Chi-Rhon

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Again, welcome! Razorflame 04:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ancient Greek

See WT:ELE, ===Etymology=== comes before the part of speech header. Also, what we treat here as ==Ancient Greek== did not descend from Mycenaean (none of the historical dialects), so it would be the best to put it in the etymology section, or perhaps ====Related terms==== if the etymology is unavailable. --Ivan Štambuk 00:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for referring me to the layout page which showed the correct placement of the accepted etymologies. As you can see, the vast majority of the entries which were added by another Wiktionary contributor some time ago. I have simply used that format as the "gold standard" which I have followed faithfully and I have neither the time nor the inclination to change them all. I have simply continued to follow the standard already set and have kept to it rigorously. Perhaps it would be best if you contacted the person who add the bulk of the Mycenaean nouns on this page and put your points to him. Would it be possible for you to cite some references for some of the proto-Indo-European etymologies? --Chi/Ron 00:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean Atelaes? Yeah he's the Ancient Greek guy here, responsible for bulk of the AGr entries. Not active much these days, sadly. I'm sure he did all the work in the best possible attention, and if I'm not mistaken I even whined somewhere long time ago of how imprecise would be to treat what we cover by ==Ancient Greek== as "descending" from Mycenaean. What you're doing is adding of course valuable content, but what I'm saying that it should be simply formatted differently, in order to be more "proper". (Incidentally, we have quite similar situation with Old Church Slavonic ====Descendants==== sections...) Sure I can cite references for PIE etymologies, which ones trouble you? --Ivan Štambuk 01:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I have just checked some of the other Mycenaean nouns which use the Descendants label and some of them were originally added in this format by you and remain that way even now. At what point did you change your mind about the format? Here is a link to one of the first pages I came across and have followed the format which was established over 2 years ago http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%90%80%A9%F0%90%80%84%F0%90%80%8F (for the colour "white"). It was added by Atelaes and then further edited by you but the layout included the Descendants label in precisely the same position which I have followed. Would it not be confusing for a Wiktionary user to suddenly be faced with an entirely different layout at this late date?

I changed my mind once I learned that Mycenaean was not directly ancestral to none of the later Greek dialects which we cover by ==Ancient Greek==. These pages should all be rectified and I urge you not to follow that defective format any more. I can imagine that it would be confusing for a new user, but it's not that we get new editors for ancient languages every day (more like: once a year ;) There are countless cleanup tasks for countless languages waiting to be completed, but except for a few dedicated cleanupers most editors don't really bother with such arduous botlike tasks and focus on adding new words or any content they find interesting at the moment.. --Ivan Štambuk 01:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be far happier about making a sudden change in format if you would first clear this with Atelaes. Once you have managed that then I will be willing to contribute my time and effort again. Are there any other parts of Wiktionary which give such precedence to theories of etymology? Which sources would you regard as definitive in terms of the most recent discoveries regarding the relation between PIE languages (and culture) and the Indo-European language groups? Should we not also be following the accepted format of preceding some of the undocumented words with an asterisk if precision is the core issue? Please post a comment on this page once you have resolved your dispute with Atelaes and have come to an agreement about which layout to use in future. I have only been a contributor to Wiktionary for a matter of a few days and already I feel that I am wasting my time and having to spend far too much of it in correspondence. Please forgive me but I don't feel that I have managed to contribute much today and there are much better things I could be doing with my time. --Chi/Ron 01:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I assure you that there is no "disagreement" and that Atealeas would gladly embrace my suggestions..

Etymology is given precedence absolutely everywhere - there's even an entire section dedicated to it (===Etymology===). The fact that some entries don't have their etymologies, is an entirely different matter. Some people take interest in simply learning a new language, some other in the theories of etymology... everyone contributes to the extent his own interest and knowledge. Ancient languages are of particular importance to etymologies. See our guideline page: WT:ETY for more info. Feel free to ask any questions.

The definite sources on PIE: everything published in the last 20-30 years, please evade older works that ignore laryngeal theory if you can and all the non-mainstream scholarship For Greek there is the new Beekes' dictionary, partially available online at the IEED pages which you can utilize. --Ivan Štambuk 02:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)