Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/hrīmô

hrīmaz or rīmą

Hi! I'm a little confused. Is this supposed to be *hrīmaz (“hoarfrost”) or *rīmą (“number, enumeration, tally”)? Leasnam (talk) 19:13, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The former. Morgengave's original entry just gave "rime" which, as you can imagine, is about the worst gloss you could possibly give... —CodeCat 19:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Kluge's law

@Mellohi! I don't think we should be presenting controversial/not widely accepted reconstructions in Wiktionary. Kluge's law is one such hypothesis, apparently accepted by Kroonen but not by Ringe for example. Rather, the part of the reconstruction that hinges on acceptance of Kluge's law should be presented as such. —Rua (mew) 11:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily bad to have theories like these (Kluge's law is not widely accepted, but it isn't crackpot nonsense either: respected linguists have supported it and still do), but it probably is a good idea when invoking it to note the issues others (in this case, Ringe, probably?) have raised with it. It is probably better to have both this theory and relevant criticisms in an etymology section than skipping it entirely: that way the reader can be more fully informed of possible interpretations and debates on the issue. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 09:38, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think etymology sections are the place to put general criticisms of Kluge's law, though. Only things specific to the word in question should go there. General criticism is better left to the Wikipedia article, though of course we can link to it. —Rua (mew) 10:33, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Mellohi! Can we also get a regular non-Kluge inflection table? —Rua (mew) 17:31, 16 January 2020 (UTC)