User talk:Vorziblix/2012–2018

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OCS in SC etymologies

I've noticed you added it some entries, e.g. jara and jarost. OCS should be used only for "learned borrowings" (učene posuđenice) from the attested OCS cannon. Some time ago we (well, I..) in fact used OCS as an attestation of Common Slavic, in those cases when etyma were identical/formally compatible with reconstructed Common Slavic forms, but that approach had the drawback of not taking into consideration actual borrowings from OCS, of which there are a few (the only list I know is from PPGHJ §372), as well as being, well, wrong from a genetic perspective. It would be nice to compile an appendix of all such words! --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. I've mostly been working from old sources (1820s to 1920s) that tend to list OCS forms of words rather than Proto-Slavic ones; probably most of these sources are somewhat outdated by now. I do have Derksen's much more recent Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, which lists Proto-Slavic reconstructions and their descendants, but unfortunately it usually omits the paths by which the descendants are derived, for which the older sources are more helpful. I'll change the OCS derivations I previously added to 'akin to ...' or 'cognate to...' to be more accurate. Vorziblix (talk) 18:50, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Rhymes

These are based on the stressed syllable. It's DIDdest, not didDEST, so that doesn't rhyme with vest, nest, etc. Equinox ◑ 18:56, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@Equinox Surely the "Partial rhymes" section, where I added diddest, does not consist of words stressed on the last syllable? All the other words in that section seem to accord with this; none of them are stressed on est. Vorziblix (talk) 20:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, you're right. I'd never seen a "partial rhymes" section before, oddly enough (and don't quite see the usefulness)! Equinox ◑ 20:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

However, it still seems bad/misleading to include these as generic "rhymes" on the word's entry, since they aren't proper standard rhymes. Equinox ◑ 20:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure, makes sense! Vorziblix (talk) 20:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It does συντάκτης Βικιλεξικό 02:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC) συντάκτης Βικιλεξικό

франьчьскъ

Huge chunk of words in Slovník jazyka staroslověnského don't belong to the OCS canon. E.g. VencNik = Vita paleoslovenica s. Venceslai recentior seu Nikol'skiana [1], which is non-canonical. Neither is Const = Vita Constantini. Старославянский словарь is much better in that regard. These entries should be formatted as ==Church Slavonic== instead. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I’ll be more careful in the future. We still have no separate language codes for the two, though, do we? Vorziblix (talk) 08:56, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

No we don't, which means that we should still use ==Old Church Slavonic== as the header, but include a context label such as maybe {{lb|cu|later Church Slavonic}} or even with a specific region. --WikiTiki89 19:37, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Renaming reconstructions

Please do not rename the pages at the same time as moving them to the new namespace. It's confusing. If they need to be renamed, move them to the new namespace, and then rename them. --WikiTiki89 21:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Sure, my apologies. Vorziblix (talk) 21:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Gloss

Just a note... Thanks! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:37, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I was just copying what the preexisting entry at propuh had and forgot about this template. Vorziblix (talk) 03:39, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Syntactic gemination

Hello, I've seen that you started a new discussion on the Beer parlour, so I think you're a quite expert user of the Wikitionary and like to discuss. Would you like to join this discussion? It's about the improper use of asterisks for Italian words with "syntactic gemination", introduced by an Italian user without asking anyone's opinion and without a consensus, but admins say that now a consensus is needed to remove them since nobody noticed them and said anything about them during the last months. So far, the few users who commented agreed that the asterisk symbol shouldn't be used, but I think that we need more users to say that the community reached a consensus... If you want to say your opinion, you're welcome to the talk!

@95.154.3.22 Hello! Unfortunately, while I do a lot of work with Slavic languages, I know practically nothing about Romance languages, so I’m not sure I could really have an informed opinion in that discussion. However, it looks like your proposal is going to pass in any case, so I’m probably not needed anyway. Thanks for the invitation nonetheless! Vorziblix (talk) 18:50, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks anyway!

egy

Could you check if all words are correct titles at thwikt? [2] I don't see same page on enwikt here. --Octahedron80 (talk) 06:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

@Octahedron80 If thwiki has the same transliteration system as enwiki, the titles should be changed as follows:

• i → .j
• ink → jnk
• qAt → qꜣt
• rmT → rmṯ

mt would not be changed. —Vorziblix (talk) 06:31, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello there

