately, I found many similar cases on other articles (various topics). Not just dubious etymology sections but all kinds of pseudo-scientific things. And I don't know how to deal with this huge amount of forum-like and personal analysis/commentary stuff. Every time we fix and clean an article, theses problems happen again. --Zyma (talk) 22:04, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

This is going to be difficult without a source for the etymology that was in the article previously. You could revert the IP additions as unsourced, but then they could complain that the original etymology wasn't sourced either. A citation is the obvious solution. Sorry I can't help more, I don't know where to look (as in books), perhaps you can find something on Google Books or Google Scholar. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:12, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

About Arabic ayin(ع)

Here we have some other ideas.

Which one should be applied?

Huhu9001 (talk) 09:15, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

When in doubt, leave it out. Ladefoged is a generalist source, whom specialised sources can override. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, why haven't you checked Talk:Voiced pharyngeal fricative, the obvious to-go place? It's full of discussions on this point. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

To Florian Blaschke: Yes, it is. But as far as I know, the idea of adding "ʕrabi" (عربي) to the article was however the one supported by the editors on that page.Huhu9001 (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

One or two editors do not a consensus make. If you are so desperate to add it, even though the Egyptian Arabic example is already there, start a new discussion or continue an existing one on the talk page. However, be aware that there is no such thing as "Arabic" without qualification, and Modern Standard Arabic is hardly anybody's first language and its pronunciation varies regionally according to the native dialect of the speaker. So it is better to have an example from a specific dialect. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

To Florian Blaschke: I am not sure since seemingly there is no one standing against it on that page. On the other hand, is it suggested that the item "Standard Arabic" should never appear in the "Occurance" tables of any IPA articles?--by Huhu9001 (talk) at 14:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Depends – if there is no (or no significant) regional variation in the pronunciation of a certain phoneme, I don't see any big problem with this.

By the way, there is no need to write "To (link to my user page): " (or use the shorter alternative {{ping|Florian Blaschke}}) on this page all the time, because I get notifications anyway whenever somebody writes something on my talk page. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:58, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

To Florian Blaschke: Sorry, it might be a habbit arising from OCD.--by Huhu9001 (talk) at 15:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a honey-trap for people with OCD tendencies or actual OCD. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:19, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

References

1. Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996). The sounds of the world’s languages. Oxford: Blackwells. ISBN 0-631-19814-8

Safaitic and Hismaic are Arabic, not north-Arabian

I request you revisit your changes and read Ahmad al-Jallad's work on Safaitic --Zimriel (talk) 17:00, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Is it already consensus in the field or only a lone researcher's opinion? If it's only al-Jallad's opinion (so far), we cannot report it as fact. Not yet. Be patient. For the time being, it's better to persist in treating Safaitic as ANA.

Even if Safaitic may really be more similar in some ways or in fact more closely related to Classical Quranic Arabic than the rest of ANA, it does not necessarily follow that Safaitic is the exact ancestor of Classical Quranic Arabic, which has al-, not (h)an-.

I remain sceptical also because of the region where these inscriptions were found, which is much farther north than Mecca and the Hijaz in general.

@AnonMoos: Do you know more about this? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:10, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The Meccan evidence cannot be reviewed by impartial scholars - on penalty of death. So let's ignore all that. We should just be following the philology of the Arabic language(s). It looks a lot like you've just assumed Muslims' own self-understanding (which is, as noted above, untestable), and that this a priori reasoning is influencing your editorial decisions elsewhere...

Al-Jallad deals with the al- question at length. Al- does in fact appear in some Safaitic inscriptions: pp. 15, 294 (this in Greek script). More isoglosses are brought in pp 11-14. So this one bit of evidence you've brought is inconclusive.

I really would like some experts in Semitic linguistics to chime in on this. --Zimriel (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

No response. I'm just going to go ahead and wipe out your changes, then. --Zimriel (talk) 21:51, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Because I'm totally Muslim, right? I still do not agree and remain sceptical. As long as there is no expert input, the old versions should remain.

Misplaced Pages is inherently conservative (in the scientific, not political sense) and incorporates new ideas as fact only after they have been accepted by consensus in the relevant field. So as soon as handbooks report al-Jallad's ideas as fact, we can present them as fact. So far, they are only a prelimary proposal and should be mentioned only as that: a proposal still to be examined by the expert community. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:23, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Sredny Stog culture

I'm still reading the article Kurgan hypothesis. As I read, I get side-tracked by reading other articles to which this article is linked. One is the article on the Sredny Stog culture. I am puzzled by something and wondered if you could clarify it for me. The last sentence in the second paragraph in the section Sredny Stog culture#Overview is the following:

• For this and other reasons, Yuri Rassamakin suggests that the Sredny Stog culture should be considered as an areal term, with at least four distinct cultural elements co-existing inside the same geographical area.

The phrase "an areal term" was not linked, but I looked it up and found an article Areal feature, which I read. However, upon re-reading the sentence from the Kurgan hypothesis article that I copied above, I cannot figure out how "an areal term" fits in with anything in the article Areal feature. Did I find the wrong article? What's the connection? CorinneSD (talk) 02:16, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Ha, I guessed correctly that it is you! Well, "areal" in this case is not a strictly technical term, nor meant in a linguistic sense, but it might be a bit similar to its use in linguistics, in that it could refer to cultures co-existing in a particular area and influencing each other. What Rassamakin seems to mean is that "Sredny Stog culture" should be taken as a collective term for these distinct archaeological cultures which used to exist in a particular area side by side. I'm not sure, but perhaps he thinks that the term is appropriate or useful because despite their distinctness, these cultures do have similarities and common features thanks to mutual influences. Similarly, the Altaic languages in Asia (or the Mosan languages in North America) do not form a demonstrated language family (well, I guess the jury is still out on Altaic), but owing to the undisputed existence of long-standing mutual influence between the languages in question, the term is still useful; i. e., even if Altaic is not a family, it is an areal group. So you could say "Altaic" or "Mosan" is more of an areal term when asked what you think of either. And areal groups, whether in linguistics or in archaeology, tend to be linked through areal features. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:35, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Florian, for this and the Kurgan culture explanation. This is the first time I have ever heard or seen that word, "areal". I don't even know how it is to be pronounced. If WP articles are to be written in a style and at a level that is comprehensible to the average reader, I think this word qualifies as jargon particular to archaeology and/or linguistics. If the word is not the only possible one for that context, can you think of another word that would convey a similar meaning?

Also, I have a similar concern about a word in Funnelbeaker culture. It's the first word in the second paragraph in Funnelbeaker culture#Ethnicity and language:

• Heterodoxically, Dutch publications mention mixed burials and propose a quick and smooth internal change to Corded Ware within two generations occurring about 2900 BC in Dutch and Danish TRB territory, probably precluded by economic, cultural and religious changes in East Germany, and call the migrationist view of steppe intrusions introducing Indo-European languages obsolete (at least in this part of the world).

I know that "heterodoxically" means in a manner that differs from the "orthodox" view, and I assume that in this case Gimbutas' kurgan hypothesis is the "orthodox" view to which the Dutch publications are being contrasted, but the Dutch publications were published in 1991. Wasn't Gimbutas' 1956 kurgan hypothesis already generally held to be incorrect by then? Why use such an academic transitional adverb as "heterodoxically" for an encyclopedia that's supposed to be comprehensible to the average reader? I'm sure there are other, simpler ways to indicate that the Dutch writers' ideas were in contrast to the kurgan hypothesis. Even the phrase, "probably precluded by economic, cultural and religious changes in East Germany" is a little dense. It's not clear what is meant by that. What do you think? CorinneSD (talk) 06:04, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

How about "regional"? After all, "area" and "region" are very similar in meaning.

As for Gimbutas's (Gimbutas'? Does Lithuanian count as a classical language?) model, it was never really considered incorrect by linguists at least; if they had an opinion on the Indo-European Urheimat question at all, they usually thought (even before Gimbutas) that an origin in late Neolithic/Chalcolithic Europe, especially in the Pontic steppes, is a plausible if not the most plausible solution (the Kurgan hypothesis article mentions that the basic idea precedes Gimbutas; her main achievement was the compilation of archaeological data that helped support it). My impression is that it is only among modern archaeologists (due to their antimigrationist bent and the tendency to assume that archaeological continuity means linguistic continuity as well) and geneticians (who share the continuity fallacy with archaeologists) that Gimbutas and her theory is unpopular, and who so that many of them eagerly latched onto Renfrew's alternative hypothesis.

Yes, these phrasings are not exactly lay-friendly, but academics love jargony wording when it is concise. If you manage to rephrase it without making it sound cumbersome, but possibly even similarly succinct, kudos. Yes, "heterodox" is the opposite of "orthodox". As for "precluded", that doesn't make sense in context. Perhaps something like "accompanied" is meant. It's about the idea that the change from TRB to Corded Ware was an internal development, which is yet another instance of the continuity fallacy: It's always possible that cultural changes are due to an internal dynamic, but that does not mean that migration cannot play a role. Historical experience tells us that it often does, and that migration is a very common event, in all regions and periods of history, so it makes no sense to dismiss "migrationist" explanations out of hand; at least in this case, I see no reasoning given for the exclusion of this possibility, so it does appear overly facile to me. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:10, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful replies. Regarding the sentence in Sredny Stog culture#Overview, if we transfer the linguistic meaning of "areal" from the Areal feature article to an anthropological situation, as described in the last part of that sentence, then "areal" has a specific meaning that "regional" lacks, doesn't it? Something about the "four distinct cultures" influencing each other? I could easily substitute "regional" for "areal", but does that capture the meaning intended? Or is it better not to introduce this idea without further explaining it (and I don't see further explanation of Rassamakin's idea)?

