Talk:formaticus/Archive for June 2021

Late Latin - was it Gaul or France?

In this wonderfully typical, friendly and constructive edit war edit history user @The Nicodene thinks that the word Gaul is anachronistic in the historical context of pre-8th century France. I admit I'm not a historian, but a cursory acquaintance with the Wikipedia pages for w:Gaul and w:Kingdom of France reveals that even the Kingdom of Franks had not been established by that point; and after a bit more reading I'm lead to believe that using the word France to refer to the Kingdom of Franks or Francia (to be distinguished from the Kingdom of France!) is also incorrect on numerous grounds: territorial, political and cultural. It's been my understanding that the word Gaul is used to refer to the general territory under consideration in order to avoid equating it culturally and/or polticially with modern France; and while anachronism is being cited against this, it seems to me that citing the medieval w:Reichenau Glosses to dispute modern usage much better fits the definition of anachronism. Historians talk of "Merovingian Gaul" (Googlable), and Britannica's "Charlemagne consolidated his authority up to the geographic limits of Gaul." would make no sense if we substitute "France" for "Gaul". What do other users think? And what do they think of the mode in which User:The Nicodene choses to conduct his editing of the website? Brutal Russian (talk) 17:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian First of all this isn't 'pre-8th century' France. The TLFi date the first attestation of formaticus to the year 795, which is nearly the 9th century.

Whether or not Western Frankia existed as an independent polity yet is irrelevant to the question of what the people actually living there at the time called it (certainly not 'Gallia', as the term is confirmed as obsolete by the RG).

The correct phrase to search for, considering the time period, is actually "Carolingian France/Gaul", and the Google results clearly favour the former (by a ratio well over 5:1). But if you're so attached to the term 'Gaul', as fans of the classics often are, then keep it. That is far from my main concern about that Wiktionary page.

What is unquestionably anachronistic is putting a 1st century b.c. pronunciation for formaticus, a term first attested towards the ninth century in France, and one that never made it into Modern Latin (where it might have been given a 'neo-classical' pronunciation), as I have exhaustively explained on the Beer Parlour. To avoid further debate among the remaining options (northern Gallo-Romance vs. an artificial sort of Medieval Latin), I propose simply removing all pronunciations for formaticus.

Your favourite 'caseus formaticus' theory, as I keep pointing out, is neither necessary nor is that phrase ever attested in contemporary documents. It is a conjecture and should be presented as such rather than confidently claimed as the truth. The Nicodene (talk) 18:15, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• @The Nicodene: 795 is the year of attestation; we're talking about the date of appearance, which is obviously before that.
• The word is borrowed into Welsh as fourondec, foulondec, which as far as I can see a regular development of the phonemic shape that the Classical pronunciation represents, namely /fo:rma:tic-/, with lenition attributable either to Welsh or to Latin.
• These two considertaions already present a serious obstacle to listing a full-blown northern Old French pronunciation for this word. Other considerations pertain to the fact that this is not an Old French entry, and that we don't give Middle English pronunciations for English words that fell out of use in modern English. The same goes for all the other parts of the entry - inflection etc. Yes, distinctions beween language stages are arbitrary, but this is how Wiktionary works. No Old French in Late Latin, no Latin in Old French.
• How the people called it at the time is a separate question from what the current English scientific usage is. The political entity is Carolingian France; the geographic entity, however, is Gaul (as in Merovingian Gaul). This fact is separate even from the France/Francia/Franks trouble.
• Just as anyone who wishes to pronounce an obsolete English word should be able to do so by consulint a modern English pronunciation, so should anyone wishing to pronounce a non-Classical word using the Classical pronunciation be able to do so. This is how Wiktionary works.
• All etymology is a theory in the first place - even if we had yearly snapshots of English vocabulary over the last 1000 years, the etymologies we postulate would remain theoretical. "This is just a conjecture" is the "it's just a theory" fallacy wearing a different wig, and the reason fall victim to it is called the "motivated skepticism" fallacy. Objectively true etymologies that we have explicit proof for are exceptional. Science doesn't deal with absolute certainty, only degrees of it.
• The reason for my theory should be obvious to anyone who knows Latin, and I explained it in the edit summary: substantivised masculine adjectives never refer to things unless via ellipsis of a noun; things are referred to by neuter adjectives. This is the reason TLFi says formaticus [caseus] and the reason FEW gives formaticum, and the reason Du Cange gives it as the base form, because it was perceived as the base form when no ellipsis was felt.
• The etymon that gave rise to the Romance forms precedes the attestation in Latin and as such the Latin attestation cannot disprove the postulated etymon; the Latin attestation presents clear evidence for ellipsis. You seem to be equating Late Latin with Old French to such a degree that you believe that written Late Latin of the period had no masculine-neuter distinction, which is not the case to the best of my knowledge. Again, this websites distinguishes the two languages for better or for worse, and so should you regardless of your beliefs. Brutal Russian (talk)

@Brutal Russian Sure. No matter what though, the word certainly did not exist in the 1st century b.c. and so giving it a Ciceronian pronunciation is clearly still wrong.

The borrowing into Breton (not Welsh) can easily attest a stage like /forˈmadego/, which I actually would not mind putting as an early pronunciation for formaticus (well, more precisely for the form formaticum). I suspect that the mere thought of this would send you into apoplexy, however.

Why not give Middle English pronunciations for terms that were last used in Middle English? That would make perfect sense, actually.

As I have shown you, the preferred term in modern literature is Carolingian France, not Gaul. I do not understand your attempt to claim a geographic distinction between France and Gaul.

If someone wants to pronounce a word that was invented in Middle English, which never made it into later stages of English, they are free to do so however they wish. They could give it an Indian English pronunciation for all we care. That does not mean that Wiktionary should claim such a pronunciation for the Medieval word.

Positing caseus formaticus, as a precursor to formaticus, is completely unnecessary, as I keep pointing out. Gallo-Romance has a plethora of forms suffixed with -aticus. Are you going to tell me that each and every one of these words originated in a phrase consisting of a noun + an adjective ending in -aticus, or will you admit that -aticus became a wildly productive noun-forming suffix in Gallo-Romance?

No, the fact that the word is found spelled as formaticus in the late eighth century in France does not provide “clear evidence” of ellipsis, no matter how much you bold and underline various words.

I do not claim that "written Late Latin of the period had no masculine-neuter distinction". I am fine with having both formaticus (masc.) and formaticum (neut.), as I see now that there is a quote that unambiguously attests the latter ("unde et formaticum dicitur"). The Nicodene (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Re: "Gaul is anachronistic in the historical context of pre-8th century France"

English Gaul = Latin Gallia, which was conquered by Julius Caesar. So at least for some time of the "pre-8th century France" the term Gaul is fitting. For the post-6th century France or the 8th century France Gaul could already be unfitting. — This unsigned comment was added by 2003:DE:3728:BF14:A5B6:4709:CF0F:FF1F (talk) at 01:23, 3 June 2021 (UTC).

Divider

I'm replying to the version of your comment as I found and read it. This is both for practical reasons (I won't compare and revise what I've already written against your later edits) and to highlight the red-eyed and barking manner which you and the type of people you're accustomed to communicate with deem acceptable, which you bring with you to this website where it is absolutely unacceptable. You have no concern about maintaining good faith or civility in an argument; you reply in a flippant, impulsive manner and you include a healthy dose of rudeness, fighting words and outright personal attacks in your replies. Afterwards you're forced to edit them 34 times, but only after making your attitude and intentions known to anyone looking. In a live discussion, eg. on Discord, this produces even worse results.

Sure. No matter what though, the word certainly did not exist in the 1st century b.c. and so giving it a Ciceronian pronunciation is clearly still wrong.

