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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ArordineriiiUkhtt (talk | contribs) at 19:35, 14 June 2014 (→Help: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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As for my web site, if you visited it in April it might still have been the older and horribly outdated version.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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If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our fair use criteria. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, fair use images which could be replaced by free-licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if not used in an article), per our Fair Use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Rettetast 22:28, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=SFSBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT50&dq=wusun+indo-european&hl=tr&sa=X&ei=zZCcU-fhH4-w7AahvYCwBw&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=wusun%20indo-european&f=false

• 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