In stead of "heterodoxically", how about beginning the sentence with one of these:

• In contrast to Gimbutas's hypothesis, Dutch publications...
• In contrast, Dutch publications...
• van J. H. F. Bloemers & T. van Dorp express a different view: they mention mixed burials and propose..."
• Dutch researchers express a different view: they mention mixed burials and propose... – CorinneSD (talk) 16:08, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

It depends. If it is already clear from the preceding text that these Dutch researchers do not represent the mainstream or majority thinking on the origins of the Corded Ware culture, that suffices. (By the way: Have you seen mention of the new study which now also provides genetic support for a link between Yamna/steppe cultures and the Corded Ware? This link it particular has been a long-standing problem in archaeology, because it seemed difficult to show that the Corded Ware actually derives from the steppe — which, curiously, also appeared to favour the outdated thinking popular in early 20th century Germany that the Corded Ware people were the true Proto-Indo-Europeans! Now we can finally bury this idea, which was always awfully convenient for the völkisch movement; it's more difficult to argue or insinuate, as is often attempted on talk pages, that Western, Central or Northern European scholars favouring the Pontic steppe as the Indo-European Urheimat are somehow motivated by ethnocentrism.) Else, it might be preferrable to state something like "In contrast to Gimbutas's prevailing hypothesis" or " hypothesis, which is predominant in the field" etc.

As for "areal", I agree that "regional" doesn't fully capture it, and doesn't quite fit. The term clearly has something to do with geography, and can suggest interaction (although I'm not completely sure if Ramassakin meant that), but I'm not clear on how to paraphrase it. Don't you think the following clause clarifies the meaning, and that areal is an adjective referring to areas? This bit of technical jargon in an article about a technical subject, not something that novices are likely to read, strikes me as tolerable. But if you can think of a more lay-friendly paraphrase, I would be delighted.

As a final point, names ending in -s in the singular always present a conundrum for me when I want to use the possessive of such a name. According to English possessive, use of the s after the apostrophe is normally mandatory – the only exception being names with Latin and Greek endings. The Lithuanian ending -as happens to be the precise counterpart of Greek -os and Latin -us, so I'm tempted to drop the awkward second s here, too, and use a bare apostrophe, as if the ending were Latinate or Greek. What do you think? Or, better: How do you pronounce the possessive of Gimbutas or (say) Zorbas? Same as the base form or with an additional syllable (as if Gimbutases, Zorbases)? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:12, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Re possessive form of "Gimbutas", etc.: I am also often puzzled by the same thing and have read the pertinent sections of English possessive over and over. I think I read in that article that the form that is closest to the way the word would be pronounced (by native speakers) is one guideline that is used. I think in the case of names like "Gimbutas", most native speakers would pronounce it without adding an extra syllable: Mrs. Gimbutas' house (kind of like Achilles' heel). It takes a bit of work to add that extra syllable, and most speakers are in a hurry so would be likely to drop that extra syllable. I don't know the name "Zorbas". I have heard a Greek first name "Zorba", so it would be "Zorba's house", but if "Zorbas" is indeed a name, I think it would be Zorbas' house, like Gimbutas' house.

Re "areal": On Merriam-Webster dictionary on-line, looking up "areal" leads only to the word "area". The adjective and adverbial forms are just added at the bottom and have no separate definitions. I think the only noun definition that would apply is 5b. a geographic region. So, as you said, "areal" would mean something like, "of, pertaining to, or having to do with an area, or geographical region", and I think that's how it is used in the Sredny Stog culture#Overview sentence. Maybe it wasn't meant to suggest anything more than that. I'll copy the sentence here for reference:

• For this and other reasons, Yuri Rassamakin suggests that the Sredny Stog culture should be considered as an areal term, with at least four distinct cultural elements co-existing inside the same geographical area.

If it's just that simple, then this is not a very interesting sentence. It doesn't seem to say much. Rassamakin must have had something specific in mind, somehow contrasting the term with another use, but it's not clear (to me anyway) what that was. Perhaps something like this would make sense:

• For this and other reasons, Yuri Rassamakin suggests that the term "Sredny Stog culture" should be considered a localized term, with at least four distinct cultural elements co-existing inside the same geographical area.

I think we need an anthropologist to figure this out.

Re: Finding an appropriate transitional word or phrase: I'm sorry, I don't understand from your word "Else" what you are suggesting. I think you are suggesting using one of those two possible wordings, but I'm not sure. Shall we just use one of those? Thanks for your explanation about the latest genetic results. I really am only now learning about Corded Ware, etc., but will certainly keep reading. CorinneSD (talk) 19:39, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Re possessive: When would you use an additional syllable at all? Perhaps in monosyllabic words? Would you say (for example) Hicks's or Fox's or Rice's? I believe the point of the added s in the singular possessive form is to differentiate between, for example, Andrew's and Andrews's, Hay's and Hays's, Fock's and Fox's, or Parson's and Parsons's. If you don't add a syllable, you shouldn't add an s in the spelling, either. As for Zorba, the original Greek name (a surname, not a first name) is Zorbas; not sure why the -s is omitted in English.

Re "areal": I believe Rassamakin rejects the view of the Sredny Stog culture as a single, coherent archaeological culture and thinks instead that there are at least four distinct cultures from the same general area and period lumped together under that term, and that's what he means by saying "Sredny Stog culture" is an areal term. Unfortunately, I don't know how archaeologists delimit archaeological cultures; I think it would help a lot to understand this issue better.

Re "Else": I mean that if the context makes already clear that the opinion of the Dutch scholars in question diverges from the majority of scholars, who basically largely tend to agree with Gimbutas in this respect, there is no need to change the phrasing. If it is not clear, the sentence should explicitly mention that somehow so that the reader is not misled – originally, the adverb "heterodoxically" conveyed that point. I merely suggested possible phrasings, better ones could likely be found. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Re adding an additional syllable: I'm not sure, but I think most native speakers would not add an extra syllable for the possessive form of the name Hicks: "Mr. Hicks' house.. With the name Fox, I think most speakers would say, "Mr. Fox's house". With "Rice", I think most would say, "Mr. Rice's house". "Mr. Rice' house (no extra syllable) sounds wrong. Regarding distinguishing between Andrew's and Andrews's, I think most often the context would make it clear which is meant. "Andrew" is a men's first name, so we would hear things like, "I'm going over to Andrew's house," or "That's Andrew's car." "Andrews" is most often a surname, so we would be likely to hear, "That's the Andrews' house." The addition of "the" makes it clear that "Andrews" is a surname referring to a family. So it could be pronounced exactly the same as Andrew's and there would be no confusion.

Re: "areal", I hope the original writer wasn't thinking that "areal" meant "not real", or "without reality", as in "amoral" or "atypical". CorinneSD (talk) 15:54, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Like unreal? From the context, I don't think so. As for surnames, in the case of Andrew, I can't find a concrete example, but many if not most given names also occur as surnames, so disambiguation is still a real, valid concern. Also, both Luca and Lucas are given names in real-world use, but of course these were only examples and it doesn't actually matter much for my point if they exist IRL. I would like to know how prescriptive grammarians deal with the possessive of words in or . --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:07, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Have you seen this article? Apostrophe and the section Apostrophe#Singular nouns ending with an “s” or “z” sound and the subsequent one? CorinneSD (talk) 00:16, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Yep, I have. In fact, this confirms what I've suspected: Even in polysyllabic words, many authorities recommend an additional s, although it is often omitted in pronunciation (probably virtually always in colloquial, not particularly careful enunciation). However, in monosyllabic words, adding s is much more commonly recommended, which is why your comment that most speakers omit it even in Hicks is surprising. Only classical and biblical names are exempted, but I've never had a problem with Moses' or even Zeus' (an exceptional monosyllable!) because I was already aware of that particular exception. (How about Nox, the goddess of the night, then?) James can be included if a biblical character or a saint is meant, but I would tolerate omission in general. (I would also add s if the s, z or x is silent.) I ask, of course, because I have no native pronunciation as a guide. Interestingly, the omission of the s is claimed to be an archaism. I wonder what the pronunciation in the early 20th century or earlier periods was. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:33, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Have you seen this discussion of James in the third paragraph of Apostrophe#Possessives in geographic names? CorinneSD (talk) 00:39, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't quite get it. I understand that St James's Park has an additional 's because it's not the park of St James, but the park of the parish of St James, but why does the church have an additional 's then, too? The parish was named after the church, so it is properly the park of the parish of the church of St James and according to the "double genitive" logic, it should be a triple genitive: St James's's Park! But since the church already has an 's, it should actually be a quadruple genitive: St James's's's Park (for St James's Church's Parish's Park)! :D --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:09, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Indo-European ablaut

Hello, Florian - I've just read the article on Indo-European ablaut, and I have two questions:

1) In the section Indo-European ablaut#Preliminary considerations, in the first paragraph we read:

• (quantitative gradation: photograph and photography).

In the third paragraph of the same section we read:

• photograph/photography)

this last one in Edit Mode: ''phot'''o'''graph''<!-- the second o of photograph is bolded because it's the one that changes pronunciation -->/''phot'''o'''graphy'').

You'll notice that in the first instance of "photograph" (first paragraph), the first "o" is in bold and in the second instance of "photograph" (third paragraph), the second (middle) "o" is in bold. I just wondered if it was supposed to be different like that. Are they different because they represent two different types of vowel-change? (In the second one, I hope by photoograph the writer didn't mean that the second "o" is pronounced as a long o; I thought it was pronounced as a schwa, but that may be a different issue.)