• This is the same confusion as when you say that 8th century glosses should guide modern English usage. We give the standard English/Classical pronunciation to all words because this is the pronunciation people are most likely to use if they chose to use those words - as I've explained this to you in a pervious discussion. A word not having been attested in the 1st century BC Rome/2000 CE New York is not a valid reason not to supply it with the Classical/General American pronunciation; a word having a limited geographic, temporal or some other distribution, is a valid reason to give it an additional pronunciation that can be surmised for that time and place etc.

The Welsh word can easily attested a stage like /formádego/, which I actually wouldn’t mind putting as an early pronunciation for formaticus (well, more precisely the accusative formaticum). I suspect that the thought of this would send you into an apopletic fit, however.

• You're intentionally ignoring my reminder that there's no reason it can't reflect the Classical phonemic shape.
• Thank you for that wonderful personal attack.

Why don’t we give Middle English pronunciations for terms that were last used in Middle English? That would make perfect sense, actually.

• Because there is a policy to give Middle English pronunciations (together with Middle English everything else) under the Middle English language heading.

As I have shown you, the preferred term in modern literature is Carolingian France, not Gaul. I don’t understand your attempt to claim a geographic distinction between France and Gaul.

• Because the word didn't appear inside the political entity known as Carolingian France - which hadn't yet existed - but somewhere on the territory known as Gaul! Because the territory of modern France does not correspond to the territory of Carolingian France!

If someone wants to pronounce a word that was invented in Middle English, which never made it into later stages of English, they’re free to do so however they wish. They could give it an Indian English pronunciation for all we care. That doesn’t mean that Wiktionary should claim such a pronunciation for the Medieval word.

• Wiktionary prefers to describe, not claim. It doesn't seem that we give many pronunciations to Middle English in general, which I suspect is in largue part due to how uncertain and volatile the linguistic situation was in that period. Just that is also true about Late Latin, only to an even greater degree, with much more theoretical uncertainty even about naming and periodisation.
• Latin is not a living language. No words have made it into the Latin that is presented on this website. All Latin words, and all Latin pronunciations are prescriptive and/or theoretical. If English becomes a dead language and if an Indian pronunciation of it ends up being adopted by academics and dead language hobbyists, we will give the Indian pronunciation for all English words.

Positing caseus formaticus, as a precursor to formaticus, is completely unnecessary, as I keep pointing out. Gallo-Romance has a plethora of forms suffixed with -aticus. Are you going to tell me that each and every one of these words originated in a phrase consisting of a noun + an adjective ending in -aticus, or will you admit that -aticus became a wildly productive noun-forming suffix in Gallo-Romance?

• There's no connection between the suffix's productivity and its gender in Latin. The two Latin genders have coalesced, but this doesn't mean that they were the same in either Latin, or common Gallo-Romance. In principle we could first establish which of those words arose already in common Gallo-Romance and then look at their individual histories and determine which ones arose via ellipsis and which ones via direct substantivisation as neuters.

No, the fact that the word is found spelled as formaticus in the late eighth century in France absolutely does not give “clear evidence” of ellipsis. No matter how much you bold and CAPITALIZE and underline your phrases and arrogantly pretend like you know Latin any better than I do. The Nicodene (talk) 19:43, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• Knowing basic facts about the usage of Latin genders is a difference between knowing Latin and not knowing any, not between knowing it better or worse. I was appealing to this in order to underline how basic this distinction is to the grammar of Latin, and how strange it would be if a language called Latin possessed no such distinction. When you suggest that it didn't, and when you insist on an Old French pronunciation, you seem to be simply substituting definitions and calling Old French Latin, which again goes against how this website operates if nothing else.
• As I hinted at in a previous discussion, I doubt that the case system of Old French/Provencal can be equated with that of Proto-Romance, let alone Late Latin. But this is a separate discussion. Brutal Russian (talk) 20:53, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  • You may try to appear civil here and now, on Wiktionary discussion pages, but you have been breathtakingly toxic to me and several others elsewhere. Even here you repeatedly condescend by claiming that I am simply 'confused', deigning to explain elementary concepts, and bolding and underlining 'key words' like a schoolteacher assigning basic reading material.

  • Firstly, this is a lie. Secondly, this is a whataboutism - you're behaving as a child who's been caught bullying other kids and whose excuse is "he kicked my dog two years ago and peed on my scooter". Do you think every bully doesn't believe they're justified in bullying? It doesn't matter - listening to a bully's excuses is like listening to NSDAP's explanations of why the Slavs are Untermenschen. Thirdly, again? I called you out on your toxic beviour that I have no way, shape or form provoked just a couple of weeks ago, and you replied with the same "but you started first!!" that I simply overlooked then. I was hoping to remind you where you were; I was hoping you could behave with enough effort; I was hoping that if you came here in order to settle some imaginary past scores, you'd see the futility of that enterprise; but you still seem to be oblivious this isn't your usual Discord where you can dunk on underage meme-shitters that peed on your scooter and assert your authority in matters of a language you can't even speak. I congratulate you: you've dispelled those hopes at this point, and I will no longer suspend my judgement, ascribe your insults to heat of the moment or assume any good faith whatsoever on your part.
  • Is your level of self-delusion such that you cannot fathom being confused? Do you have any notion of being mistaken, admitting mistakes, learning from then, clarifying your understanding with the help of others, leaving your ego out of the discussion? Even saying that you're 'confused' would not have been an insult or even a personal attack - if you had any notion about how a civil discussion is held, you would have seen it as an honest and straightforward opinion that your reasoning is flawed. But I didn't use the word 'confused' which someone inclined to malicious interpretation of harmless words could possibly misinterpret as an inherent quality like "retarded", which itself would be worthy of a massive eye-roll; I used the words "This is the same confusion". There is not a hint of ill intent in that phrasing. I can only surmise that your ego is so vulnerable as to be a disability that doesn't allow you to engage in any sort of discussion, because discussions tend to involve consessions and being corrected, which you ego is incapable of bearing. This is where all of your complaints about condescenion arise. You take the style of a learned discussion to be condescending simply because your interlocutor see you not as an authority, but as fallible and imperfectly informed just like themselves.

• Of course you would claim "it is a lie" but several people besides myself on Discord have had the same experience with you. You very much have the deserved reputation of being rude and toxic, as very aptly demonstrated by your reference to Latin as "a language [I] can't even speak". I can read, write, speak, and even, if necessary, yodel in Latin, as I have been studying it for well over a decade. Yet here you are, insulting me as if I knew nothing about Latin, just because I am making a point about the Gallo-Romance term formaticus/um that you do not understand.

• • My point all along has been that formaticus very much has a "limited geographic [and] temporal" distribution". It is not used in Modern Latin, so that cannot work as a justification for a classical pronunciation.

  • This is a strawman nobody's disputing, and you're perfectly aware of this. What's being disputed is your insistence on removing the Classical pronunciation. There's no justification for this, your justifications show a confusion - erroneous logic applied to imperfect information - and your actions of removing it are against the currently adopted policies and practices. Furthermore, the sum of your actions show a lack of understanding of what you're doing and the theoretical and practical complexities involved. Your actions show a disregard for the opinions of others and a treatment of this project as a deploying ground for the results of your Vulgar Latin renamed Proto-Romance historical reconstruction games. There is a place these efforts could be welcome - the reconstructed namespace. The rest of your actions, such as the not just arbitrary, but factually wrong Gaul>France and cāseus nonsense, the holding of discussion after the fact via rude edit summaries and the useless community discussions they provoke serve nothing other than to interfere other users' work, me specifically, and to satisfy your ego. You revert and change things not because they're wrong, but because you like being able to arbitrarily impose your own interpretations and so feel important and noticed. Although this is not Wikipedia, one can probably illustrate every single one of the points at [Principles of Wikipedia etiquette]. I've never come across another such person in my whole time as an editor here, ever, and I'm not going to watch this become an accepted behaviour.

