User talk:Djkcel/2014

*λαγαδον

Hello Djkcel. You gave *λαγαδον (lagadon, “a kick, leap”) as a cognate of the Latin locusta (thank you, by the way, for answering the request for etymology). I noticed that it lacked a pitch marker, so I looked it up in LSJ; however, I could find no such term listed. Are you sure that it's right? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:14, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey there, ISMETA. Sorry for the confusion. The source was spot-on with its origin but it only uses romanized letters instead of Greek characters. That was my best guess at reconstructing 'lagadon.' Should I instead replace it with rfscript? — This unsigned comment was added by Djkcel (talk • contribs) at 20:07, 17 January 2014 (UTC).

"The source"? It's hard to figure out how credible your etymology without knowing what the source is. I can't find anything that could be interpreted as "*lagadon" in Perseus. There's a verb λακτίζω (laktízō, “kick with the heel or foot”), which might have a *lag- with the *g assimilated to the following *t, but nothing that starts with λαγαδ-. That doesn't mean the form can't exist, but it needs the attention of someone who can check other references. As for rfscript: if you don't have a reference that shows that the word exists in the correct language in the correct script with a reasonably close definition, you shouldn't be guessing at what it will be in the target script. In Ancient Greek, any transliteration that contains e or o is ambiguous (and there are other surprises such as unexpected spellings for some consonants followed by s or a velar consonant), and any Ancient Greek word (with very few exceptions) that doesn't show accents is incomplete.

In general, making stuff up based on guesswork is bad enough, and making stuff up in languages you don't know is worse. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Case in point: Old Persian was only written in Old Persian Cuneiform- never in the Arabic script, which was invented many centuries later, and wasn't used for Persian until a thousand years later. If you don't know this, you have no business working with Old Persian in anything but transliteration. If you don't know the script used by a language, don't guess- use the transliteration and add rfscript (or attention if you don't have enough information for rfscript). Chuck Entz (talk) 22:22, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Please see Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek#Diacritics and accentuation, which states "Tone/stress accents (i.e. the acute, circumflex, and grave accents) should be incorporated into the spelling of Ancient Greek words in all places, though they are not represented in transliterations." [underlining my emphasis] and peruse Wiktionary:Ancient Greek romanization and pronunciation. The transliteration schemes for Ancient Greek employed here and almost everywhere else are surjective, which means that the original Ancient Greek word cannot be adequately reconstructed from a transliteration. So yes, in future, please use {{rfscript}} if all you have to work from is a transliteration. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:56, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the heads-up and sorry for the honest mistake. Just so you don't think I'm making stuff up, the source is An Etymological Dictionary of Persian , English and other Indo-European Languages Vol 2, page 278. I see that it's on google books so here's a link to the entry if you want to look: Lacosta I'm noticing it also connected the word to English leg, lobster, lizard, and alligator. From now on RFscript it is for the romanizations. Djkcel (talk) 16:26, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. And FWIW, I had no doubt that you were editing in good faith. BTW, could you also cite that source in an entry's References section when you use it to add content in the future, please? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:03, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

No, please don't cite that self-published and unreliable source. --Vahag (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Now that I see your source, I can see that you mislabeled Persian as Old Persian. Persian is also known as Farsi, and is a modern language that uses to Arabic script. Old Persian might be part of what they call "Old Iranian", though I'm not at all sure what they mean by that. I notice that they give Pokorny p. 673 as a source for the Greek, but that reference doesn't mention the form in question- I suspect λαγαδων might be a Modern Greek word. You need to be more careful. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:32, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks be to flyax: λαγάδων (lagádon) is the genitive plural form of λαγάς (lagás, “hare hunter”) — in Modern Greek, I should add. :-)  — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:16, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I wonder if λαγός is still related to the ancient word for kick. It seems to derive from the root that gave us languid (Latin langueo, languidis, etc) because of drooping. But it's still interesting to wonder if/how locusta ties into this. Djkcel (talk) 14:52, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, but I know scant little about reconstructed roots, so I couldn't say.
Two notes, if I may:

1. There is no need to use {{rfscript}} when using {{term}} to mention Ancient Greek terms by their transliterations only. See this change of mine to the etymology you added for the Modern Greek λαγός (lagós); if you include the transliteration using tr= and leave the first two unnamed parameters blank, {{term}} automatically generates a request for the native Ancient Greek script. Handy!
2. Vahagn Petrosyan (Vahag) raised doubts (in his post above timestamped: 17:17, 18 January 2014) about the reliability of your source. I would recommend that you speak to him about getting hold of some better sources for adding etymologies and reconstructed roots; he's told me that “[he] ha[s] good sources.”

Thanks for your co-operation. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

The etymology of Modern Greek λαγός (lagós) beyond Ancient Greek should be discussed at the Ancient Greek page, λαγώς (lagṓs). The best source for Ancient Greek etymology is Beekes 2010. Other good but somewhat outdated sources are Frisk and Chantraine. The last two are available on archive.org. The first one is available on pirate websites. --Vahag (talk) 18:49, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:recons

Hi, {{recons}} is deprecated and shouldn't be used anymore. Instead, please use {{term/t}} as follows: instead of {{recons|h₁éḱwos|lang=ine-pro}} type {{term/t|ine-pro|*h₁éḱwos}}. The same template can be used for attested languages too: {{term/t|es|caballo}} is exactly the same as {{term|caballo|lang=es}}. Just remember to put the asterisk at the beginning when referring to a reconstructed term (unlike {{recons}}, where you didn't have to type the asterisk). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, this is very helpful! Djkcel (talk) 14:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

retalhar

Hey. what is your source for the etymology? None of mine mention Provençal. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Hey, got it from Word-formation in Provençal, Volume 2. Though the source is not actually sure if it was a direct borrowing from Provencal or if it just influenced the spelling. I'll change the edit to reflect that info. Djkcel (talk) 23:39, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

The digraph lh was adopted from Provençal, but this doesn’t mean every word containing it was loaned from Provençal. It replaced the earlier digraph ll which was already present in many native words. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 23:42, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

scarabaeus

The code "mk" refers to modern (Slavic) Macedonian. —CodeCat 17:10, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Gotcha. Old Macedonian and OCS are basically interchangeable, so I'll make that switch and note it for future edits

I actually thought you meant Ancient Macedonian, the Greek-related language. —CodeCat 00:55, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

It's found in Aristotle's Historia Animalium, and Aristotle died in 322 BCE- more than a thousand years before OCS was first commited to writing. The w:Ancient Macedonian language is either related to or part of Ancient Greek, depending on which source you follow. The modern w:Macedonian language is a South Slavic language that has nothing to do with the older Hellenic one. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, this is making more sense now. That entry is citing Klein on the non-Greek suffix and Macedonian possibility and he must have meant ancient Macedonian rather than old Macedonian/OCS. Djkcel (talk) 02:26, 24 September 2014 (UTC)