2) About half-way through the article, I saw "ablaut" in italics. Since up to that point it had been in Roman (regular, not italic) font, I changed a few from italics to Roman. Then it was Roman for a while, and then at the end of the article back to italics. I don't know whether it should be in italics or not, but I think since it's not in italics in the title, and it seems to be an English word, I don't think it needs to be in italics. If you do, let me know and I'll go back and change them all to italics. CorinneSD (talk) 22:24, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

1) I wasn't the person who originally added this example, and I'm not a mind-reader, so your best bet is bringing this up on the talk page, as the adder may notice it and react (you can find out who the adder was by going through the history, and you can ping him on talk so they are more likely to notice that a discussion about the example was started); if the original adder doesn't turn up and nobody else can make sense of it either, it's better to remove the example entirely. (Perhaps whoever wrote that comment missed that both Os change pronunciation.)

2) I'm not a native English speaker, so I wouldn't know; but my impression matches yours: as a technical term, it seems to be a naturalised word, even though it may not be familiar to laypeople. Again, a question better suited to the talk page. I just don't know for sure what the matter is. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:03, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 16:13, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Re (1), I posted a comment on the talk page. Re (2), apparently it is an English word , so I don't think it needs to be in italics. CorinneSD (talk) 16:30, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

OK. By the way, do you know the trick explained at Meta (and just demonstrated by me here)? So, in the case at hand, you can also use a link such as ]. This trick even works in the searchbox! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:38, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh... Thanks! CorinneSD (talk) 16:40, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Persian language: Comment request

Hi. Please write your opinion on Talk:Persian_language#SIL_macrolangauge. Regards. --Zyma (talk) 16:10, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Indigenous Australians

Hello, Florian - I've been reading the article on Indigenous Australians, and I have a question for you. In the second paragraph in the section Indigenous Australians#Languages is the following sentence:

• In the north, stretching from the Western Kimberley to the Gulf of Carpentaria, are found a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages which have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family nor to each other.

There is something not quite right grammatically with this sentence. Since I don't know what the actual situation with the languages is, I'm going to explain my concerns and then let you choose the best wording. (Please forgive me if I'm explaining something that is perfectly clear to you.)

Because the negative is part of the verb ("have not been shown"), the negative conjunction "nor" is not right. The phrase "nor to each other" is not clear. "Nor" would be right if the negative were before "to be related" (or even before "to the Pama–Nyungan family"). However, changing

• have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family

to

• have been shown not to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family

changes the meaning. It means something different. The first one expresses an unsuccessful effort to show relatedness. The second one expresses a specific result of research proving that "a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages" are not related to the Pama–Nyungan family of languages. So the construction cannot be changed unless the latter is true.

One possible re-wording is as follows:

• ...are found a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages which have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family; nor have they been shown to be related to each other.

Another possible re-wording is as follows:

• ...are found a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages which have been shown neither to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family nor to each other. (can only choose this if it is true)

Any thoughts? CorinneSD (talk) 01:10, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The phrasing is a bit redundant (and a comma is missing anyway, because the relative clause is not restrictive, but explanative; missing commas, in such cases, I find myself correcting a real lot). "Non-Pama–Nyungan" (see Australian Aboriginal languages#Classification) inherently refers to Australian Aboriginal languages that have not been demonstrated to be related to Pama–Nyungan, and it just so happens that these languages do not form a single demonstrated group (so the term "Non-Pama–Nyungan" is basically an areal term, or a wastebasket taxon, to use a term from biological taxonomy). Basically, the sentence tries to explain what "Non-Pama–Nyungan languages" are. Perhaps it would be better to split the sentence.

It is a principle in historical linguistics that it is never possible to demonstrate that languages or language groups (families) are not deeply related to each other; the reason is that after an unspecified period (usually, something on the order of 10,000 years is assumed), languages change so much that any evidence of relationship has become statistically indistinguishable from random similarities, i. e., chance, borrowing or other non-genetic reasons for similarities; the noise drowns out the signal. Even in the case of Indo-European, which is probably on the order of 5000–6000 years old, if we had no older attestations but only knew the contemporary languages as they were ca. 2000 AD, it would probably be difficult to show conclusively that Indo-European is a true family and not merely a long-standing areal group. (In the case of the Semitic languages, whose age is similar, but which are apparently slower-changing in some ways, it may be easier. Even Insular Celtic, which appears to be only as old as 2000 years, would be challenging because the Goidelic and Brythonic languages have changed so much, and radically diverged from each other in a clean split with no intermediates nor an outgroup!) So, only "have not been shown to be related" is conceivably correct.

Of those alternatives which you suggest, I prefer the neither-nor solution, but would add a comma to separate the relative clause since it is non-restrictive. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:15, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your informative reply. Unfortunately, the neither...nor wording I suggested above uses the construction "have been shown" which you say cannot be correct. The verb has got to be negative: "have not been shown". I think the solution is to get rid of the subordinate clause and split the sentence, and change "nor" to "or":

• In the north, stretching from the Western Kimberley to the Gulf of Carpentaria, are found a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages. These non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family or to each other.

Grammatically, this works the best, but I think the information in the second sentence could be given earlier, right after the terms are first introduced, immediately following the sentence, "The rest are sometimes lumped under the term "non-Pama–Nyungan". What do you think? CorinneSD (talk) 17:19, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Oops, yes, I missed that. Hmmm, yes, I agree, in fact I think the whole approach is wrong; redundant and stylistically ugly. We need to rethink the entire phrasing. You are right, the information should be introduced after the "lumped" sentence: "These languages and groups of languages have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family or to each other." (Or perhaps: "These consist of a number of small families and single languages which have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family or to each other.") While it may make sense didactically to repeat information, in this particular example it is a bit overkill, and I think unnecessary. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Marija Gimbutas

A lot of material was just added to Marija Gimbutas. Is Rational Wiki . org a reliable source? CorinneSD (talk) 00:52, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm a fan of RationalWiki, but as an open wiki, it is obviously not a RS. See WP:UGC. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:40, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

See and several just before it. CorinneSD (talk) 22:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Reverted. This user's edits are not helpful, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Rus (name)

Hello, Florian - I noticed this edit to Rus (name): . I don't know whether it is correct or not, but I put "Gothland" in the search bar and it redirected to Götaland. Then I put Gotland in the search bar and it went directly to an article on Gotland. I didn't search specifically for "East Gothland", though. Do you think this edit is correct? CorinneSD (talk) 22:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Why haven't you simply clicked on the link "East Gothland" in the text? :-) (Or indeed specifically searched for "East Gothland".) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:38, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

You're right. I should have. Sorry. CorinneSD (talk) 16:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

No worries! We all have a "D'oh!" moment sometimes. :-) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:13, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

redirect from Lion man of the Hohlenstein Stadel to new page Löwenmensch figurine

Sorry, went to follow your instructions, and found a note at the top of the article, is that adequate to make the move? I have made redirects for the pages that should have been affected. What else can I do to complete your instructions? _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 01:28, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

You should have used the Move function right away. Now it's too late. We'll have to wait for an admin to perform a histmerge.

Don't worry, however. You haven't broken anything. It's gonna be fine. Just remember this the next time you wish to rename an article.

And by the way, it is good form to discuss non-trivial page moves first. See WP:UPT. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:34, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I have learned a good lesson... move function... not that it would be used very often. I'd be glad to do the heavy lifting to correct this. _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 01:44, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

The history merge will take care of the problem. Just wait a bit. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:52, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Vila Franca do Campo

Hello, Florian - Do you know Latin? I think the Latin motto for the town of Vila Franca do Campo has been incorrectly translated as a question, but I'm not sure, and I don't want to change it unless I'm sure. I left a comment about this at User talk:Cplakidas#Vila Franca do Campo, which you can read. I'd appreciate your opinion, and if you think it should be changed to "He who is like God", or something else, please feel free to do so. Corinne (talk) 00:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Aptronym

Hey there, as you were recently on the Talk Page, but I don't know if you're very interested in the article I'm letting you know there's a discussion you may want to weigh in on at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Aptronym. Thanks! JesseRafe (talk) 18:15, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Both Aptronym and Nominative determinism are among those endearing amusing oases of quirkiness in Misplaced Pages that I would be sad to see go. Unfortunately, I can't think of dry factual reasons to keep Aptronym – at least none in addition to those already given! Still, thank you for your dedication, and for your pointer. A merger wouldn't be that bad, though, because it would mean the current version of Aptronym would still be accessible through the history of the redirect at least! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:57, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Name: Middle Persian = Sassanian?!