• Even after I have shown you that 'France' is the preferred term in modern scholarship, you continue to treat it as some ridiculous notion. Even after I have explained to you in excruciating detail why a 1st century b.c. pronunciaton for formaticus/um is inappropriate, you continue to act like it is not a blatant anachronism. Even after I explained why your 'Campanian Latin' transcriptions are incorrect (fricative realization of initial /b/ being a particularly egregious example), and replaced them with a thoroughly sourced alternative, you act like I am the one basically conlanging.

• • That word shows the effects of the /ē/-/ĭ/ merger, which already puts it in Late Latin at the earliest. Moreover the borrowing fourondec~foulondec is only found in Breton, not in Welsh, which provides further evidence for a late date. (The Bretons migrated to mainland Gaul c. 400 AD). The extremely late attestation writing (ca. 795), as well as the apparent absence of any inherited Romance derivative of formaticus outside of Gallo-Romance, all support a rather late date as well. All of that combined rules out any thoughts of a Classical-era formaticus, and a plausible estimate for the origin of the term would be, perhaps, 650–750 AD.

  • Same strawman, not argument against including a Classical pronunciation. The /ē/-/ĭ/ is already attested at Pompeii, and was regular basically everywhere excluding the Sardinian-type systems. This is why DERom transcribes this vowel as /ɪ/. I expect that this vowel, when borrowed into Breton, would be reflected as /e/ because the Celtic /e/ was a close vowel, and so presumably was /i/, so long and short vowels didnt' differ in quantity. The word can reflect the Classical Latin phonemic shape with no modifications. It was borrowed before any specifically Gallo-Romance changes and doesn't require any fancy reconstructions.

• As I have already explained to you, Pompeii does not attest a merger of those two phonemes. What is does attest is a lowering of short i in the atonic final syllable of verbs, not a general phonemic merger at all. You would know this if you had read the source I cited in that comment (Adams 2013: 58-61).

• Moreover, you are making a rather extraordinary claim now, that the word formaticus/um existed in Classical times, when the weight of evidence clearly points against it.

I can't tell which of you wrote this, but I believe it is The Nicodene. If that's the case, you have just used "Gaul" where your original opinion would have you opposing this. Also, can you (both) please try to sign your comments? It's kinda hard to navigate otherwise. The same goes for indentation; having every comment start with a bullet doesn't make sense. As I said in the May 2021 Beer Parlour, this debate clearly comprises more than just this and that discussion. We evidently need to decide on a sitewide agreement on this matter and create a /Help: page detailing the decisions made so we can reference it if it ever comes up again. Hopefully, we can avoid these headache-inducingly long crossfire discussions in the future. Apologies in advance if I'm wrong on anything here, by the way. I still need to read the rest of the discussion below. 110521sgl (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• • You keep referring to policies as if they are, in and of themselves, justifications for dubious practices, but they are not. The infamously incorrect 'Vulgar Latin' transcriptions that Wiktionary had months ago comes to mind as an example of this.

  • A faulty transcription is neither a practice nor a policy - it's a template issue. Template issues are to be corrected, which it has been (until a few days ago). The website-wide Vulgar Latin issue hasn't been resolved, but there's a consensus among interested people that it should be. What you've been doing here recently is arbitrary editing and edit warring; policy issues aren't taken care of in this way, nor is anything else other than a deficit of self-affirmation.

  • Nothing about the term 'Carolingian France' is meant to imply that the region was independent from Charlemagne's overall empire any more than saying 'Roman Gaul' implies that the latter was independent.

  • I never mentioned or implied anything even remotely related to indepence of anything. I said that Carolingian France is a political entity, and is not where the word appeared; the word appeared on the territory called Gaul.

  It appeared on a territory called, in the late eighth century, Francia, and referred to by modern historians as France. I do not see what point you are trying to make here.

  • If by 'Late Latin' you specifically mean varieties spoken well after the fall of the Western Empire, then yes, they can be described as 'volatile', in a sense. That does not mean that one should substitute a potentially risky transcription with a clearly anachronistic one, however. (The more this discussion goes on, the more I think that simply leaving formaticus without a pronunciation is the right compromise.)

  • Again, again and again, we give the Classical pronunciation for those who wish to use the word today as well as for those who would like to know how it was pronounced back then. Again, risky reconstructions and other experiemnts belong in the reconstructed namespace. An even bigger issue is that you seem to be transcribing something, but you suspend deciding on the nature, terminology and all the other theoretical uncertainty over the entity you're transcribing until later times. This is what early 20th century Vulgar Latin is - let's reconstruct something that seems to require reconstruction, but let's not decide even on its definition. This is something I oppose.

  Nobody is "us[ing] the word today", and if somebody would "like to know how [formaticus/um] was pronounced back then", giving them a classical pronunciation would simply be wrong. More than wrong, it would be deliberately misleading.

  • Again, the term formaticum does not exist in Modern Latin, so this analogy does not work. (If you believe otherwise, please cite a Neo-Latin dictionary.) You could use this general argument to justify e.g. a (neo-)classical pronunciation for comitatensis, a type of soldier in the Late Roman Empire, because the term is actually used in modern times when discussing history. There is no comparable usage of formaticum to talk about 'cheese' in general or even a specific type of cheese.

  • Modern Latin is not a language separate from other types of Latin, and it doesn't specifically exclude word from any period. If someone wishes to use that word, for instance because it clearly distinguishes solid cheese, it's not our job to stop them. This word was current throught the Middle Ages and is not some scribble on the walls of Pompeii or invented by Irish monks; it makes sense morphologically and has near-parallels there; it cannot be excluded from Modern Latin, which by the way used formagium quite widely from the looks of things. fōrmāticus can be considered as a Classicising substitute for this un-Latin formation.

  Again, if you think the term belongs in Modern Latin, then you will have to cite a source for that. Nor is there any reason to spontaneously start using a long-dead eighth century 'vulgar' form that did not exist in Classical Latin. We have the word caseus already for that, needless to say. And no, formaticus was not "current through the Middle Ages" at all, nor did it ever acquire popularity outside of France.

  • Looking into the history of the individual words is an excellent idea. Doing so for formaticus quickly reveals that it was not ever attested as a noun phrase with caseus.

  • You think underlining words in condescending - yes, dear reader, underlining words is now condescending! But, whatever your opinion on it, it's necessary when talking to you. Queue the fact that I've UNDERLINED the fact that: The etymon that gave rise to the Romance forms precedes the attestation in Latin and as such the Latin attestation cannot disprove the postulated etymon. But this doesn't seem to help. What will help? Will anything? How does one explain to you that words appear before they are attested, often much earlier than they are attested, and that almost always their etymology must be conjectured on the basis of that posterior attestation?

  I have laid out the evidence regarding formaticus in a previous comment, and altogether makes a Classical origin extremely unlikely. It is not simply a deduction from the late date of first written attestation, although that in and of itself is in fact a compelling argument. To maintain that the word existed in Classical Latin, you would have to claim that it remained unwritten for some eight centuries. A rather extraordinary claim, objectively.

  • It was attested in the masculine; masculine Latin nouns are animate unless by ellipsis; therefore it was formed via ellipsis. There is no possible coherent objection to this reasoning. You simply persist arguing in order to be right. You don't even care; you don't even seem to care about native Latin gender usage; or TLFi, or Du Cange, or FEW (you even replaced the headword in references for the -us variant for both of these). You probably don't care about what this dude writes, and this is the way I feel about all discussions with you. You don't care about the truth, consensus, good faith, civility, or the aims of this dictionary. You care about stomping around red-eyed and telling everyone how you wrote a Wikipedia article and won't they bow to your authority, or else you're going to tell them all about how Gallia is glossed as Francia.