I recently fell upon your hard work on Egyptian lemmas and I passed by to congratulate you for that. I wish to extensively keep up the wonderful contribution you offer and I will be extremely glab if you strongly focus on the Old Kingdom Egyptian Language (OKEL) as a whole. I hope you the best. One day I am heading to learn Old Egyptian and be fluent with its scientifically reconstructed pronunciation. Best wished and good continuation. Hanno the Navigator (talk) 15:38, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

@Hanno the Navigator Thanks, it’s good to know someone is making use of my contributions. I’ll keep working on Egyptian entries for the foreseeable future. Best wishes to you, too, in your learning! —Vorziblix (talk) 05:21, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Egyptian translations

I've been trying to clean up the formatting of translation tables and the existing Egyptian translations are problematic. What do you think of creating a new template {{t-egy}}, to be used as follows: {{t-egy|egy|zꜣw|h=V17-w-A3}}, where the "h" parameter stood for hieroglyphics? It would take all of the other parameters that {{t}} could normally take such as gender. It would display as something like this:

• Egyptian: zꜣw ()

(hopefully with the hieroglyphics in a smaller font size so they fit inline). Putting the hieroglyphics on the same line means there can be multiple translations. Do you like this idea, or have any suggestions? DTLHS (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

@DTLHS That looks good to me. Perhaps the order should be switched, as transliterations usually follow native script, and it makes the parentheses less incongruous — something like this:

• Egyptian: (zꜣw)

On the other hand, Egyptian is sort of a special case, since we lemmatize at the transliteration, so whichever order you think is best should be fine.

A note: template parameters seem to have trouble inside <hiero> tags, so that all the templates I’ve made so far have had to take the tags as part of the parameter, like {{t-egy|egy|zꜣw|h=<hiero>V17-w-A3</hiero>}}. Maybe this could be circumvented somehow (Lua?).

Regarding smaller hierogylphic fonts, I don’t know of any way to do that with WikiHiero; it’s pretty outdated technology. It would be nice to switch to something like RES eventually, but right now we may be stuck with large glyphs. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:43, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I gave up trying to make the images smaller. You can see the template in use on magician. DTLHS (talk) 23:48, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Nice to finally have a standardized way of doing these. Thanks! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 13:57, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Coptic

Thanks for your work on Coptic entries, especially that on previously absent dialects. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Glad to be of use. Thank you yourself for making so many of these entries in the first place. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 16:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

mryt

Hey Vorziblix! I've really appreciated your work recently on Egyptian, and I was wondering whether you could create the entry for mryt as mentioned in Μᾰ́ρειᾰ (Mắreiă). I only ask because I'm confused about the relationship of Μᾰ́ρειᾰ (Mắreiă) and Μᾰρεῶτῐς (Măreôtĭs) to mryt (why is there no τ (t) in Μᾰ́ρειᾰ (Mắreiă)?). Thanks. —JohnC5 16:44, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

@JohnC5 Thanks! and done. Regarding τ (t), the Egyptian feminine suffix -t was pronounced in Old Egyptian, but by Late Egyptian it had largely become silent (compare Coptic, where it’s no longer written at all). Perhaps we’re looking at borrowings from two different times, or from two different dialects, one more conservative than the other? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:17, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the explanation and writing the page. I thinks your theory sounds very plausible, if difficult to confirm. —JohnC5 04:24, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello again! Since you did such a great job with my last request, I was wondering whether you could take a look at Μοῖρῐς (Moîrĭs). The Wikipedia page seems to imply that the source would be mr-wr, though in this case mr (“canal”) + wr (“great”). Can you confirm this, and do you know what the hieroglyphs would look like? Thanks! —JohnC5 07:48, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

A wild Ancient Greek borrowing from Egyptian appears. JohnC5 uses "request help from Vorziblix" against Νίτωκρις (Nítōkris). —JohnC5 01:18, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

It’s super effective! Hm, this one seems to have some recent debate surrounding it (as far as the name of the pharaoh goes), but the immediate derivation, at least, seems clear and well-accepted. I’ll go through and add what I can. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 08:15, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

@JohnC5 There you go, all done! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 20:35, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks so much! —JohnC5 22:34, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Howdy! Might I interest you in the Ancient Greek term Σάϊς (Sáïs)? —JohnC5 02:51, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Coptic dialect labels

