Talk:cothromas

RFV

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process.

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

---

I cannot attest this alleged Irish term. From among the hits found by google books:"cothromas", the only one looking like a use of the term seems to be in "Studies: Volume 60", 1971. --Dan Polansky (talk) 23:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Google books is hardly the place to be looking for words in Irish. If you look on regular Google and add the word "bhfuil" to filter out dictionary entries and the like, you find lots of uses of the word, which incidentally is listed in dictionaries as far back as Dinneen. —Angr 16:45, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Then the question is what are the durably archived sources of Irish quotations, and whether you would care to provide three links to these quotations. So please, if you do not want to copy and format attesting quotations to cothromas, at least provide three hyperlinks to them. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

The durably archived sources of Irish quotations are to be found in libraries, not on the Internet. Same as with all languages whose Web presence is minimal. —Angr 17:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

It is listed in Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Well documented languages so the three citation rule stands. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:56, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

But "well documented on the Internet" does not mean "well documented in what Wiktionary considers 'durably archived sources' on the Internet". I doubt if any of the languages on that list besides English and German are well documented in durably archived sources on the Internet. Our definition of "durably archived" basically requires real research of real dead-tree books for almost all languages besides those two. Also, WT:CFI says terms that have "clearly widespread use" don't need the 3 citations, and I think over 10,000 uses on websites--even those not considered "durably archived"--indicates clearly widespread use. For example, here and here are Acts of the Irish Government where the word cothromas is used in the Irish text and the word "equity" is used in the English text. Now, those URLs don't count as "durably archived" by Wiktionary standards because they could change at any time, but the Acts themselves aren't going anywhere and will presumably be findable in the archives of the Irish Government for as long as the state of Ireland exists. So can we list them or not? —Angr 18:17, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Or here is a usage of the term cothromas diúltach (RFVed two threads up) in a newspaper article from last February. Again, the URL itself is not considered "durably archived", but the paper edition of the newspaper is. Even if the URL disappears someday, all a person has to do is find a copy of Foinse in the library and look it up. So can that be listed as a citation of the word or not? —Angr 18:24, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Great finds! Yes, laws and legislative acts are durably archived (as discussed here). And yes, if the newspaper has appeared in print, it can be cited just fine... it's no different than citing the Google Books copy rather than a 3D paper copy of a book, AFAICT. :) - -sche (discuss) 18:26, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

It does say on that page "This page may be modified through general consensus." The best way to cite this might be to argue to remove it from Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Well documented languages. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Re: "I doubt if any of the languages on that list besides English and German are well documented in durably archived sources on the Internet": I beg to differ. From my experience, I have found almost all Czech words that I came across attested in Google books. Czech is a language with approximately 12 million native speakers. OTOH, as regards Irish in particular, Wikipedia tells me that "Around the turn of the 20th century, estimates of native speakers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000 people". --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:13, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I was exaggerating when I said only English and German, but in fact there is very little Irish at Google Books. There is enough Modern Irish literature published that it should almost always be possible to find 3 cites for any given lemma, but it may not always be possible to find those cites on line. Technical terms like these can probably be found, at the very least, in Irish-language textbooks, but the contents of those textbooks are probably not readily available on the Web. —Angr 21:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

How much Irish there is on Google books should better be figured out. "Irish" is not listed among Google books languages in advanced search. WT:About Irish would do well to guide us on where and how to look for attesting quotations. Embryomystic (talk • contribs) seems to feel free to add terms that have close to no web hits; a recent case in point is xéirifileach: google:"xéirifileach". --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:24, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, google books:"bhfuil" gets less than 66,000 hits, and that's a form of the verb "to be" and thus an extremely common word in Irish. (It's also peculiarly enough spelled that all hits for will be in Irish and not in any other language.) I agree that Embryomystic adds too many "dictionary words" that have very little attestable usage, though I don't agree that they are "alleged Irish" or "would-be Irish". And cothromas, which has been attested in various spellings since the 9th century AD, is definitely not "alleged Irish". —Angr 22:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

While I agree with Mglovesfun that the best way to cite terms like this may be to remove Irish (and Welsh?) from the list of well-attested-online languages, I think I've cited this the old-fashioned way. - -sche (discuss) 01:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Where did you find the other two cites? Online or off? —Angr 08:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Online. I searched Google Books for inflected, lenited and eclipsed forms. - -sche (discuss) 18:53, 22 August 2012 (UTC)