  Of course there is a coherent objection to this. -aticus was a productive noun-forming suffix of its own in Gallo-Romance, as shown by French and Occitan having numerous terms ending in derivatives of it. (They did have the flexion /s/ in the nominative singular in Old French and Old Occitan, by the way.) What you are doing is looking at the spelling formaticus and applying purely Classical rules to it and assuming that just because it is masculine in form it must be the result of ellipsis from a completely unattested expression. It most certainly does not have to be, just as e.g. *coraticus (Old Fr. corages) does not have to come from some (also completely unattested) noun phrase, but is rather a straightforward derivation from cor + -aticus.

  • The fact that according to Classical rules it 'should' be a neuter (as viaticum, etc.) is completely irrelevant to whether the eighth-century lemma formaticus should be shown as masculine or neuter on Wiktionary. Wiktionary is, as you mention, descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and DuCange cites formaticus and formaticos, clearly masculine forms. That said, it seems that one of the quotes that he provides does, in fact, attest a neuter form as well ("formaticum dicitur"). All that in mind, Wiktionary should show both variants, masculine and neuter. The Nicodene (talk) 22:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  • If this is the first time you've noticed under what headword Du Cange listed the word, this falls nicely in line with the fact that you disregarded FEW and contuine to disregard TLFi. You use references as excuses to push your own opinion - something I've observed repeatedly from you - and whenever they disagree, you become motivatedly skeptical. I don't believe you properly consulted a single one of those references; you certainly didn't read the entry-end etymology section in FEW, otherwise you'd noticed the Breton forms. In fact you altogether redirected formaticum to formaticus as if you believed that former form didn't even exist.

  Perhaps I was a bit hasty in correcting formaticum to formaticus. Only a single one of the quotes that Du Cange gives for it attests a neuter form (unambiguously), and I overlooked it. By the way, you thought (and claimed) that the Breton word was actually Welsh, so might I ask did you yourself "properly [consult]" the FEW? Or will we ignore your oversight and condemn only mine?

  Not once have I ever seen you admit you were wrong about anything. Here is an opportunity to start.

  • I have no clue how you surmised that Classical Latin rules should determine the form it should be on Wiktionary, or that the form it should be in on Wiktionary was even part of the question. I never once expressed doubt that the original form was masculine, which is a contribution for which I would have thanked you under other circumstances. I don't doubt that it was masculine because all nominative forms attested on dMGH Beta - Monumenta Germania Historica are masculine. The fact that the eighth-century attestation is consistently masculine, and only later becomes reinterpreted as a neuter, clearly points towards it being originally masculine. An inanimate Latin substantivised adjective can be masculine if and only if it results from ellipsis. You have provided no evidence that can possibly contradict this, and you have none; all you have is a desire to interfere and shove your opinion into other people's faces. You don't really care, and it could really be from an ellipsis, and you have no evidence for or against this, but you need to be noticed and to stroke your ego, so we're having this discussion, which has now come at an end.

  If you do not, in fact, believe that Classical Latin rules should matter at all for deciding what form to put on Wiktionary, then good. That was simply the impression I got from the fact that you keep citing them as if they were proof that the late eighth-century formaticus must be the result of an ellipsis of some (again, completely unattested) phrase like caseus formaticus, rather than just another example of the countless Gallo-Romance words derived simply from [noun/verb] + -aticus.

  • Also I do not understand where you got the impression that I believe that written Late Latin had no neuter-masculine distinction in general. I do not, and never have. The Nicodene (talk) 23:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Only in a variety of Latin where the masculine-neuter distinction has been abolished in favour of a subject-oblique case distinction, is it possible to talk about an inanimate substantivised adjective with a masculine ending -s that doesn't refer to a person. Saying that some langauge had a productive formation in -aticus for inanimate substantives means saying that this language no longer had the Latin distinction between the masculine and the neuter. This is the only possible way to interpret what you're saying; if you don't believe this, you either don't understand how the Latin gender works, or you hold incompatible beliefs, one of which is motivated by your desire to disagree. Brutal Russian (talk) 00:57, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  The spoken language, not the written language, had indeed experienced a 'breakdown of the neuter' (though that is an oversimplification) long before 795 AD. What I have been saying all along is that formaticus is simply an ad-hoc spelling of the popular term. Written Latin at the time, as always, aimed at achieving essentially Classical spellings and rules, with varying degrees of success, but features indicative of the popular language regularly bled through. The very presence of the non-Classical word formaticus at all (even if the form had been given as formaticum) is in fact an example of that. There is no contradiction here if you understand the sociolinguistic situation at the time. The Nicodene (talk) 02:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Let me summarize the points I have made here, for the benefit of others, since the ‘scattered’ discussion above jumps back and between speakers and also involves too many personal comments. (If you respond, please do so to this comment only.)

  Formaticus is not attested in Classical Latin, nor in any kind of Latin at all, until circa 795, and then only in what is now France. A borrowing into Medieval Breton does exist (fourondec), but nothing about its shape suggests a Classical origin; moreover, it shows the effects of a post-Classical front vowel merger. (Pompeiian lowering of /ĭ/ to [e] is only attested with any sort of frequency in final unstressed syllables of verbs, and so cannot be used as evidence for a precocious merger of the phonemes /ē/ and /ĭ/. That the merger post-dates Classical Latin is very much the communis opinio of scholarship.) Moreover the very fact that Breton borrowed the word, but Welsh did not, suggests that the borrowing took place after the ancestors of the Bretons left what is now called Wales and crossed the sea to found what is now called Brittany (circa 400 AD onwards), after which they, at some point, acquired the word from contact with Gallo-Romans. Further evidence that formaticus is post-Classical comes from the fact that it is attested as a native form only in Gallo-Romance languages, and not in any other branch of the Romance language family. Taken together, all of this makes it extremely doubtful that the word ever existed in Classical Latin, which was spoken in the first century B.C. Accordingly, not a single scholar has ever claimed that it did, and so we here on Wiktionary should not, and cannot, claim that it did on the page dedicated to formaticus.

  One might object that Neo-Latin is often rendered in a Classical pronunciation. Why not, then, give even formaticus such a pronunciation? The problem with this view is that Neo-Latin does not employ Post-Classical ‘vulgar’ terms that never made it into mainstream (‘proper’) Latin, such as formaticus ‘cheese’, or abante (meaning ‘before’), or caballicare (meaning ‘to ride a horse’), or focaticum (meaning ‘hearth-tax’), or nubaticum (meaning ‘cloud’), or wadius (meaning ‘pact’), or domium (meaning ‘protection’ or ‘custody’, found in 8th century Lombard documents), and so on. If one wants to discuss cheese with one’s Latin-speaking friends, the word that one will use is, quite naturally, caseus, not an obscure eighth-century term used in the western part of the Carolingian Empire.

  In sum, there is no reason why the Wiktionary entry for formaticus should assign to the word a Classical pronunciation that is anachronistic both from the contemporary and the modern perspectives.

  —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

  As for the etymology of formaticus, it has been claimed by some that it is an ellipsis for the phrase *caseus formaticus.

  The first objection to this is simply that the phrase *caseus formaticus is not attested anywhere. Formaticus simply pops into being as-is in various documents from the late eighth-century

  The second objection is that there is no requirement for formaticus to have originated from a noun phrase such as *caseus formaticus. Medieval Gallo-Romance is replete with several dozen, at least, masculine nouns ending in -ages (in the Oïl zone) or -atges (in the Òc zone), the suffix being derived from the ending -aticus. If one wanted to claim that formaticus must have originated in an unattested noun phrase, one is also forced to claim the same for coraticus, aetaticus, hominaticus, vassalaticus, visaticus, abantaticus, and so on. (These are the etyma of the Old French corages, aages, homages, vassalages, visages, and avantages.) Doing so in any plausible fashion would be nigh-impossible, not to mention completely unnecessary. In accordance with Occam’s Razor we can simply state what the evidence shows us: that -aticus was an independent, and remarkably productive, derivational suffix in Gallo-Romance.

