User talk:Dbachmann

please come to w:User_talk:Dbachmann; per [1] I will not be using this account in the near future.

Sumerian

Hello, all the cuneiform entries you created are marvellous, could you verify whether in 𒇻#Related_terms the LULIM (stag) is spelt aright as 𒇻𒅆 and add it, if so. Regards The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:26, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

pseudo-scholarship

Hi. I've created an "alternative form of" entry for the unhyphenated form, to save copying everything and having two versions that might get out of sync. I can't find any evidence of a plural for that form, so I've left it out for now. You can use a Related terms header for etymologically related words, but I wouldn't do that just for pseudo- because your word is already in the pseudo- prefix category (because of its etymology template) and thus the category link to all words with that prefix already appears at the bottom. Equinox ◑ 11:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, Hyponyms and Hypernyms work as headers. Here is some default welcome blurb that might help you out with the formatting! Equinox ◑ 11:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Welcome

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Welcome Back

It's been awhile. I hope you'll consider coming back on a more regular basis, as things have certainly changed since you were last active. We're still just as rude and unforgiving as before, but we've got more rude and unforgiving folks who are interested in dead and proto languages. :-) If you need any help reorienting, let me know. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 12:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I like this. I have never really been away, but I have the feeling that your current level of rudeness is just about right for me :) --Dbachmann 15:07, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Viking

I fail to see how Viking is not cognate with viking. More to the point, the etymology was a mess, it looks like a bot import of some kind that had never been checked. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

"Cognates" are two words derived from the same, earlier, possibly unattested form in a stage ancestral to both languages. English Viking, otoh, is a direct loan from Old Norse vikingr.

"Cognates" in Old Norse and Old English necessarily derive from Proto-Germanic, or they wouldn't be cognates, just loans. --Dbachmann 09:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

hæþen

You can add requests for script by putting somewhere {{rfscript|Armenian}}, {{rfscript|Coptic}}, etc. --Vahag 16:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think it is silly to give words in obscure scripts just because there are Unicode codepages for them. Nobody would transliterate a Coptic word in Coptic script in the context of discussing an etymology. It's different for modern contexts I suppose (Modern Armenian, Modern Arabic, Modern Persian, etc.) While I would certainly give Modern Persian in Arabic script (alongside transliteration) I do not care much for giving Gothic or Old Persian in their obscure Unicode representation. --Dbachmann 19:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

One advantage of having the native script is that then the term can be wikilinked (and transliterations can't). These linked entries can contain additional information useful for etymology readers, e.g. Old Persian 𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶 (xšaçam), Gothic 𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐍃 (wulfs) and Old Armenian հեթանոս (hetʻanos). --Vahag 20:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

yes, I know, if the lemma exists, it should definitely be linked to.

the excessive "native script" policy is one of my major gripes about wiktionary (i.e. now that a reasonable environment has been created where people will not crucify you for discussing etymologies). It's not a big deal for me though, I just don't want to waste any time compiling strings in Devanagari or Old Persian cuneiform. Whoever decided that Sanskrit should be listed in Devanagari was either sure he wouldn't have to bother with it on a day-to-day basis, and/or was a politically correct extremist along the lines of "who are we to impose the Latin script on 'ethnic' languages?! Let us show our egalitarian internationalist spirit by suffering over exotic Unicode!" Using Gothic characters for Gothic is especially weird, as nobody would edit Gothic text in Gothic script. Gothic Unicode is just a gimmick. It tells you volumes about the spirit prevalent in the Unicode consortium that they to to extreme lengths to introduce Bronze Age script ranges (scripts which were never standardized in the first place) but they leave out important symbols for the scholarly transliteration of ancient languages (such as Egyptological aleph) to version 5.1. Unicode did a brave thing with Han unification back in the day, but after that they must have lost their bearing at some point. --Dbachmann 16:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Krishna etc.

Krishna is undeniably English, just as Allah and Jesus are. They certainly can't be Sanskrit which does not use the Latin alphabet. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Redirections

Please be aware of WT:REDIR. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

𒁳

Grüß Gott. Nachdem ich das Verb ṣabātu in einem Wörterbuch (A Concise Dictionary of Assyrian, 2000) nachgeschlagen hatte (Sumerogramm: DAB), fand ich drei weitere Bedeutungen im hiesigen Artikel 𒁳. Alle drei wurden im obengenannten Wörterbuch mit dem Sumerogramm DIB aufgelistet. Selbstredend entsprechen DAB und DIB einem einzigen Keilschriftzeichen und zwar 𒁳. Wäre es jedoch sinnvoll, DIB von DAB zu unterscheiden und die ersten drei Bedeutungen von der vierten in einem eigenen Abschnitt abzusondern oder ist es völlig egal, ob man das Zeichen mit DIB oder DAB wiedergibt. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 12:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

keine Ahnung -- Keilschrift auf Wiktionary steckt in den Kinderschuhen, hier ist noch vieles moeglich. Jede Erweiterung der vorhandenen Eintraege ist sicher willkommen. --Dbachmann 18:15, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Drago