Hi. How are you? Would you please review these changes (diff) on Middle Persian? Some editors added "Sassanian" as alternative/native name and removed the others names. As I know, the other common names are Pahlavi and the Parsig (native name) but not such things like Sassanian. What do you think? --Zyma (talk) 12:05, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The edits look competent (note that the alternative names were moved, not removed), but Sassanian sounds odd. Have you checked Iranica? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, see and . Do you see something as Sasanian? The other name is just Pahlavi. But it's also mentioned that Pahlavi = Parthian in another era. And it seems Parsig added by Iranian editors, I searched it but just found this website. IMO, that Sasanian is a recent personal opinion on that article. Even if it's correct in some aspects, Sasanian Pahlavi sounds more accurate. Because there is no language/dialect such as Sasanian. They were just a Persian dynasty who spoke Middle Persian/Pahlavi. --Zyma (talk) 10:46, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think this is a valid alternative name, either, or at least there seems to be no evidence for this usage. As the first article (which is very interesting, BTW) explains at the beginning (in the section about Middle Persian dialectology), Pahlavi was originally a name for Northwestern Iranian dialects (including but not confined to Parthian) spoken in the centre and northwest of what is now Iran, but the term acquired a connotation of "heroic, old, ancient", and was eventually transferred to Zoroastrian Middle Persian. Considering the numerous Northwestern Iranian (mostly Arsacid-era Parthian) loanwords in Zoroastrian Middle Persian (and which are also found in Early New Persian and New Persian), this happens to be not entirely inappropriate. As the Misplaced Pages article now explains that Pahlavi refers to post-Sassanian Zoroastrian Middle Persian specifically, this is a distinct improvement. Only the "Sassanian" moniker seems to be wrong. I have no idea where it comes from and I have now reverted it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:43, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately, many editors add their own personal commentaries to articles. If you have time, take a look at Persian language, Old Persian, Western Persian, Dari language, Tajik language. Because I think all of them have similar issues due to recent contributions. Regards. --Zyma (talk) 23:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

My advice is to simply revert any edit that smells fishy. Especially if it is uncited, of course. Just be bold. Do trust your own judgment more; I know I trust it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:27, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Cumans

Hello, Florian -- I am in the midst of copy-editing the article Foundation of Moldavia (trying to familiarize myself with the subject matter in order to be able to voice an opinion about a discussion on the article's talk page regarding the word "Foundation" in the title). In the last paragraph of the section Foundation of Moldavia#Background, I came across a sentence that surprised me. Referring to the Mongols, the sentence reads:

• The conquerors adopted the Cuman language during the next century.

I had already looked at the table in the article on the Cumans, in the section Cumans#Codex Cumanicus, showing the same passage in Cuman, Turkish and English. A quick look at it shows that Cuman is quite similar to Turkish. However, I had always thought (based on the little I had read in college) that the reason Finnish and Hungarian were different from the other languages of Europe was because of the Mongol invasion. I also thought Turkish was another in the same group of languages as Finnish and Hungarian and that all three came from some central Asian (Mongol?) language. Thus, I was surprised to read that the Mongols adopted the Cuman language, which seems to be the opposite of what I had thought had occurred. What do I have wrong here? Can you correct me, or elucidate this for me? Corinne (talk) 00:41, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

No, you are mistaken about Finnish and Hungarian. These languages (the Finno-Ugric or Uralic languages, which include lots of "smaller" languages besides) are native to Europe, even if an early form might have been imported from Asia in deep prehistory (see Proto-Uralic homeland hypotheses). You are probably thinking of the Ural–Altaic languages hypothesis, but this hypothesis has been outdated for a very long time now, although it appears to have still been taught in some places until not too long ago (or you may have read a very old or outdated book). These languages all share certain superficial similarities (and lexicon), but this is due to contact (or simply chance, in some respects). Turkish and Cuman belong to the family known as Turkic languages, the Mongols traditionally speak Mongolic languages. Even the hypothesis that Turkic, Mongolic, (Manchu-)Tungusic and (in many conceptions) even Korean and Japanese belong to a big family (known as Altaic languages) is poorly supported. Speakers of Turkic and Mongolic languages in particular have had a long-standing contact (the Mongols dominated the Turkic-speaking groups at their height and in fact the Mongol armies and traders were mostly Turkic-speaking, not native Mongols), which probably accounts for almost all of the existing similarities on its own (apart from the more trivial ones such as the overall grammatic structure, which is only unusual from a Western European point of view). And yeah, usually the direction of the influence (and borrowing of words) runs from Turkic to Mongolic languages because Mongols tended to adopt Turkic languages (as these were more widely spoken and understood). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:05, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Florian, for your detailed explanation. It has been so long since I was in graduate school that my textbooks from that time are probably outdated. I will read the related articles on WP with interest. I just skimmed the article on Turkic languages. I want to ask you about something in the section Turkic languages#Schema. There is a bulleted list, and one of the items is:

• Suffix-final -G, e.g. in the suffix *lIG, in e.g. *tāğlığ

I suppose the three letters following the asterisk and the word "suffix": *lIG are properly written, but because the capital "I" looks like the lowercase "l", it looks like two capital I's or two lowercase "l's". Is there any way to differentiate the two letters so that they look different? Also, why is the middle letter, "I", capitalized when in the example word it appears to be lowercase (the "i" without a dot). By the way, what sound does that "i" without a dot represent? Corinne (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's the most likely explanation. On the Ural-Altaic areal, this summary (pp. 61–63) is well worth reading, by the way.

The poor differentiation between lower-case l and upper-case I is a well-known issue of sans-serif fonts, including the font (or alternatives) used in the Vector skin. Running text is usually in serif fonts, but in web texts, sans-serif is preferred (in fact, web typography seems to invert the print convention "serif for body text, sans-serif for titles" due to screen resolution typically being lower than paper resolution). This is actually a great point and I don't have a good solution. Maybe you'd like to bring this one up in WP:RD/L, WP:HD or WP:VP. (By the way, the fixed-width font I get in the edit box differentiates lower-case l and upper-case I well, but instead, lower-case l and the figure 1 are too close for comfort!)

In Turkish and related languages, when they are written in the modern Turkish alphabet, the dotless I represents a close back unrounded vowel. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Swiss Standard German

Hello, Florian -- I was just looking at the article on Swiss Standard German, and I came across something that I'd like to ask you about. It's about something in this part of the section Swiss Standard German#Written Swiss Standard German:

There are differences in gender for some nouns:

• Swiss das Tram, Germany die Tram (English: tram, used only in Bavarian and Franconian regions in the South - "Straßenbahn" is used elsewhere in Germany)

• Swiss das E-Mail, Germany die E-Mail (English: e-mail)

In the first bulleted item, I wonder if the "close" parenthesis is in the right place. In the bulleted items just before this, the information about the regional differences is outside the parentheses. I thought that perhaps just "(English:tram)" should be in parentheses. Normally, I would just go ahead and make the change, but with language articles, I am more careful than usual; I don't want to introduce any errors. Corinne (talk) 18:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Of course, you're right. The way it is worded wrongly implies we use the unassimilated English word tram /tɹæm/, but we use the loanword Tram, which is Germanised both in spelling and pronunciation. We say Tram /tram/ or Trambahn here, not /trɛm/ as in recent Anglicisms or heavily accented English. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:48, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Kharosthi

Hello, Florian -- I was looking at the article on Kharosthi, and in the section on the Kharosthi#Alphabet, the Kharosthi letters do not appear. Instead, there are just small boxes. How can I enable the appearance of the Kharosthi alphabet? Corinne (talk) 03:13, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Corinne, I've found this – does it help? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:26, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, I looked through a lot of the fonts and didn't see Kharosthi. I downloaded two of Wood's fonts, but when I looked at the article, that table looked the same. I don't know if there is a font I should have chosen, or whether there is something beyond downloading that I need to do. (At the beginning of Alan Wood's "home" page, there is a note that says he regrets that he has not had the time to update the website, and that many things are several years old. Some links I clicked on (to font-related websites) don't lead anywhere. Thanks, though. Any other ideas? Corinne (talk) 17:29, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not very knowledgeable about the font issue; in fact, this is an issue I have trouble with myself, and I'm often annoyed at seeing boxes and the fact that it is not easy to remedy this because you need tons of specialised fonts that cover parts of Unicode, while anything close to a pan-Unicode font does not exist; even the most comprehensive Unicode fonts cover the standard only very partially, and various scripts are not covered by any of these fonts (see the table). This is probably a constant source of frustration for many who work with obscure scripts. Maybe you'd like to ask on WP:HD or WP:RD/L instead. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:40, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Deletion of Category:Indo-European peoples

Hello Florian, i hope you are well. I recently came back from a semi-break and noticed that the category Category:Indo-European peoples was quietly deleted a month ago. What is your take on this? Is there any reason why Misplaced Pages should have categories on Turkic peoples, Tungusic peoples, Category:Uralic peoples but not Indo-European peoples? Krakkos (talk) 23:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Not really. You could argue that Indo-European peoples are hugely divergent ethnically and in physical type, but so are Turkic and Uralic peoples. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:11, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Odin

Hello, Florian -- Happy New Year! I just want to ask you what you think of this group of edits to Odin: . I never understood which was correct: "X derived (or derives) from Y" or "X is/are derived from Y", or doesn't it matter? If the change here from "derived" to "is/are derived" is correct, then there is one more instance that has to be changed, to be consistent. Corinne (talk) 16:19, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Happy New Year to you too! I've reverted the edit. Personally, I actually prefer to distinguish between descendance and derivation. For example, French eau descends from Latin aqua (it's the same word, just changed in pronunciation), but Latin aquarius is derived from aqua (two related, but different words). (I wouldn't write derives, because derivation is an active process, even if it may be spontaneous, while changes in pronunciation are often subtle and speakers are unaware of them, until they accumulate so far that synchronic or diachronic varieties become difficult to understand.) These quite different concepts are usually conflated by non-linguists. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:06, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations. May I ask you, though, what you mean by "derivation is an active process"? Also, what does the preference for "is/are derived" over "derives" have to do with changes in pronunciation? Corinne (talk) 01:38, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Changes in pronunciation are something that just happen, uncontrollably. You don't usually actively decide to pronounce words differently from older generations; it's a half-conscious drift at best. Often, people are not actually aware of having an accent that diverges from some standard pronunciation and deny it actively. For example, I've been told anecdotically that even some very educated Icelanders, including university readers teaching Icelandic and Old Norse (but not well-trained in phonetics), swear up and down that they pronounce Old Icelandic exactly the same as in the medieval period, and it is sheer impossible to get them to accept that they pronounce á as a diphthong instead of the current in the 12th century; it's like they just can't hear it. Or Bavarians who have a strong accent in their Standard German will not infrequently claim they speak pure Standard German, and Germans will not really notice a thick German accent in English (whether in themselves or other Germans) because they're so used it (even I often fall prey to that effect, even though I'm fairly well-trained in phonetics and have a pretty good ear for some rather subtle distinctions). When you derive unpronounceable from pronounce, on the other hand, that is something you do actively. You have control over it; words do not derive themselves. That's why I prefer to say "unpronounceable is derived from pronounce" rather than "unpronounceable derives from pronounce". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Florian! Corinne (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