  Accordingly the likeliest explanation for late eighth-century attestations of ⟨formaticus⟩ in what is now France is that these were simply latinized spellings of a local coinage consisting of forma ‘mould’ + -aticus, no different in principle from e.g. ⟨rodaticus⟩, meaning ‘wheel-tax’, or any of the myriad other such Gallo-Romance coinages first attested in the Merovingian and Carolingian eras. The Nicodene (talk) 05:48, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  • @The Nicodene: I'd like links to masculine form attestations of all these Latin spellings: coraticus, aetaticus, hominaticus, vassalaticus, visaticus, abantaticus, rodaticus. Brutal Russian (talk) 23:35, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

    @Brutal Russian First of all, the only spelling that I cited was ⟨rodaticus⟩; all of the rest I explained were the etyma of various words found in Old French. Their derivatives are also found in other Gallo-Romance languages, incidentally.

    Read the following extracts from Merovingian and Carolingian documents, and note the numerous Latinized spellings of the type that we are discussing.

    (PL 87 0774C) XLV. Indiculum regale:

    “…nullus quislibet, de iudiciaria potestate vestra nec missus noster nulla telonea, nec nullas venditas, nec rodaticus, nec foraticus, nec pontaticus, et, sicut dixi, nullus quislibet teloneo nec venditas eius in nullo exactare non praesumatis.”

    Ludov. Pii Capitul. pro Hispan. cap. 6.

    (Quoted by Du Cange in his entry for beneficium.)

    “Certe ea fuit apud nostros Beneficiorum conditio, ut qui ea impetrabant, aut quibus conferebantur, et fidem præstarent, seu, ut tunc loquebantur, se in vassaticos commendarent, et servitium militare facerent iis qui ea conferebant.”

    (PL 135 0191C) CAPUT XVIII. Item de praefato rege Karolo:

    “…statim regressus ad locum ubi eumdem regem iacentem viderat, invenit eum in loco lucido sanum corpore, et indutum regiis vestibus, dixitque illi: Vides quomodo me adiuvit tuus missaticus?”

    Privilegium, concessum Hispanis a Ludovico Pio Imp.

    (quoted by Du Cange in the entry for mansionaticum):

    “Aut Comes ille, vel successores ejus hoc in consuetudinem præsumant, neque eos sibi vel hominibus suis aut Mansionaticos parare, aut veredas dare, aut ullum censum præstare cogant.“

    By my count, Du Cange quotes a total of ten unambiguously masculine usages on that entry.

    Dagobertus I Francorum, Praeceptiones ecclesiasticae, 80, 0511B:

    “Precipimus […] ut nullo unquam impedimento pars sancti Dionysii de ipso mercado habeat ex parte nostra et vestra, neque intra ipsa civitate Parisius, neque ad foras in ipso pago de ipsos theloneos, vel navigios, portaticos, pontaticos, rivaticos, rotaticos, vultaticos, themonaticos, chespetaticos, pulveraticos, foraticos, mestaticos, laudaticos, saumaticos, salutaticos, omnia et ex omnibus, quicquid ad partem nostram vel fisco publico, de ipso mercado ex ipsa mercimonia exactare potuerit, pars sancti Dionysii vel sui agentes imperpetuo habeant per hanc nostram indulgentiam et auctoritatem.”

    —————————————————

    I believe I have made my point. If you need help understanding the Latin, do let me know. — The Nicodene (talk) 02:50, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  • @The Nicodene: Let me get this straight: you're adducing unattested masculines as etymologies of words that might or might not have been formed via ellipsis, and might or might not have been really formed as neuters, in order to prove that fōrmāticus was not formed by ellipsis; and that it was also originally formed as a masculine? And then - did I get this right - you adduce attested forms in <-s> (former masculines) of other words in order to prove that they were originally formed with <-s> as opposed to without it?—Firstly, what if we happen to find formerly-neuter nominatives of the same words (which I'm sure you've already seen in Du Cange), will it prove the opposite? Secondly, if we happen to find this type of impersonal substantives in Classical Latin as clearly substantivised in the neuter with <-um>, like viāticum, will that disprove what you're saying for you and confirm that the productive suffix was gendered? If not, when did the gender distinction disappear, was it before or after the word appeared? Brutal Russian (talk) 17:20, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    @Brutal Russian As I have already explained, your implication that etyma such as coraticus, aetaticus, etc. (the complete set of words would be truly massive), in addition to all of the myriad attested forms, of which I have only shown a fraction, must all be ellipses of unattested phrases would be a flagrant violation of Occam's razor. I challenge you to find a single scholar who has ever claimed this.

    The presence of neuter written forms proves nothing: they are simply what we would expect from the writing system of the time, which aimed at achieving essentially Classical spellings and grammar. We would not be surprised to find written forms such as ⟨hominem⟩ in the same texts, yet it would be absurd to treat them as evidence of a surviving Latin /h/, which is the equivalent of what you are trying to do here. Likewise we would not be surprised to find a form such as ⟨comitibus⟩, yet it would be absurd to claim that the ablative plural -ibus survived in local speech by the Carolingian period.

  • The presence of masculine written forms proves nothing: they are simply what we would expect from the writing system of the time, which aimed at achieving essentially Classical spellings and grammar. The unmarked forms in common Gallo-Romance were those ending in -aticu(m), not -aticus, which was a form of the same paradigm under different syntactic conditions. These syntactic conditions were different because the grammar of the language was different, because it was a different linguistic variety that exists on this website under the reconstructed name-space. Therfore the Old French words come not from -aticus, but from -aticum or even the reconstructed *-aticu - where no ellipsis should be assumed because no masculine-neuter distinction. Do you understand that you're failing to distinguish two different linguistic systems, one of which has a (by that time destabilised) gender distinction which the other one doesn't? Brutal Russian (talk) 19:10, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Brutal Russian That statement does not work in reverse. The presence of consistent types of deviation from Classical spelling, grammar, and syntax in texts from the Merovingian, Visigothic, etc. eras is used by Romanists as evidence of ongoing linguistic changes, especially when they correspond to widespread features of later Romance. They are not random noise in the data.

  • @The Nicodene:Why on Earth did you decide that the direction of change is -aticum > -aticus and not the other way around, when the unmarked case in Old French and everywhere else is the oblique??

  The 'unmarked common forms' in written Latin (not spoken Gallo-Romance) were indeed the classicizing -um spellings.

  • Not that you have demonstrated; specifically for formaticus we have a consistent <-us> in the "nominative".

  ----

  The Gallo-Romance forms were formed, manifestly, with the masculine -aticus. It is obviously true that the suffix was ultimately derived from the (rather marginal) Classical Latin -aticum.

  ----

This part had been removed by The Nicodene:

• • If there was no more distinction between -aticus and -aticum, and they were different cases of the same paradigm, how does what you write make any sense?? Further, earlier you produced this personal attack: "I should like to point out here that you have already betrayed your ignorance of the general topic at hand by making the outlandish claim that 'the current thinking in Romanistics is that only animate nouns had [a subject case by the sixth century]'." Do you really have no idea what I'm even talking about? Do you think it an uncontestable fact that the Gallo-Romance case system is a direct continuation of the Latin nominative/accusative distinction, that the default case for inanimate nouns corresponded to the Latin nominative, and that anyone who doesn't believe so betrays their ignorance? Does your blithe arrogance reach really reach such heights as to dismiss any new information as ignorance that the other party needs to be "disabused" of?
  • ----

• There is no evidence that Latin and Romance were distinguished prior to the ninth century. That is not merely my opinion: that is the communis opinio of scholarship.