I don't suppose that you and Drago (talk • contribs) are the same person? You have a similar editing style. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

not at all. I am a single-account user, User:Dbachmann all across the wikimedia projects. --Dbachmann 11:20, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Yahweh

Hi. Ref your recent etym edits. Surely the name of God Yahweh has been used in English since well before the 1860's ? Also, I think that "Bibles published by the Sacred Name Movement" comes pretty close to advertising. Many Bibles have been published over the centuries using the name Yahweh as the translation of the tetragrammaton. And many publishers, both commercial and non-profit, have been publishing Bibles that do not omit God's name (both Yahweh and Jehovah) since before the Sacred Name Movement. Would you consider revising your edits, please? Thanks. -- ALGRIF talk 12:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry. My bad. Since Tyndale there are many Bible translations that use the Holy name Jehovah. But AFAICS Yahweh written as such first appeared in 1902, as you put. But I stand by the fact that many publishers since then have used Yahweh before the 1950's, which makes a nonsense of the use of the Sacred Name Movement in the ety. -- ALGRIF talk 18:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The OED gives as the earliest attestation of "Yahweh" in English the year 1869. In German, the spelling "Jahweh" may be a couple of years older. The terminus post quem is probably Astruc (1753), and I would be highly interested in any 18th-century attestation of either Jahweh or Yahweh you may find.

The first use of Iehoua (in Latin) is given by the OED as 1518. The first use of Iehouah in English occurs around 1530. The spelling with J apparently appears in the 17th century.

As for the use of "Yahweh" in Bible translations between 1902 and 1950, I looked for them, but couldn't find any. If you can pinpoint a specific translation from that period, I would be grateful. --Dbachmann 12:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Babel

Any chance you would add Babel information to your user page, using {{Babel}}? It is good to know what languages contributors speak. --Dan Polansky 09:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Franky I don't know what "languages I speak". I have studied a dozen or two. I am fluent in very few. Since wiktionary is about written contribution, I do not think oral fluency is extremely relevant. --Dbachmann 09:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

All right, "speak" is not the right word. What Babel makes possible is to state your mother tongue, and state approximate levels at which you can communicate in various languages, an example being {{Babel|en|fr-3}}. --Dan Polansky 11:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand this, and I have avoided placing such userboxes on my Wikipedia user page for fully six years now :) I really prefer to be judged by my contributions. --Dbachmann 06:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

All right, then I'll go with my estimate that your languages are {{Babel|de|en-3|...}}. --Dan Polansky 08:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Um, if you must. Is that some kind of hobby of yours, second-guessing people's "Babel" figures? You will not learn that from my lexicographic edits, only from conversation. So you might judge my written English from what I post here. While your generous estimate of my fluency in German isn't really based on anything. --Dbachmann 16:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

unsubstantiated

You don't just outright delete 'unsubstantiated' senses, that's what rfv is for. Speedy deletion is only for patent nonsense. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:06, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, as you can see, I did. After checking dictionaries and google. If somebody wants to list very obscure senses, they can at least bother to provide some sort of evidence. In my book, "speedy deletion" refers to lemmata, not obscure derived senses within an undisputed lemma.

I am sorry if I sound curt, but this is at least the fifth time that you come to my talkpage with needlessly pedantic, if not outright misguided, admonitions. How about you give me some minimal credit that I have a rough idea of what I am doing. --Dbachmann 07:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced etymology

I have reverted your unsourced etymology. The current etymology that is stated as unknown is sourced from modern sources. Any replacement of that should be sourced. --Dan Polansky 10:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Then please make clear which of the sources cited claims that the etymolgy is unknown.

"Etymology unknown" is a claim as much as any other, and it must be clear whose claim this is. Otherwise you are just replacing one unsourced claim by another. --Dbachmann 10:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

See Talk:vestigium. --Dan Polansky 10:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: "Nay, I would suggest that it is in every case desirable to track an etymological suggestion to its first publication, regardless of how it was assessed later.": I thouroughly disagree. --Dan Polansky 10:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

well, then I disagree with you, and I will never know why because you do not explain what you think should be done. You seem to prefer websites over scholarly literature, and you seem to pick opinions that happen to appeal to you and present them as fact. I can deplore this, because it will not result in a better dictionary, but I am not going to do anything about it, or lose sleep over it. And misguided as it may be, I have seen much more bizarre approaches to wiktionary in the past. --Dbachmann 11:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

"Origin unknown" is sourced not only from Online Etymology Dictionary by D. Harper, whose credibility you doubt, but also from Oxford Latin Dictionary, 1968, as is indicated in vestigium.