English articles

Florian, I was looking for some information about the use of "a" and "an" before words beginning with "u" in English, and I came across this article, English articles. I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I noticed a tag at the section English articles#Usage. I don't know if you feel like clearing up whatever needs to be cleared up there. Can you point me to an article, or section of an article, that would treat the use of "a/an" before "u"? Corinne (talk) 18:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

English articles#Distinction between a and an answers your question: It depends entirely on pronunciation. It's not an orthographic issue, it's an issue of morphophonology – young children and illiterate adults distinguish a and an too, and they cannot base their decision on spelling, obviously. So you need to forget spelling. You say an uncle but a US president, a year but an yttrium atome, an outsider and an oud but a Ouija board, a xylophone but an X-ray, a Rolls-Royce but an R, an example but a euro and a ewe, and a house but an hour, where spelling cannot guide you as to whether these words start with a vowel sound or not. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:25, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

This means, by the way, that a URL and an URL can both be correct, depending on your pronunciation (either you-are-ell or to rhyme with curl), and the same is true for an herb vs. a herb, an historical vs. a historical or an hypothetical vs. a hypothetical – if you drop the h, write (and say) an, else a. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:40, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Florian. Corinne (talk) 00:06, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

By the way, I've noticed an interesting example in Alexander Archipelago#History: "On an 1860 map of Russian America (Alaska), the island group is called the King George III Archipelago." This reinforces my point that a vs. an is entirely about pronunciation, as "1" is obviously not a letter. Similarly, an & or a + sign, as you cannot tell if a symbol like "&" starts with a vowel without pronouncing it. A writer who blindly trusted in the "word starts with a vowel" rule and checked the spelling instead of the pronunciation would be stumped here.

Interestingly, in Early Modern English (Shakespeare, King James Bible), my/mine and thy/thine follow the same criterion, hence In the Presence of Mine Enemies (a KJV quote), to thine own self be true (a quote from Hamlet). Moreover, the is pronounced like thee only before vowel sounds (or under emphasis). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Carboniferous

Florian, do you agree with the etymology laid out in the first few lines of the article on the Carboniferous? The carbon part I understand, but is "ferous" from "fero", "I carry", "I bear"? To me, that doesn't make sense. Why would a geologic time period be named with anything to do with the first person singular form of the verb? Corinne (talk) 01:00, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

It does make sense! The first person singular form of the verb is the citation form in Latin. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:15, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, first, thank you for the link to the article Lemma. I had never even heard that term before and I shall read the article. I can understand how that form of the verb is used to cite or name the verb, but I don't see how that is necessarily the form of the verb that went into forming the word "Carboniferous" or any other word. I've looked closely at the etymology of many words in the dictionary, and I've seen that words are derived from various different forms of Latin (or French, etc.) words, and those forms are often given in the etymology. If I am right, then I ask again why the first person singular would be the form that went into forming "Carboniferous", unless it was a deliberate choice made by a relatively modern scientist (but even then I would be puzzled why s/he would choose the first person singular form of the verb). Corinne (talk) 16:26, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, if you read that article, you will see that the first person singular form is conventionally used as the way a Latin verb is cited, instead of the infinitive like in most modern European languages. It's only a convention – it doesn't imply that this form exactly is what the -ferous was derived from. In fact, Carboniferous is merely formed after the model of terms such as coniferous (from Latin cōnifer "cone-bearing") or auriferous (from Latin aurifer "gold-bearing"), and the -fer part of Latin compounds is simply the root of the verb.

The pattern of compounds like auri-fer, lūci-fer, armi-ger, arti-fex, iū-dex etc. is extremely archaic, going back all the way to Proto-Indo-European, where this type of compound was highly productive and is known as root compound, in Sanskrit upapada-tatpurusha. It was used to form the equivalent of the relative clauses in English, and turns up in personal and tribal names (and by-names) relatively frequently. For example, Gaulish Bitu-rīges literally means "those who rule the world (of the living)", and Dumno-rīx "he who rules the underworld", although these names are usually translated as "kings of the world" and "underworld-king". It has been asserted that the Proto-Indo-Europeans did not have kings (as kings presuppose a state-like complexity of social organisation not found in the Chalcolithic or earlier, at least not outside Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Levant – i. e., Syria-Palestine –, and possibly the Indus Valley, Iran and China; there is general agreement that the origins of Indo-European are not to be sought inside these centres of early civilisation, but at most at their margins) and Latin rēx, Gaulish rīx, Old Irish rí, Middle Welsh ri, Sanskrit rāj-, all of which mean "king" or "ruler", were spinned off from compounds like this, which are based on a Proto-Indo-European verb *h₃reg̑- "to straighten, to stretch out; to rule". One can compare this type of name to "(he who) dances with wolves", by the way. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:03, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I just saw this; I don't know why I didn't see it before. Thank you. Very interesting. Corinne (talk) 04:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Orpheus

Florian, I'm reading the article on Orpheus, and in the section Orpheus#Etymology there is a sentence I don't understand. The sentence starts:

• Orpheus would therefore be semantically close to goao, "to lament, sing wildly, cast a spell"...

I don't see the connection between what comes just before this in the paragraph and this sentence. I don't see the connection between either "Orpheus" or the two Greek words and "goao". If it is clear to you, could you explain it to me, and perhaps add something so that this will be clear to an average reader? Corinne (talk) 04:04, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Huh! I don't get it, either. Feel free to add a {{clarify}} tag. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

In the version in which it was originally added it made a little bit more sense, I think. All the refs are only secondary additions, though. One would have to check what they actually say. Maybe you'd like to bring the issue up on the talk page, or on the refdesk. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind doing that, but I would only be able to say what I wrote in the hidden note to editors after the "clarification needed" tag. Would that be sufficient? I don't really understand the rest about the refs.

Can you look at something else for me? I was reading the article on the Circassians, and I looked at a short article about Mervat Amin. I was really puzzled by what I saw in her list of songs. The titles are in regular font, but the letters are interspersed with numbers, mainly a lot of 2's and 3's. What is that? Corinne (talk) 14:08, 18 January 2016 (UTC) P.S. I had also left a question on Ugog Nizdast's talk page, but his/her first reply was that s/he didn't notice any problem; that's why I left a note for you here; but since then, s/he said s/he had noticed a problem, and then left a note on Talk:Mervat Amin#Filmography section: strange numbers. Corinne (talk) 15:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The hidden note should suffice. The issue you note has been brought up on the talk page as well (see Talk:Orpheus#Please reduce over-sourcing at the bottom of the section), though while the editor said he had edited the article, he didn't do anything to make the passage clearer; I suspect he didn't know how to do it himself, as he didn't understand it, either. Personally, I think the sentence is confused, or at least whoever wrote it had a very poor understanding of etymology and merely went ahead according to subjective associations. Etymology is a field which most people believe they can pontificate on, while there are very few actual experts – Dunning–Kruger runs absolutely wild in this area.

For your second question, see Arabic Chat Alphabet. It does look unprofessional; Misplaced Pages isn't an SMS, and it is easy to enter the characters for a more professional transcription. If I were competent in Arabic, I would do it myself. Maybe you can find an Arabist on the refdesk or in a Wikiproject. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:55, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

An-ar-tica

Hey Florian. I take it the note on the Antarctica page is your baby. I see this is your field, so I stand to be corrected, but I would like a chat about it. Just a few things:

1. In all my many years in the UK speaking English, I've never heard anyone say 'anartica'. I can't even imagine how a British person would say that. Does the book cited as a source say that pronunciation is widespread? In my experience, it's entirely unknown.

2. I take issue with you stating people using a pronunciation derived from the original Greek root of the word, 'Anti-Arctic' were 'less educated'. Is there any reason to state this? Just seems to be having a dig needlessly.

3. Is the note even needed? Wouldn't the article be better without it? I'm sure it's of little interest to the majority of the people who visit the page. Wouldn't it be better suited to Wiktionary?

Cheers, Ubertoaster (talk) 01:13, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Several American accent areas regularly simplify /nt/ clusters to /nn/. The same sound change affects Sanna Claus, the towns of Sanna Barbara and Sanna Cruz, vennilation (what a vennilator does), and the city of Atlanna, Georgia.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:22, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but it is described as a UK pronunciation. It looks more like dissimilation to me. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:42, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that could well be an Estuary/M/Cockney pronunciation as well with some glottalization instead of the t.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:02, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Hm. Perhaps. I thought T-glottalization only took place between vowel and consonant (or pausa). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I hadnt actually read the note and thought it was about the t and not the k. Sorry for butting in. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:05, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

No need to be sorry! We're actually talking about both. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Morning chaps. Hmm, Cockney. I hadn't considered that. Still, I think if a Cockney dropped the first 't' he'd probably drop the second too (and replace them with glottal stops) - anʔarʔica - but really, I'm sure it's not normal to list pronunciations in regional accents on here. Does every article about something that starts with H also list the non-H Cockney pronunciation for completeness? If we scoured the UK we could probably find people pronouncing it a hundred different ways, but (I think) they'd all agree that 'ant-arct-ica' was the 'correct' pronunciation. We could move the 'anartica' pronuncation from the UK to the American side (as you say, 'Sanna Barbara'), but I don't know that Misplaced Pages should formally recognise what's really just lazy speech. Ubertoaster (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I was not the one to add these details; they were news to me, too. However, they were obviously gleaned from the cited sources; just go and check them.