  • Provide a quotation for this - not for the Oaths of Strasbourg with its rusticam romanam linguam, but for article that discusses modern scientific classification and states that there is a communis opinio on the issue. While you're at it, explain to me why a single phrase in the Oaths of Strasbourg cannot serve to decide a linguistic classification. I want to know if you've ever read anything approaching a scientific discussion on this matter, or if you've read a review of Wright 2002 and called it a day.

  It is perfectly possible to have a written language that requires obsolete grammatical distinctions. An excellent example of this is French, where the spoken form /paʁle/ corresponds to a myriad of different written forms (parler, parlais, parlait, parlaient, parlé, parlés, parlée, parlées, and parlai), all of which have to be learned 'artificially', that is to say, in school. An entire class of conjugations exists which is never used in everyday, informal French (the 1PL i.e. 'nous' conjugations), and that too has to be learned if one wants to write in 'proper' French. That is not to mention the great distance between spelling and pronunciation, such that ⟨eaux⟩ famously corresponds to the spoken form /o/.

  Yet, despite all of this, spoken and written French are one language. The Nicodene (talk) 19:31, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  • The neuter system was still functional in Classical times, both in the literary and in the popular language, some fluctuations in individual words aside, and so it is not surprising in the slightest to find viaticum only attested as a neuter in that period. The Nicodene (talk) 18:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    It occurs to me now that you may need the following explained, since your expertise is entirely limited to the Classical period.

    The Gallo-Roman proliferation of forms in -aticus (and, in more Classical shape, -aticum) post-dates the reassignment of neuter nouns ending in -um as masculines or (due to their plural) as feminines in popular speech. The Nicodene (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  • @The Nicodene: I'm afraid I'll have to curb your condescending and arrogant Schadenfreude by telling you that this has occured to you because I have literally requested myself that you explain this, in plain English. And not because my expertise is entirely limited to the Classical period, which is as true as saying that you have no expertise whatsoever in the Classical period, but simply because I'm not omnipotent and there are things I don't know. I know, shocking, and not something you'd ever think about yourself. Now only if we had 1) a reference for your statement, and 2) a proof that fōrmāticus postdates this development, right? Brutal Russian (talk) 19:10, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    I have an extensive knowledge of Classical Latin; the same cannot be said for your knowledge of Romance Linguistics, as you have consistently demonstrated in our ever-expanding list of discussions. That is not, however, anything to be ashamed of, and I will refrain from pressing the point further.

    ----

    Regarding the fate of neuter nouns in -um, here is an extract from Vaananen (1981: §224).

    "La flexion hétérogène est bien établie dès le VIe siècle au plus tard. Dans les traductions latines d’Oribase (Italie du Nord, qu’on date d’environ 600), les neutres sont traités de la façon suivante: 1) au singulier, ils sont presque tous devenus masculins; 2) au pluriel, le nom.-acc. est toujours en -a; 3) le gén. pl. est au féminin: ovarum (coctarum) 28 fois contre ovorum (sans épithète) 2 fois; 4) l’épithète ou l’attribut se rapportant à un neutre pluriel est presque toujours au féminin: folia virides teneras, folia molles, folia infusas, grana oppressas, ossa consparsas, ova sorbiles (H. Mørland, Die lateinischen Oribasius-Uebersetzungen, Symbolae Osloenses, fasc. supplet. V, Tardif 34 ricta indicia termenendas (Pei, p. 162); Marculf (Gaule) 1, 33 ipsas strumenta (= instrumenta) perierunt, au sg. instrumentus, monstasterius, etc. (A. Uddholm, Formulae Marculfi, p. 64 sq.); Tjäder, Papyri 8, II, 6–7 (Ravenne, a. 564) stragula... duo valentes solido uno 'deux couvertures valant un sol'; ICVR II 6449, 39 (VIe/VIIe s.) ille secrita (= illa secreta). Le neutre ne subsiste donc plus qu'au pluriel, en tant qu'expression collective."

    Translation (mine):

    "The heterogenous inflection is well-established by the sixth century at the very latest. [For instance] in the Latin translations of Oribasius (Northern Italy, dated to ca. 600) the neuters are treated in the following manner: 1) in the singular, they have almost all become masculine; 2) in the plural, the nominative-accusative always ends with -a; 3) the genitive plural is feminine: ovarum (coctarum) [occurs] 28 times, against 2 occurences of ovorum (without a determiner); 4) the determiner that goes with the neuter plural is almost always in the feminine: folia virides teneras, folia molles, folia infusas, grana oppressas, ossa consparsas, ova sorbiles (H. Mørland, Die lateinischen Oribasius-Uebersetzungen, Symbolae Osloenses, fasc. supplet. V, Tardif 34 ricta indicia termenendas (Pei, p. 162); Marculf (Gaule) 1, 33 ipsas strumenta (= instrumenta) perierunt, in the singular instrumentus, monstasterius, etc. (A. Uddholm, Formulae Marculfi, p. 64 sq.); Tjäder, Papyri 8, II, 6–7 (Ravenna, 564) stragula... duo valentes solido uno 'two coverings worth one solidus'; ICVR II 6449, 39 (VIe/VIIe s.) ille secrita (= illa secreta). The neuter therefore no longer survived except in the plural as a [feminine] collective."

    • Vaananen, Veikko. 1981. Introduction au latin vulgaire. Paris: Klincksieck.

    ----

    Formaticus is first attested at the end of the eighth century, and there is no justification, as I have shown elsewhere in this discussion, for your claim that it existed in the Classical period; moreover you are entirely alone in thinking that it did.

  • @The Nicodene:You're alone in thinking that I think it did, because measreading and attibuting absurd statements to me benefits helps appease your ego. I said the Breton form shows "a regular development of the phonemic shape that the Classical pronunciation represents". Brutal Russian (talk) 21:22, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Brutal Russian First of all, I believe you called it a Welsh form. Second, your presentation of this argument would not make any sense if you did not think that the word existed in the Classical period. The fact that you did not explicitly state your belief does not change that.

  • Hah, your fixation on me confusing the two language names is fascianting. Keep at it, it shows great intellect, maturity and an abundance of things to say that are actually pertinent to anything.—My presentation is as unambiguous as it gets, doesn't implying the nonsense you're trying to put into my mouth; as I've explained: "The word can reflect the Classical Latin phonemic shape with no modifications. It was borrowed before any specifically Gallo-Romance changes and doesn't require any fancy reconstructions."Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  Incidentally you never did cite a source for your claim that the /e/ outcome of Breton fourondec shows an 'expected' outcome of Classical Latin /ĭ/ [ɪ], rather than Late Latin [e].

  The Nicodene (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Schrijver 2002 page 9 - Proto-Celtic /i/ lowers to /ẹ/ at the same time as in Latin and forms a counterpart to /ē/, just as in Latin - including as attested at Pompeii, as Adams wrights and as you cannot read: "In the early Republic there are already signs that ĭ had an open quality that caused it to be written sometimes as an e. It might have had some such value as ẹ̆." That is precisely what I said.Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    @Brutal Russian First of all I have cited Adams multiple times to you and you have still, apparently, failed to actually read what he said, on the pages that I specifically pointed out to you, because he establishes that the evidence from Pompeii is that /ĭ/ only lowered with any sort of frequency to [e] in a specific environment: atonic final syllables, generally in verbs. Since I no longer trust you to make even basic deductions, I will specifically point out that formaticus is neither a verb nor does it have the vowel in question in a final syllable.

    If you are really going to argue that Republican-Era Latin, with its frequent ⟨e⟩ spellings of the phoneme in question, is responsible for the Breton word fourondec, then I do not even know what to tell you. You are aware that this would mean that you are, apparently without irony, claiming over a millennium of failure on the part of any Roman to ever write down the word formaticus/um, right?

    ----

  • Speaking of the Breton word, it is interesting to see that the Celtic sound change at approximately the same time as the front-vowel merger in Late Latin.