I prefer modern sources on the assumption that etymological methods of 19th century are likely to be much more speculative and less scientific than the etymological methods of modern researchers. IMHO the purpose of the etymology section is to provide best knowledge available to date rather than a history of previous speculation on the subject. --Dan Polansky 12:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Out-of-process removal of an English term

I have reverted you out-of-process removal of "mzungu" as an English term (diff). If you question the existence of this term in English, you can put {{rfv}} to the term. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

BTW, this doesn't prove that it occurs unitalicised in English, but mzungu is in some other English dictionaries, such as Chambers. (Another one is (deprecated template usage) mzee.) I've just found two unitalicised occurrences and added them to the entry. Equinox ◑ 17:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Block

You may have noticed that you've been unblocked. While I think that the length of the block was rather excessive, the block itself was, in my opinion, justified. You add a lot of good content here, yet its value is severely diminished by the fact that it's all formatted wrong; not just wrong, but ridiculously ass-backwards. You've been here a long time, is it really that difficult to learn to use {{etyl}}, {{term}}, the rfv-process, or the fact that we don't use entry talk pages for anything, ever? Rest assured that there are people who are more than happy to help you learn, should you like, including myself. I've fixed your recent work. Please take a look. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 12:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

On a somewhat tangential note, I've revisited μῦθος (mûthos). Please take a look. You may be interested in how the format of Ancient Greek entries has evolved. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 01:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I was not blocked for malformatting. I have also never heard of people being blocked over failing to use some formatting template. But at least if you want to block me over wrong format, go ahead and do it but tell me what it was for. I easily spend an hour or two to research a difficult word, unearthing academic references and presenting a rounded picture of academic opinion. What I was blocked for was the fact that I did this work and submitted the material. For what it is worth, if this attitude of "you failed to use this template, and you did academic research for us, so here is a lengthy block" prevails around here, I sumbit that it is in violation of what Wikimedia, whose servers you are using here, stands for to begin with. I will also let you know that I am done with this project, as I have other things to do than to beg to contribute quality material. Good luck with μῦθος and other difficult words. Wiktionary is very promising in principle, and it did prosper to some degree, but a few bad choices were made very early and a very anal attitude to policing the project took root, and I find it is not worth my time to contribute in the areas I am interested in because it would mean a permanent uphill battle against ill-advised formatting dogma. Wiktionary is useful for looking up Chinese characters and inflected Latin forms, but unfortunately, it seems this is also where it is going to remain. --Dbachmann (talk) 08:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Unblock

Hey Dbachmann, I need some help in unblocking me on Wikipedia. I can't edit my talk page there, and I can't submit a request because the tool isn't working. My ban was clearly politically motivated by Jewish Wikipedians and it has been more than five years now, so it's ridiculous to keep me banned. EliasAlucard / Discussion 05:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

A question, out of curiosity

Hello. We do not know each other, and I'm not trying to stir things up or anything; the question I'm going to ask you arose out of genuine curiosity.

In diff, you wrote that "[Wiktionary] still suffers from misguided guidelines set up by the first generation of editors who didn't have the first idea of what a dictionary even is", and two posts above mine on this very talk page, you wrote "a few bad choices were made very early". I was curious what you meant by that. Per utramque cavernam 19:36, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't seen this at the time. It's probably better today, but in the early years, I had some negative experiences. The "bad choices" refers to the concept of "one page per spelling, regardless of language" rather than "one page per lexeme". Pre-modern languages, e.g. Middle English, often have dozens of attested spellings per lexeme, which makes this very difficult to maintain. But it's working out quite well after all, so I am not looking to change this or anything, at this point. --Dbachmann (talk) 15:57, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Etruscan *Carθaza

Hey, I was wondering why you added the Καρχηδών > Etruscan *Carθaza > Carthago etymology line in the entry for Carthage. I know it was a long time ago, but I don't see the need for an Etruscan intermediary here — in fact, because of the ⟨th⟩ it seems like the Latin is probably directly borrowed from the Phoenician rather than the Greek. Has this been proposed elsewhere? airy—zero (talk) 14:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I do not see my edit in the history, can you point to the diff? Surely I have added the reference I had taken this from? --Dbachmann (talk) 10:46, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Source for "wife" etymology?

You added some more suggestions for the origin of "wife" (PG: wībą), connecting it to meanings "veil" and "housekeeper". Do you have a source for these? I haven't been able to find them online.