Yes, it is of little interest to most readers, that's why it's a note so it is easily ignored. Also, it's not a dig. It says that at first the spelling pronunciation was only used by less educated people; nowadays, the perception is likely to be rather inverted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:04, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I do think the note about the education level is probably unnecessary, and it probably could easily well have been adopted by people who knew Greek.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:06, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

That's what one would be led to assume, yes. But reality is often counterintuitive. In the UK, it is apparently (or used to be) a shibboleth of the educated (especially the upper class) to know that words and names are frequently pronounced completely differently from their spelling. I'm thinking in particular of reductions in compounds such as housewife to /ˈhʌzɪ(f)/, which are historically regular and centuries old. In the manner of U and non-U English, middle-class individuals expose themselves as fakes and tryhards who only pretend to be upper class through overly "correct" pronunciations (hypercorrection). If you were educated at a public school, you'd definitely say "Antartica" without pronouncing the c, I suspect. Also, the complicated traditional English pronunciation of Latin is something only those have internalised who were really educated in the old-fashioned British way, while using a modern pronunciation – which is closer to the Italianate model or even to the reconstructed pronunciation for the classical period – (unless the occasion calls for it, such as in an ecclesial context, especially sacred music – for example in choral performances, where Italianate or another non-traditional-English pronunciation may be appropriate in HIP, depending on the provenance of the piece) marks you as definitely an outsider to the exclusive club that is the English upper (and upper-middle) class. Basically, to follow tradition even if it seems illogical, wrong, rude or otherwise counterintuitive on the surface is the way of the upper class. Fascinating, isn't it? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I am familiar with the fact that generally hyper correction and spelling pronunciation tends to be the mark of a middle class education and identity (not total lack of education), but my point is that unless we have a source tyhat specifically says this was the case for the word Antarctica adding it here does seem a little like an unnecessary swipe.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Crystal is explicitly given as source for that statement, so I am led to assume he talks about that example. Also, I'm at a loss how you can take "less educated" and equate it with "total lack of education". See, I think the point of the footnote is to point out that despite a widespread perception among people of average education that the /k/-less pronunciation is incorrect and a recent mistake by bumbling fools who cannot pronounce /rkt/, it does have a hoary tradition (including Old French antartique), and it is the pronunciation with /k/ which is the modern affectation (cf. the beloved at Language Log fallacy to underestimate the age of "incorrect" usages in English rather grossly, as if in the 1950s or some unspecified other "golden age" period everybody had spoken polished RP, and exactly the way sticklers imagine it used to be). This is certainly worth knowing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:04, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, right. Sorry, not your note then. I assumed it was as you were so quick to notice the change and keen to defend it. This isn't the right place for this chat then, really, but no harm done? Can stick around for a bit? So much more civilised than edit-warring. I'll just do a mass reply, seems there was a lot of chat while I was asleep. You say to check the sources - I don't know how to read books I don't own. Tell me, I don't want those tax-dodgers at Amazon to get another penny off me! The discussion about U and non-U English seems odd to me. That all died out many years before I was born. The page itself says it pretty much died out in the 1950s. You'd never find someone today pronouncing 'housewife' as 'hʌzɪ(f)' outside of a P. G. Wodehouse adaptation, if anywhere. Everyone's favourite posh person is David Attenborough. You can hear him pronounce it 'Ant-arct-ica' 13 seconds into this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiQzls8YQcw. If he'd pronounced it any other way the whole country would have gone mental. Really, I think this hyper-posh thing is a red herring. As to the existence of the note - it is pretty harmless, I'd be fine with it if it was a bit shorter and more correct. Oh, and less sneeringly critical of people's pronunciation whether they exist today or hundreds of years ago. Ubertoaster (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

It goes both ways. People now sneer at those who drop the /k/. Unlike you, I see absolutely no need to defend sticklers when they are simply wrong. You can try rephrasing the point, though, if it bothers you so much ...

Well, you could visit a library if you are so desperate to check out what Crystal wrote. Just because a source is not available online doesn't mean it's not valid, you know? (Of course it would have been nicer to include a quotation from the book when adding the ref. Maybe it was an aristocratic meanie who wanted to stick it to the average Wikipedian, who lazily eschews physical libraries.)

Housewife was only an example (and the bag is still pronounced as /ˈhʌzɪf/, apparently). There are tons of words and names pronounced in unexpected ways, we have a whole list. Classics include Greenwich, Fe(a)therstonhaugh and halfpennyworth. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:04, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't sneer at anyone. Might have another go at rephrasing it when I'm sober. I'm NOT saying the source is invalid, but how many miles would I have to go to have a punt at finding a libary with that book? Too many, is the short answer. I don't care that much. I'll 'eschew' it until the cows come home, and I don't really consider myself a Wikipedian, just someone who has a interest in things being correct. Nobody says 'hʌzɪf', honestly. I bet even Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't. Your classics are true (if antiquated in the case of 'halfpennyworth'), but does ANYONE say An-ar-tica? That's the question. Ubertoaster (talk) 00:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

The "I don't give a damn!" paradox: You say you don't care but still argue with me. Either you care, then you'll go and try to find the book, or you don't, or not enough, then you'll have to live with the uncertainty, and I'll treat the claim which refers to the book as correct (assuming good faith and all).

According to Wiktionary, the bag is still pronounced that way in Standard English. Also, see halfpennyworth. A "nobody does/says that!"-type claim is refuted by only a single example; experience teaches that such claims are impossible to prove, and often surprisingly quickly disproved. I'll make a point of saying "Anartica" now, so there. :þ --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

It's obvious I don't care enough to try to find an obscure book in a library miles away. If that makes the note invulnerable in your eyes then so be it, I doff my cap to you as a far more hardcore Misplaced Pages editor. Slightly disappointing though, isn't it? This Misplaced Pages thing's no fun :o(

Wow, it's a bag? Never heard of it. I thought your previous 'bag' was a weird typo tbh. How strange. Ok, maybe a few odds and sods ever talk about the bag and pronounce it that way. *Shrug*. Anartica though... (I hope that's not a bag too!) If you can find anyone in the UK saying 'Anartica' that'd be something. I presume you're not, judging by your name and posting times. Ubertoaster (talk) 12:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Petrology

What do you think of this edit to Petrology? Note the edit summary. I'm curious because from elementary school Americans are taught that "-logy" means "the study of", as in "geology" – the study of the earth, etc. Corinne (talk) 14:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The IP is only half-right (as expected – being a native speaker of Modern Greek, even if you have once studied Ancient Greek at school, doesn't make you an expert on Ancient Greek per se). Check the way I changed the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:25, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

It looks good, Florian. I didn't know Wiktionary had Greek words in it that one could look up! I thought Wiktionary had only English words in it. Corinne (talk) 01:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually every language version of Wiktionary can cover as many languages as editors want to cover (including rarely written languages, ancient languages, reconstructed languages, constructed languages and sign languages). It's just that the local language is regularly treated as primary, listed first, and covered best. And yeah, Wiktionary is actually pretty awesome by now too, and extremely helpful. I edit a lot there, too. However, like in Misplaced Pages, it's pretty daunting for newbies by now because you have so many conventions, rules and templates to learn. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:35, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Interesting! Corinne (talk) 02:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I just came across the article on Geology. See what the first line says. That's the way I've always seen "-logy" translated. Corinne (talk) 20:50, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, yeah. Technically, -λογία isn't a word of its own, however, but a quasisuffix. And the article petrology said λόγος when I came across it, which isn't necessarily wrong, so I decided to keep it, just change the translation.

See -logy for more detail. Basically, -λογία was reanalysed as a pseudo-suffix from examples such as ἀρχαιολογία "antiquarian lore, ancient legends or history", originally perhaps meaning "collection of ancient things", or ἀστρολογία "astronomy", originally meaning something like "speech/discourse/discussion/argument about stars", itself probably derived from ἀστρολόγος "astronomer", originally probably meaning "somebody who speaks about stars". In Ancient Greek itself, words of this form could have various kinds of meanings, due to the existence of various ways words of this form could be derived and due to the various meanings of the verb λέγω itself. The rise of the meaning "study" for the quasisuffix certainly does not predate the Hellenistic period and may actually have only occurred in modern times in New Latin (Renaissance Latin or even later). In the Classical Greek period, there was probably nobody who perceived the quasisuffix as having a distinct meaning "study of something" (since where at best a few examples where it could have been analysed as having such a meaning) and the connection with the verb λέγω and its senses "to collect" and "to talk, discuss, debate, argue" was still obvious in the minds of speakers. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks for the explanation. Very interesting. I can just barely make out the Greek letters. I'd like to learn more. Thank you for that link to the Greek words. Corinne (talk) 01:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, for didactic reasons I intentionally used words that should be familiar to you already in their Latinised guise. I could have spelt them in capital Greek letters, that would probably have made them easier to read: ἈΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΊΑ, ἈΣΤΡΟΛΟΓΊΑ, ἈΣΤΡΟΛΌΓΟΣ – what do you think?