    Unfortunately for you none of this can make fourondec a point in favour of a Classical origin, since its phonetic shape now tell us absolutely nothing about whether it was borrowed as [foːrˈmaːtɪkʊs] or as [forˈmaːtekʊs] or as [forˈmaːtekos] or as [forˈmaːdegos].

    In fact fourondec on the whole remains a point against your Classical theory, by the simple fact that such a pre-9th century borrowing exists (well, existed) in Breton but not in Welsh, nor any other Insular Celtic language, nor any Germanic language, nor Basque, nor Albanian, nor Greek, nor any neighbouring language. If we further consider (as you have been avoiding) the fact that the only branch of Romance that inherited formaticus was Gallo-Romance and acknowledge the historical fact that the Bretons were in contact with the Gallo-Romans only from ca. 400 AD onward, and if we further consider that the word is completely unattested anywhere until almost the ninth century AD (and even then it is only attested in what is now France) it becomes blindingly obvious that the word was coined in a late, clearly post-Classical period in what is now France.

    Let us take a moment to combine the terminus post quem of the early fifth century, the time of the Breton migration, to the terminus ante quem of the eighth and ninth centuries, the period in which syncope affected words like */forˈmadegos/ (Pope 1934: §165.1). That gives us a maximal range of, say, 400–750 AD for the origin of the word. Considering the total lack of written attestations of formaticus until ca. 795, a date close to the end of the given range remains the most likely. Needless to say, the entire range lies well outside of the Classical period.

    • Pope, Mildred K. 1934. From Latin to French. Manchester University Press.

    I reiterate the fact that no scholar has ever claimed that the word formaticus existed in Classical Latin, and you remain alone in this (vehemently held) conviction of yours. Theories upheld by nothing but personal convictions do not have any place on Wiktionary. The Nicodene (talk) 05:08, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• • It is common knowledge that there was a profusion of -aticus/aticum forms in Merovingian and Carolingian Latin. Cf. the numerous occurrences in the documents that I have cited above.

    ----

    Frankly, I am exhausted from arguing this case. At this point you are the one that needs to present evidence if you wish to continue. The Nicodene (talk) 21:10, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    @

    Brutal Russian

    Please stop replying in places that are inconvenient to respond to. I will do so here.

    "Why on Earth did you decide that the direction of change is -aticum > -aticus and not the other way around, when the unmarked case in Old French and everywhere else is the oblique??"

    Clearly I was referring to the nominative singular.

  • There was only one nominative singular which descends from both -aticus and -aticus. The two genders merged completely; the unmarked for both became the oblique, specifically for inanimates. It makes no sense to say that one developed into the other - there was a complete reshuffling (see the hilarious part below).Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  It remains clear, nevertheless, that CL -aticum is the ancestor of the Gallo-Roman noun-forming suffix. Nothing that you have said contradicts that basic fact. The Nicodene (talk) 00:19, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• • "Not that you have demonstrated; specifically for formaticus we have a consistent <-us> in the "nominative".

    You do realize that you are now arguing against your own statement, that neuter -um was the common, unmarked form, right? I can only assume you are doing this to be contrarian, even if it means contradicting yourself.

  • I'm not. The unmarked case form of the same noun. -us and -u(m) were forms of the same noun - -u(m) was the unmarked form in inanimates, not -u(s) (see the hilarious part below).Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  See below. The Nicodene (talk) 00:17, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• • "Provide a quotation for this - not for the Oaths of Strasbourg with its rusticam romanam linguam, but for article that discusses modern scientific classification and states that there is a communis opinio on the issue."

  • The unmarked case form of the same noun. -us and -u(m) were forms of the same noun. -u(m) was the unmarked form in inamiates, not -u(s).Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

This part had been removed by The Nicodene with the comment: Sigh... nevermind. I do not look forward to yet another sub-discussion

• • "Do you think it an uncontestable fact that the Gallo-Romance case system is a direct continuation of the Latin nominative/accusative distinction [?]"

    The nominative directly continues the Latin nominative, and the oblique continues the Latin oblique cases. If you doubt that, then please, cite a source, any source at all, that doubts this basic fact.

    ----

  • Haha, oh no, don't run away just yet, you certainly can't miss some basic facts:

Ledgeway 2012 p. 332: "Rather, the extension and gradual generalization of the accusative in late Latin and Romance provides further proof for the loss of the original nominative/accusative orientation in the nominal system in favour of an active/stative or, better, ergative/absolutive orientation (recall the possible extension of the accusative to active, dynamic intransitive subjects), in which it is precisely the accusative (= absolutive/stative), and not the nominative (= ergative/active) which represents the unmarked case[...]."

And p.333:

"Rather, all the available evidence from the northern and southern Romània points to a binary case system, whose original nominative-accusative orientation, as witnessed, for example, by early Gallo-Romance where all subjects, be they A, SA, or SO, are marked nominative in contrast to accusative-marked O(bjects), gradually develops into an active/stative orientation."

And p.335:

"Within a typological perspective, the otherwise exceptional retention of a marked nominative in conjunction with animates clearly points to a previous active/stative alignment in the late Latin/early Romance nominal system [...], in which animate nouns, on account of their high dynamicity and definiteness, were typically encoded as A and SA and consequently often fossilized in their nominative (= active) form in Romance, whereas inanimates, on account of their low dynamicity and indefiniteness, were typically encoded as SO and O and therefore usually fossilized in the accusative (= stative) form in Romance."

I invite you to direct your attacks and accusations of being an ignorant beginner to mr. Ledgeway, lol.Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

No part of (the brilliant) Dr. Ledgeway's discussion on active/stative alignment supports the frankly ludicrous claim you were making that forms like ⟨capus⟩ could not have existed in the spoken Latin of the sixth century because inanimates (according to you) lacked a nominative form entirely by then, a claim which is directly contradicted by the fact that both Old French and Old Occitan used the flexion /s/ as a subject (or, if you prefer, active) marker for both animate and inanimate masculine nouns. Absolutely nothing that Ledgeway says supports what you claimed about ⟨capus⟩. E-mail him and ask for yourself, if you do not believe me. The Nicodene (talk) 02:13, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

The problem, essentially, is that you took his observation of a tendency observable in Late Latin and assumed that there was a complete elimination of the nominative in inanimates in Late Latin, which is patently false.

You would have immediately figured that out if you knew anything about Old French or Old Occitan—where, again, inanimate masculine nouns continued to have a nominative (or subject, or active) flexion /s/—or if you had just remembered after I explained this to you during the ⟨capus⟩ discussion. Apparently though my explanation went in one ear and right out the other, because in a later edit summary you commented about "the Old French word [formage/formages] - which notably lacks the final -s". Even in the discussion we are having here, on this very page, I mentioned the /s/ ending yet again, and you are still either unaware of it or wilfully ignoring it. The Nicodene (talk) 02:41, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

When I say I do not want to have to explain the entire field of Romance Linguistics to you, this is precisely the sort of thing that I meant. You are essentially forcing me to explain even very basic concepts to you. (I am tempted to make a spreadsheet of all the elementary mistakes you have made to finally prove to you the obvious: that you are not informed about this field). Please, for the love of Christ, if not for my sake, read some books on the subject rather than wasting both your time and mine by blundering and flailing your way through arguments like this. The Nicodene (talk) 02:49, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

For god's sake, had you been familiar with even the very first verse of the Song of Roland (the most famous Old French text, period, and one that any Romanist is aware of) you would have seen an example of this: "nes poet guarder que mals ne l'i ateignet". Meanwhile another famous text in that language (The Life of St. Alexis) begins with the words "bons fut li siecles al tens ancienur". The Nicodene (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• • I have had enough of your constant demands for citations of basic facts. Here is a challenge for you: find me a single source saying that Latin and Romance were distinguished prior to the ninth century. By the way it was the Council of Tours not "the Oaths of Strasbourg"; the fact that you do not even know where the famous rusticam romanam linguam quote comes from is yet more confirmation of the fact that you are a beginner, at most, in Romance Linguistics. The Nicodene (talk) 21:49, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    Let me clarify the 'challenge', because I can already see how you would misinterpret it.