With my changes to Coptic alternative forms sections, labels can now be placed in Module:cop:Dialects, to automatically link dialect names for instance. I'll fill in a bunch from Module:labels/data/subvarieties. — Eru·tuon 23:04, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: Thanks, I hadn’t known about {{alter}} at all before. I might make some additions to alias a few more dialect names, even if they don’t (yet) have a Wikipedia section to link to. Do you think sigla (as at WT:About Coptic etc.) should be usable as aliases? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 04:58, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, I never responded. Well, you can use whatever you like for a label or an alias. (Ancient Greek has its weird three-letter codes for dialects, like att for Attic.) The only thing is to look out for the likelihood of ambiguity or misuse of the labels or aliases you add. But that should be pretty easy, as Coptic entries aren't all that numerous. — Eru·tuon 03:53, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

šbot

Hi. I am looking for the Coptic spelling of this word for ճիպոտ (čipot). Can you help? --Vahag (talk) 20:29, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan: Sure! The Coptic is ϣⲃⲱⲧ (šbōt), and the Egyptian is , which in our transliteration scheme would give šꜣbd, although other variant writings exist. Both Černý and Hoch call the Egyptian word a borrowing from Semitic. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:57, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. If Coptic is borrowed from Semitic, then the Armenian too is probably from some Semitic form. I can't imagine a word jumping from Egypt into Armenia. --Vahag (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Meroitic

The etyma at apov and pelmoz could use a check. Everyone who works on Meroitic is an Egyptologist, so I should trust them, but it deserves a once-over. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Both are correct, although the mr in mr-mšꜥ is just an abbreviated form of jmj-r, so I’ll have the link go to jmj-r-mšꜥ. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 07:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Coptic verb conj.

Btw. I recently make an experimental template for conjugation of Coptic verbs. I need to make a few tweaks and check the spelling, but I wanted to ask others who work on Coptic words and entries for thoughts. Template: cop-conj. (you don't need to say anything if you don't care ;-) ) - Algentem (talk) 08:40, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Algentem: Looks like a good start! Linking all the inflections in the table would be a good idea. Including the traditional terminology (Future I, Future II, Future III, and so forth) alongside the newer names could also be helpful, although it might clutter up the table. Otherwise, there are a few alternative inflected forms missing here and there, but all in all it looks good. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Adding the classical designations did indeed clutter the table, but I added them as tooltips (good enough?). I also linked the first row, but I found the text to be too large. Is there anything in particular missing? This is how it looks like now: ⲙⲟⲟϣⲉ. - Algentem (talk) 11:42, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Algentem: You can link them with {{cop-table entry}}, letting the transliteration show up on a separate line, and you can also edit that template to change the text size as needed. The tooltips are a nice touch! As for missing material, for example, the second-person feminine singular present can also have ⲧⲉⲣ (ter) or ⲧⲣ (tr) instead of ⲧⲉ (te), etc., but one can always go through and add those later. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 12:49, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Admin

Hi. Fancy becoming a Wiktionary admin? --Rerum scriptor (talk) 21:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Rerum scriptor: Hello! Hmm, after considering a while, I think it’d be helpful, particularly to expedite getting rid of spam and cleaning up redirects from moved pages, as well as to have a dedicated admin involved with Egyptian/Coptic, so I’ll say yes. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 00:35, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it. You've been around for quite some time, and seem knowledgeable, linguistically informed and –perhaps even more importantly– level-headed, so it should go fine. Calling in @JohnC5, Meta knowledge, Vahagn Petrosyan, as the administrators having contributed most recently to this talkpage, for a second opinion. --Rerum scriptor (talk) 23:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I've had only positive interactions with Vorziblix, and I like their work a lot. That said, they have not been this active for very long (I hardly remember seeing them around before recently), and I suspect other members of the community will not even recognise their name. Especially given the fact that there are people who oppose any WF nom on principle, I really don't know if a bid for adminship would be successful. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:28, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

It might be best to let this rest for now, then. Thanks in any case for the input (and thanks to @Rerum scriptor for your confidence). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 05:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I would have voted in support without question. --Vahag (talk) 10:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Maybe sometime down the line. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 01:38, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Same here, I'd vote for you. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:40, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

You should at least be a rollbacker - then you can undo multiple vandalisms with one key. SemperBlotto (talk) 21:34, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Sure, that’d be useful. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 22:15, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Made you a rollbacker now. Wyang (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm considering nominating you for adminship again. Your work has been extensive, well-researched, and beyond reproach. Your recent module coding has been competent and comprehensible, though you are not yet fully versed in the devilish idiom of Lua on Wiktionary. I think you would be well served by the power to move pages without redirect, and I hope you expand your well-researched articles throughout the Afro-Asiatic family. —*i̯óh₁nC^[5] 03:23, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@JohnC5: Thanks! I’d be all right with that, if you think I’m ready for it. I’ll do my best to keep up my work. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 05:44, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Please accept the nomination here. —*i̯óh₁nC^[5] 06:13, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Bohairic Coptic Conjugator