By the way, if you look at the archaic variant forms in Archaic Greek alphabets#Summary table, you should find it easier to understand how Greek letters are linked to and in fact evolved into Latin letters. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I recognized some letters because years ago I studied Russian, and the lowercase Greek letters are closer to what I remember from writing Russian. Why, in the Greek word for astronomer written in lowercase letters, ἀστρολόγος, does the "s" at the end of the word look different from the "s" near the beginning of the word, whereas when written in capital letters, ἈΣΤΡΟΛΌΓΟΣ, the same character is used? Corinne (talk) 15:46, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if you were familiar with Russian or Cyrillic in general, but I thought of asking you that, actually. Early Cyrillic is basically Greek uncials with some additional letters for specifically Slavic sounds missing from Greek, much like the Coptic alphabet is essentially the Greek alphabet with additional letters for specifically Coptic sounds missing from Greek, and the Czech alphabet is essentially the Latin alphabet with additional letters for specifically Czech sounds missing from Latin, or the Old English alphabet is basically the Latin alphabet with additional letters for specifically Germanic sounds missing from Latin – you get the drift ...

For your question, see Sigma. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:09, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! (Was the Greek alphabet essentially the Phoenecian alphabet with additional letters for specifically Greek sounds missing from Phoenecian?) Corinne (talk) 16:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. :-) If you look at the table with the archaic forms, the similarity to the Phoenician alphabet is still unmistakable. See History of the Greek alphabet. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:30, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

New sock

Hi Florian. This user likely Tirgil34. The single-purposed account favours Anatolian hypothesis and tries to undermine widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis regarding PlE homeland. Tirgil also embodied the same thing on his YouTube account. 176.219.168.244 (talk) 08:20, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Suspicious edits on R1a. 176.219.166.131 (talk) 16:10, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Simply revert all their edits as POV-pushing, misleading or whatever may be applicable. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

If you need to revert the addition of the Haber study again, point out that it is irrelevant as discussed on Talk:Haplogroup R1a1#New source? Haber et al. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Zither

I would be interested in your opinion regarding pronunciation and pronunciation guides for Zither at User talk:Jerome Kohl#Zither. Perhaps the German pronunciation could be moved to the "Terminology" section, but of course I will defer to your expertise. Corinne (talk) 23:06, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Bruschetta

The bottom line is that you need to provide a reliable source that gives these misreadings of Italian orthography as hyperforeignisms. The simple fact here is that this is an error of reading, not the addition of a "more foreign sounding" phoneme where it doesn't belong. Otherwise you are simply edit warring, and will be reported for such. See WP:3RR. μηδείς (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Apart from a British English (and increasingly rare) pronunciation of schedule, sch is never pronounced as /ʃ/ in native English words, especially not intervocalically. Therefore, the pronunciation of sch as /ʃ/ is marked as foreign in English, and typical of German. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:01, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

George Santayana

Hello, Florian -- I was surprised to see a request for a pronunciation guide to George Santayana's last name. It seems like a fairly easy name to figure out. If you think it would be a good addition to the article, can you provide the pronunciation guide? Informally, I would write san ta 'YA na or san tə 'YA na, but there is probably a more academic way to show this.  – Corinne (talk) 03:47, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Kwamikagami has already taken care of this. I wouldn't have known, personally, how his name is pronounced in English; it can be difficult to predict exactly how foreign names are adapted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:02, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

R1a

Hi Florian. Can you help me by explaining what this R1a discussion is all about? Did it originate in Iran (Underhill 2014), and did farming Dravidians bring it to India? Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:55, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see your message before. Maybe it did originate in Iran, but it has no relevance for Indo-European origins because the proposed origin of R1a is far too early. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Problems with "Anglo-Saxon Settlement of Britain" Article

Dear Florian Blaschke, I have brought up several problems in the Anglo-Saxon Settlement of Britain article, an article of which you added content. These problems I have discussed in the Talk:Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain section of this article, but the problems have not been properly recognized nor attended to by anyone. I would much appreciate it if you would take a look at my thoughts for revision. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Gordon410 Gordon410 (talk) 21:15, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Etymology

Hi. What do you think about this edit? Why it should be there? --Wario-Man (talk) 05:42, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah, Barefact is a notorious Turkish nationalist crank, preceding even Tirgil and his zoo of socks ... Anyway, the problem has resolved itself in the meanwhile (through EEng's edit). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

According to Misplaced Pages:Long-term abuse/Tirgil34, it seems both accounts are related to each other (similar behavior and agenda). Maybe they're same person. --Wario-Man (talk) 05:24, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Alleged "Baltic hypothesis" of IE homeland.

Please note my explanation under the discussion of "Hypotheses". The late WP Schmid (I know this personally from himself!) never intendedly proposed a Baltic homeland and remained always very angry about this misunderstanding in Mallory.HJJHolm (talk) 09:18, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Hi. Please write your opinion here:

• Talk:Tajik language#Wondering

Thanks. --Wario-Man (talk) 14:42, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Case filed

A case has been filed concerning you and the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. This case is being re-filed. You are being notified since you are an editor of this article. Please give a summary of dispute here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain Gordon410 (talk) 12:01, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Baltic States

Are you aware of WP:NPA? According to source, which BTW is entire chapter in a book by an Italian linguist, all but one possible origins trace back to that root. The exception is based on a report of a Medieval chronicler, who suggested that the name comes from Latin word for belt even though he was reporting that the name is used by people living near the sea, who didn't speak Latin - it's pretty unrealistic folk etymology. This is article on region and it's about name of region, not sea or linguistic percularities of historical hearsay, it doesn't need to discuss this, the notion that article only mentions the most likely explanation allready should cue them in that there are other possiblities (and if anyone is currious they can read whole story at Baltic Sea), so your first edit was just redundant, but now it's acctualy creating wrong impression, because it's not one of many explanations that was for some reason prrfered here, it's what all explanations, except Medieval one, conclude in the end, even if how they arrive to that is different in each case, plus in both cases it creates impresion that article is lacking information, when most of it was acctualy removed as off topic ~~Xil (talk) 16:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, you're simply mistaken. The etymology that traces the term (Mare) Balticum to either Germanic *baltja- (> Danish bælt, English belt) or its source, Latin balteus, is taken very seriously by researchers. If you read Baltic Sea#Etymology, it will become apparent that this is actually the explanation considered most plausible by researchers, and it is, especially in light of what Adam von Bremen himself says. One cherry-picked book cannot be used to establish a consensus.

Just consider this: How should Adam von Bremen have been able to know any contemporary Baltic term? All Balts were still very isolated from the rest of Europe (especially Northern/Central Europe) in the 11th century. It's just implausible that Adam could have taken the term from them, even if indirectly. He knew almost nothing about their lands. Not to mention that there are no secure attestations of any Baltic language material at or prior to this time; not a single word. Also, "white" doesn't exactly make any more obvious sense than "belt" (or "swamp"). Don't let your pro-Latvian/Lithuanian and anti-Germanic/Slavic bias get in the way. You're clearly not dispassionate and objective because you ignore critical evidence such as even Adam's own words. By the way, I don't see where you get the "personal attack" from; pointing out patriotic bias that appears to colour an editor's opinions isn't a personal attack. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:41, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The etymology section for Baltic sea is largely based on the same "cherry-picked" source (actually a non-Baltic academic work summarizing multiple opinions) and nowhere does it say that one or another is a mainstream view and other sources there date back at least to early 20th century, so it also doesn't support your claim that it's the current consensus. Thing is that most of it was moved there from Baltic States years ago, because people felt it's too extensive, and what was left was condensed as shortly as possible - these Slavic hydronyms, alleged island names etc. all come from the same PIE root. Where you are getting any Baltic origins is unclear - the article acctualy says that the name, despite simmilarities to some words, wasn't even used in Baltic languages untill recently and asserting that I meant Balts above is pretty much a strawman. There's absolutely nothing here that could give you reason to complain about nationalist bias, at best I can conclude that you didn't read articles carefully and jumped to conclusions ~~Xil (talk) 02:13, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not claiming that any particular etymology is the consensus. (Personally, I'm not even very attached to the Germanic/Latin etymology – the Slavic one actually seems at least as conceivable. But ultimately, I find none of the explanations 100% satisfying.) You are essentially saying that – with exactly one source proposing your favourite etymology, and without surveying the literature first to determine what the actual range of opinions is. You are dismissing balteus as a folk etymology. You are not neutral. I am merely saying that some explanations are more plausible and others less, and consequently favoured by scholars – not necessarily by a great margin, so not necessarily "mainstream", let alone "consensus", because the etymology of Mare Balticum is still considered uncertain, unlike what you insist Baltic states should claim. You are also incorrect that Proto-Slavic *bolto comes from that root – that's not a fact, or consensus, only a possibility, a suggestion; after all, the connection between "swamp" and "white" is not exactly obvious, and explanations to bridge the semantic gap are mere speculation. (The same is true for place-names, whose true original meaning is hardly ever known with certainty, so it's pure speculation to trace them back to one particular PIE root.) You display clear favoritism to the (rather implausible, as I have shown) Lithuanian/Latvian etymology, by presenting only this one in Baltic states as "likely" (or even "most likely", as you claimed at the beginning) and failing to mention any other – and by claiming (on feeble grounds) that all suggested explanations ultimately lead to the same PIE root, just so you can keep your favourite etymology in there. Are you kidding me? What you're doing is POV-pushing at its finest. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:41, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I see now: You do not even seem to be aware that the text by the medieval chronicler, Adam von Bremen, is the first known source to use the name, ever, anywhere at all! The name Baltic, from which the name of the Balts is actually derived (not the other way round!), traces back to him, and then the track stops cold. So his words actually carry some weight. He's not just some random guy who happens to mention the name Mare Balticum. As far as we can determine, the term was not in use before him. So he might as well have invented it all by himself. And I beg to differ about "pretty unrealistic" – the Belts are the entrance to the Baltic Sea (from the point of view of where the name is first recorded), for crying out loud! That has to count for something. It is obvious that you simply take it for granted that Baltic peoples came up with the name, not Germanic-, Latin- or Slavic-speakers, else you wouldn't be so dismissive. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:53, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh, and you know what's funny? When I wrote "may not appeal to Lithuanian/Latvian sensibilities equally", I was not even aware yet that you are Latvian. But I have seen so much nationalistically motivated peddling of fringy or utterly wild pet "theories" around Misplaced Pages that I can apparently smell patriotic POV-pushers from a mile. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:31, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Palatinate (region)

Hello, Florian -- I was just looking at the most recent edit to Palatinate (region) – this edit, capitalizing the names of dishes. I know German nouns are capitalized, but I don't know if they are supposed to be capitalized in English Misplaced Pages articles.  – Corinne (talk) 06:42, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I looked around a bit, and it appears that in English, they tend not to be capitalised. So I undid the edit, whose summary was misleading as well. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:59, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!  – Corinne (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Genetic relationship (linguistics)

Hello, Florian -- I don't know if you have Genetic relationship (linguistics) on your watch list, but I thought in case you didn't I would ask you about two things:

1) I was looking at this recent edit to the article, and though removing what looks like an extraneous phrase seems all right – although another possible wording would be "are subject to variation" – I wonder whether changing "internal structure" to "internal structures" was correct. I don't have access to the source so I cannot check it.