    The point is to a single source saying that people living at any point prior to the ninth century (not scholars living over a millennium later) ever distinguished Romance from Latin. The Nicodene (talk) 22:19, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Rofl. This is year 2021, we're on an on-line dictionary and we're discussing the linguistic classification of a language to determine what language variety to assign it to. And you continue appealing to the linguistic intuition of 9th century Franks, even after I stressed its irrelevance. What a joke. Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    @Brutal Russian The point is that if there was a clear distinction prior to that date, it would have been pointed out. (Such a distinction is clearly pointed out after the eighth century.) It is good to see that you have, even if sarcastically, acknowledged the point. The Nicodene (talk) 00:03, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

    Do I detect a hint of racism in 'appealing to the linguistic intuition of 9th century Franks'?

    As you are perfectly aware, I hope, it is not just 'the Franks'; nobody prior to the ninth century, no matter where they came from, no matter which century they lived in, no matter even whether they were a native speaker or an L2 speaker, ever drew a distinction between Latin and Romance. The Nicodene (talk) 01:08, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• • One more thing, because I know you are inevitably going to think that the reason I keep pointing out that you are a beginner is to attack your feelings.

    There is nothing wrong with being a beginner. I, myself, like any human alive, am at best a beginner in most fields.

    What is wrong is being a beginner who argues endlessly about topics that they are not informed on. Your time would be much better spent reading up on Romance Linguistics instead of demanding that I essentially teach the entire field to you. I will not do it. The Nicodene (talk) 22:34, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  • And to think that the author of these lines accuses me of condescension. Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• • Some further thoughts:

    I intended not to press this matter further because I hoped that you would acknowledge, even if only tactily, the truth that you are a beginner when it comes to Romance Linguistics. (Until you realize this, you will never be able to improve.) Instead you have continued to confidently blunder your way through arguments about the topic, which demonstrates that you still believe yourself to be an expert, or at the very least not the beginner that you objectively are. I will continue to point this out in hopes that the message will make it through to you.

    Nobody is asking you to publicly confess this, just to understand it. You may yet make a good Romanist one day after thoroughly informing yourself on the subject. Having a good foundation in Classical Latin will help, but it is not nearly enough on its own. The Nicodene (talk) 23:40, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

    You claimed earlier that what I am doing on Wikipedia and Wiktionary in general (trying to improve the coverage of topics related to Romance Linguistics) is some sort of narcissistic bid for attention. Nothing could be further from the truth; I hate being the center of attention, and I most certainly hate seeing you ping me for the umpteenth time on yet another discussion you have started somewhere new in a vain attempt to publicly berate me.

    I will continue to throw your own medicine in your face up until the moment that you finally leave me in peace. The Nicodene (talk) 07:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

    And no, do not misinterpret that to mean that I am not open to having civilized discussions. I regularly have, and enjoy, such discussions with other people, whether or not we end up agreeing in the end. You are the only exception to this; consider reflecting on why that is so. The Nicodene (talk) 08:19, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

    In fact, let me be brutally honest (perhaps too honest for Wiktionary): if some Roman divinity offered me the option of having to chew a pile of broken glass every day, in return for never having to see or hear from you again, I would take that deal without the slightest hesitation. The Nicodene (talk) 08:51, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

    I must confess I found rather amusing the glee with which you giggled like a schoolgirl about how “Nicodene deleted this message—that must mean that he was wrong and I was right! Finally, I have proved I know something!” instead of realizing that I am simply tired of dissecting your misconceptions on topic after topic in Romance Linguistics. If Ledgeway saw the twisted and frankly delusional interpretation you have apparently made of his work, I bet he would die a little inside. The Nicodene (talk) 09:25, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay. I'm done reading. Both of you: stop flaming. You each say you're open to civilized discussion. Of course, neither of you will take the first step, because that would mean the other would most definitely believe you're conceding - in your mind. The optimal way to fix this, of course, would be to actually prepare for a debate as if you were a lawyer in the lawsuit for your life, and the judges were emotionless pilars of objectivity. On Wiktionary, however, the best way to actually come to an actual conclusion or even solve the original problem seems to be to have others review the matter and to provide a clear summary of your points, possibly supplying elaboration if so asked. That, I believe, is what the Beer Parlour, Tea Room, Etym. Scriptorium, and Votes are supposed to facilitate. However, this issue - clearly - spans more than just a single question. We started with a simple and easily discussable disagreement regarding the name of a region in an era. Then we welcomed back our old friends "Formaticus" and "Capus." Somehow, this landed us an entire (and I'm obliged - judging from this page - to mention that this is hyperbola) evaluation of two understandings of two proposed evolutions of the Latin-Romance language continuum through time. And we still haven't gotten an answer to the original question, nor even the slightest acknowledgment that the other party might want to solve the issue as much as the one, nor a comprehensive idea of what the core problem solvendus is fundamentally, nor do I get the idea that either of you have even tried to consider any credit belonging to the other's hypothesis. The matter most urgent here is your flaming. And a clear description of both the concept of the difference between "Latin" and "Romance," and the policies surrounding them, possibly a revisiting and restatement of these if they already exist. I'll make a new entry in the Beer Parlour for this when I'm not exhausted from reading. My apologies for the possibly hostile tone. 110521sgl (talk) 00:11, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Conclusion

The point of all this was to show that assigning a pronunciation from the 1st century B.C. to the lemma we have here on Wiktionary, formaticus, which dates to the late eighth-century in what is now France, is completely unjustifiable.

I contend that I have more than adequately demonstrated this, and that, furthermore, anyone informed on Late Latin and Romance Linguistics would agree with this conclusion after reading through the above discussion. The Nicodene (talk) 22:53, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

As the Breton form clearly testifies, it dates to significantly earlier than the eighth century (FEW p.719: "Ihr hohes alter") and the Classical pronunciation remains as the standard one we give for all lemmas. Brutal Russian (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but the FEW does not actually say "significantly earlier than the eight century" (let alone "in the Classical period"), a phrase that you made up yourself; it simply refers to the "great age" of the borrowing because it "precedes the -aticu > -age change" (loose translation). The change that is alluded to here is the syncope that caused *[deg] > *[dg], leading eventually to the affricate [dʒ]. (Clearly the Breton fourondec was borrowed before that change.) That syncope took place in the course of the eighth and ninth centuries, according to Mildred K. Pope (1934: §165.1), cited earlier above.

Incidentally, the fact that the ending is not mentioned as -aticum but rather as -aticu in the quoted FEW entry shows that the author did not have in mind a Classical origin, or else he would not have used a deliberately non-Classical spelling for the form. That is consistent with the fact that not a single scholar, German or otherwise, has ever claimed that formaticus/um existed in Classical Latin. This "brutal russian" remains the only person on the planet, as far as I can tell, who thinks that it did.

The latter point that has been attempted in the previous user's comment is not so much an argument in favour of a Classical pronunciation for formaticus as an argument in favour of changing what is clearly an oversimplistic and flawed policy on Wiktionary. The Nicodene (talk) 00:26, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

We can debate that at another time. For now, on the discussion page dedicated to formaticus, focus on formaticus only. The Nicodene (talk) 00:34, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we should put a disclaimer at the top stating basically this and providing a place to discuss the non-formaticus-related stuff from this page. Or maybe it would be better to say not to edit this discussion at all, seen as it'd either be pointless, or would without a doubt lead to another ranting battle within this one. 110521sgl (talk) 00:17, 18 June 2021 (UTC)