Hello Vorziblix, I hope everything finds you well,

Inspiration from @Algentem's conjugator has caused me to effect my own conjugator for the Bohairic Dialect @Bohairic Coptic conjugator template. It is complete sans verb forms(if they can even be added to the table) i.e. Absolute, Construct, Pronominal, and Qualitative; from my knowledge every verb form set is different for every verb. Here is a sample of a verb: Bohairic Coptic conjugator:ϫⲓⲙⲓ.

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 21:07, 6 October 2017‎(UTC)

@Aearthrise: Hello! Hope things are well for you too, and thanks for the work on making this. I’m not all that versed in Bohairic morphology, so I defer to your knowledge there, but you could always include the missing forms as parameters passed to the template. Just a few things regarding the structure of the table:

1. It’s good to have each inflected form linked (including the prefix, not just the stem). Ideally, this will later facilitate the creation of entries for each form. I’d recommend using {{cop-table entry}} as with the Sahidic table above.
2. It seems like there’s some (accidentally created?) superfluous empty cells among the headings at the top of the table, right under the person and gender headings; it’d be good to get rid of these. Including the pronouns there might also be more clutter than helpful (we should have a separate table for all the pronouns, to be included at each pronoun entry).
3. A consistent color scheme between the Bohairic and Sahidic templates would probably be preferable to having different colors for different dialect tables. From an aesthetic standpoint I prefer the all-grey scheme, but if you and @Algentem decide on something more colorful, that’d be fine too. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:32, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Vorziblix:Thank you for the feedback.

1.I have edited the table to include the prefixes and removed the superfluous empty cells; I don't know how to use the coptic table template.

2.I prefer to have the pronouns than to not; A separate table for all pronouns at each pronoun entry is a good idea.

3.Algentem and I have agreed to use colors, but much more muted than what I had: here is a palette swap.

A quick question: for some of the third person nominative conjugations, as in 'ⲁⲣⲉ ⲡⲓⲣⲱⲙⲓ ϫⲓⲙⲓ', I put '-', 'ⲁⲣⲉ - ϫⲓⲙⲓ'. Is there a way I can indicate that the '-' should be a noun?

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 15:28, 7 October 2017‎(UTC)

@Aearthrise: Looks good, and I see you got the template figured out. I don’t know that there’s any good/standard way to indicate that there should be a noun, but you could perhaps add a footnote to the column header stating as much. It might be worthwhile to ask in the Beer Parlour and see if anyone’s dealt with a similar situation and come up with a better solution. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 06:47, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Copto-Greek verbs and light verbs in Coptic

I'd appreciate your thoughts on a few matters concerning how Greek verbs and light verbs should be treated. It seems to me that treating the 'prefixed' imperatives or infinitives of Greek verbs as lemmas would at the very least suggest a lenient inclusion of light verbs, as these are all a nominal state of ⲉⲓⲣⲉ (eire)/ⲓⲣⲓ (iri) with the Greek verb and that doesn't differ all that much from most light verbs. It seems inconsistent to me to treat ⲉⲣ-/ⲉⲗ- + Greek verb root and ⲉⲣ-/ⲉⲗ- + Egyptian noun as very different things after all. I don't mind a liberal inclusion of light verbs, but I think it may prove controversial with some. Either way, a decision has to be made eventually.

Another thing is the etymology of prefixed Greek verbs. Not many of them have etymologies yet, but ⲉⲣⲯⲁⲗⲓⲛ (erpsalin) and ⲉⲣⲫⲟⲣⲓⲛ (erphorin) are some that have. I think the Coptic editors should eventually decide on whether to include forms like ⲯⲁⲗⲓⲛ (psalin) and ⲫⲟⲣⲓⲛ (phorin) (which probably aren't attested and aren't very useful to have either, so I would oppose) or to directly link to the Greek in etymology sections. Of course, the other option is to treat the bare Greek roots as the lemmas, but I think that's rather useless if the form never appears by itself. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: I’d be in favor of including all attested light verb constructions as lemmas. After all, these are derived, not inflected, forms, and we don’t have the space restrictions of a paper dictionary; anyway, we already include light verb constructions in other languages, so there seems to be consensus that they fall within WT:CFI.