2) I notice that there has been a tag at the top of the article since October 2015 saying that the lede is too long for the size of the article. It looks like a valid observation since the lede is quite long and the article is rather short. If you are looking for something to do, perhaps you could work on this. If not, perhaps a (talk page stalker) could.  – Corinne (talk) 17:20, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

1) The edit looks fine to me. I'm at home so I can't access the source, either. As for grammar, I trust your Sprachgefühl more than mine, since I'm not a native speaker and you are. (Frankly, the criticism doesn't make sense to me. But then, radical criticism of the family tree model and the whole foundations of historical linguistics, like Edzard's, doesn't make sense to me, in general, because it doesn't seem to be based on detailed, careful analysis of the relevant data: language change through the centuries where it is documented en détail, through numerous texts. I doubt that people like Edzard have been able to come up with an alternative model that's also useful in practice.) Something I noticed: Altaic isn't exactly a great example because it is very controversial. Our Wikipedian linguists have even come to the conclusion to describe Altaic as "discredited".

2) I think the first two paragraphs are enough for a lede. For the reader who only wishes to know what genetic relationship in linguistics means and is all about, everything essential is contained in them. It's probably best to separate the rest of the lede off into a separate section, or perhaps more than one section. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:14, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I moved everything that was in the lede after the first two paragraphs into the body of the article and I made a section and a sub-section, but I'm not sure I got these right. I also made a few minor edits. I noticed that the last sentence of the first paragraph of the lede is:

• These ties are established through use of the comparative method of linguistic analysis.

but there is no mention of the "comparative method of linguistic analysis" in the body of the article. I'll have to leave to you or others the task of addressing that and the mention of Altaic.  – Corinne (talk) 19:06, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Bangladesh

You might be interested in this exchange at Talk:Bangladesh: Talk:Bangladesh#"de facto national language". Your opinion might be helpful.  – Corinne (talk) 15:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	Keep it up! Cheers. Wario-Man (talk) 20:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh, thank you! :-) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Re your comments on western Armenian in Gyumri talk

Would you be able to confirm to me that "ghazanchetsi" means a coppersmith. Or direct me to a source that deals with these sort of mixed Turkish-Armenian terms for trades. it is in relation to this article: Qazançı, Nakhchivan. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

It means something like "kettle-maker", see qazan ~ kazan and -çi (many terms for occupations end in this suffix, and it is frequently seen in surnames). It's simply a loanword from Western Oghuz Turkic (i. e., Turkish/Azeri or Ottoman Turkish) into Armenian, nothing really mixed about it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you have an opinion on the official Azeri "explanation" of the name (which I deleted, but you can read in this edit ). The editor who added that content has added similar placename explanations to many articles on Nakhchivan settlements and there are questions about the suitability of the source containing these explanations (or even if the source actually exists). If enough clear examples of the sources inaccuracy can be found, that would be grounds for getting it removed as a suitable source. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:58, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

The book does seem to exist, as it is listed in catalogues, but I cannot judge its reliability. Reading the part you deleted, my bullshit detector deflects too, but I'm not versed in Turkology at all; I'm only informed on a very basic level. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:03, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh

What do you think about the addition of umlauts in this edit to Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh?  – Corinne (talk) 00:34, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Fräulein is indeed the correct German spelling. It is the German counterpart of miss, though dated. I'm not sure if titles like "Miss", "Mister", "Frau" or "Herr" would normally be used in this context in English. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:17, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks, Florian.  – Corinne (talk) 15:16, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

My pleasure. I have added more missing umlauts. Thank you for making me aware of this interesting article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:43, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Case filed

A case has been filed concerning you and the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. This case is being re-filed. You are being notified since you are an editor of this article. Please give a summary of dispute here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain.23Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain_Wikipedia_Article_Revision_discussion

Thank you. Gordon410 (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

What do you think about these edits?

Hi. and . And what about this source (used by him)? Even if that source is reliable, why he removes current sourced info in the lead section and adds a strange translation (شرق فارسی)?! Maybe we need a related discussion on article talk page. --Wario-Man (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Uh, he doesn't even seem to understand IPA or what it even is. That's not a particularly trustworthy looking source. Iranica is far superior: if it doesn't mention "Eastern Persian", I'd drop the term. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:13, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I think it's better that you write your opinion here: Talk:Dari_language#Eastern_Persian_is_a_legitimate_synonym_for_this. He opened that new section on talk page. --Wario-Man (talk) 05:22, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

For your info

The source you seem to keep adding calls it "Dari" so I'm not sure what the issue is. Otherwise can also add both, though I feel Eastern Persian is good enough.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 01:24, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Bzyp (village) ()

Hi, I'm reverting this edit, which looks almost like a joke, but letting you know in case there's something I'm missing. Uanfala (talk) 13:08, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

It wasn't a joke, I simply could not move the article to the intended name because there was a redirect in the way. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:01, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

In such cases, you can place a request at the noticeboard for uncontroversial technical moves. Uanfala (talk) 12:39, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I know, but I couldn't be arsed because there were too many pages to move. I got the idea with the empty disambiguation brackets from Kwamikagami, who still keeps moving pages a lot. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:45, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I see then. That still earns you a little trout: It saves you a bit of work, but it leaves articles with ridiculous titles and places a maintenance burden on the editors who're going to be looking after these articles in the future. Uanfala (talk) 18:08, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

It's also meant a reminder to myself, but I've been busy with other stuff lately. It was never meant as anything else than a kludgy, temporary solution. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:26, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

October 2016

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Dragostea Din Tei. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Please be particularly aware that Misplaced Pages's policy on edit warring states:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. –Davey2010 04:04, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

• The name has been this way for a good few years so moving it now is simply disruptive, If you disagree with the name then start an WP:RM and gain consensus for it like everyone else, If you move it again you could be blocked, Thank you. –Davey2010 04:06, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

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The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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The Kali Etymology

In Kali Etymology your edits says time as "that which brings all things to an end, the destroyer.". If you have gone through Devi Mahatmya where the great goddess has a form of Kali then you shall know the meaning the force of time or the ancient one. The meaning of Kali is clearly explained in the text (First episode) that she is the destroyer of evil forces viz. Madhu-Kaitabh. Kali does not mean the destroyer it simply means the changing aspect that brings things to life or death. Kali means the ruler of time and Kaal means time (Kaal can be used in the context of death). If you are providing information then please provide them thoroughly . And in which text in Sanskrit Kaalratri means the night of death ??????? It means the black night thats it. UserK (talk) 05:51, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Polesia

Hello, Florian -- Since there are fewer than 40 page watchers for Polesia, I thought I'd ask you if this addition to the article is correct.  – Corinne (talk) 15:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

That etymology looks improbable (the root is not familiar to me, though there is a Lithuanian word pelkė "swamp", and apparently palios too) and leaves the -es- unaddressed, but the citation appears acceptable. I can't check it from home, though, and my Russian is poor. A circumspect editor would have provide an extract and a translation. Foreign-language citations are generally frowned upon, the less familiar the language to editors, the more so (I have provided references in German a couple of times, which in historical linguistics is fairly routine, but a working knowledge of German, especially basic reading ability for linguistic texts, is probably more widespread than the equivalent for Russian, even among Anglophone editors in the field, some of whom are academics). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:26, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Copy edits

Florian, thank you for your interest in Fake news website !

Perhaps instead of wholesale reverting, we could discuss individual issues on the talk page?

I started a new section at Talk:Fake_news_website#Copy_edits_to_intro_section.

Maybe you could tell us there specific things you think could improve the grammar of the intro ?

Thank you ! Sagecandor (talk) 18:31, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Florian, maybe instead of choosing to communicate via edit summary only, perhaps we could discuss by talk page, please? Sagecandor (talk) 18:32, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@Corinne: As a native speaker, could you perhaps have a look at Sagecandor's recent copyedits? It's just obvious to me in so many cases that the older version was superior and that the copyedits resulted in a degradation of quality that I felt a wholesale revert was justified. I only started to correct the most obvious grammar mistakes at the beginning and then tired of it and made a full revert in frustration. I'm sorry I am quite adamant that Sagecandor tried to fix what was not broken and while well-intentioned did not help, and the copyedits did not result in any improvement. It made me think that Sagecandor is not even a native speaker. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:39, 1 December 2016 (UTC)