Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/Perunъ
Add topicLatest comment: 9 years ago by Ivan Štambuk
Why not capitalized? It's a proper noun. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Because reconstructions represent sounds, not spellings. Sounds cannot be capitalized. Not only that, but we would be forced to decide which language's capitalization rules to use. --WikiTiki89 12:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Even if reconstructions represented sounds (which they don't really), there is no difference between *abc and normally really-world attested abc in language X. The dichotomy of sequence of sounds vs. spelling that you introduce is false and arbitrary. Conventions for capitalizations in real-world languages are just as arbitrary. We don't care about capitalization rules for reflexes - the only thing that matters is the established conventions for the protolanguage. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Now that I've started a discussion at the WT:BP, let's keep the discussion there. --WikiTiki89 18:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- @Wikitiki89, by the way, i created the page with capital letter just because i saw Proto-Germanic pages of gods with capital latters: *Þunraz, *Wōdanaz, *Tīwaz and *Frijjō. As you can see they're still alive despite the fact that @CodeCat was against and you - *Rimъ (i'm not gonna rename since i'm for capitalization of proper nouns). Nothing changed - result is nothing. For me it's confusing. Anyway Vasmer reconstruct as Perunъ. —Игорь Телкачь 06:19, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- Even if reconstructions represented sounds (which they don't really), there is no difference between *abc and normally really-world attested abc in language X. The dichotomy of sequence of sounds vs. spelling that you introduce is false and arbitrary. Conventions for capitalizations in real-world languages are just as arbitrary. We don't care about capitalization rules for reflexes - the only thing that matters is the established conventions for the protolanguage. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Reconstructed Proto-Slavic proper nouns are capitalized in most of the literature, and we should adopt the same standard. All of these discussions on what is "right" are immaterial because cultural conventions on capitalization of proper nouns are arbitrary. We should simply use the most common convention because that's what users will 1) expect 2) look up. If there are sources which use decapitalized forms they should be listed as alternative forms and soft-redirected. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:23, 31 December 2014 (UTC)