I’d also agree with you in opposing the inclusion of unattested Greek bare infinitives in Coptic; in Egedi 2016, Remarks on loan verb integration into Coptic, the author surveys cross-dialectal verb borrowing and notes that “the hypothetical fourth pattern ‘∅ infinitive’ does not arise at all”, so we don’t have to worry about these forms surfacing in other dialects. Linking directly to Greek in etymology sections would then make more sense (the light verb being added in the process of borrowing, rather than after borrowing). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:16, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I should probably create a BP discussion for this soon so we can have a uniform standard. The following issues also need to be settled, as there seem to be different practices:

1. Whether to treat nominal states and pronominal states as prefixes or as specific parts of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc.) in headers and head lines.
2. How to include nominal states and pronominal states in the dictionary (e.g. with or without hyphens or equal signs) and how to display them in head lines. Adding construct states with hyphens for both seems better to me, but I'd like to display pronominal states in heads with equal signs according to the convention.
3. Whether to label Greek borrowings with dialect tags. I previously didn't do this, but it seems like a very good idea to do so even when a word is present in all dialects.

I've added a few different possible implementations of 1 & 2 at ⲛ- (n-) by way of example, though other options are also possible. Also pinging @Aearthrise, Algentem, DerekWinters to let them know of this thread. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:22, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: Yeah, it’s definitely a good idea to settle on standards as soon as we can; right now, WT:About Coptic mostly just specifies information about dialects, but whatever we settle on should be added there. For the specific points:

1. I don’t have a strong preference here but lean toward using specific parts of speech wherever it’s possible to specify them.
2. I would support using hyphens with nominal states, but for pronominal states I’d suggest the oblique double hyphen ⸗. Templates often handle the equals sign poorly, and in any case the use of the equals sign only began as a typographical kludge when the oblique double hyphen was unavailable; Crum, Černý, Lambdin, etc. consistently use ⸗. (It’s also already supported by the Coptic sorting module; not sure if that module would choke on equals signs.)
3. Greek verbs definitely need this since different dialects borrow them in different forms; I’d support it for other parts of speech as well. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 15:50, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't have much to add other than that for borrowing Greek verbs, we can have the etymology section similarly to how Telugu does it for verbs borrowed from Sanskrit: వర్ణించు (varṇiñcu). DerekWinters (talk) 19:02, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! All that’s left is to see what other editors think. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 04:50, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I have replaced the equal sign with the double hyphen and added an example modelled on the Telugu entry to the section on Greek verbs. The BP topic is here. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:24, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

EWDC

Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month. Let me know if you'd prefer a secret alert by e-mail next time.

• magnifical, perforans, bainin, come in upon a person, ferlying, pollist, lownes, plasmagenes, micrified, lawine

Equinox ◑ 00:53, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

EWDC #2

Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month.

• fullmouthed, croceate, sebific, troule, scarths, boyla, introfy, graples, polymasty, seablite

Equinox ◑ 19:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Collecting Egyptian hapax legomena?

There is currently no Category:Egyptian hapax legomena though you have created ḫt-n-šnj. Do you think it makes sense for you to collect them? Writing {{lb|egy|hapax legomenon}} does it but maybe the layout makes you prefer manual categorization.
As I am already grabbing your attention: Fancy adding Egyptian translations to field? Palaestrator verborum ^{sis loquier 🗣} 09:14, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, categorizing them is definitely a good idea; there are a handful more I’ve added in the past, too (ꜣw-ḥr, ḫꜣz, ꜣꜥz). Didn’t realize {{lb}} supported that label, but it looks fine to me. I’ll add translations to field shortly. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 10:20, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

I don’t know though why it does not support dis legomenon. What’s the superordinate term for hapax legomenon, dis legomenon, …? Palaestrator verborum ^{sis loquier 🗣} 10:34, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

I’d guess the lack of ‘dis legomenon’ support is a result of some combination of the term being less commonly used and encountered, the property of having two attestations being less interesting than that of having only one, and the rarity with which even the hapax legomenon label is applied (which suggests a ‘dis legomenon’ label would be even less used). You could suggest it over at Module talk:labels or at the Grease Pit if you’d find it useful.

I don’t know myself of any superordinate term for all of these; one could always go with ‘rarely attested words’ or the like if needed, I suppose. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 11:12, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

I added "hapax legomenon" to {{lb}} a few months ago, but I simply did not think of "dis legomenon" at that time. If you want to add it, it's here. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 11:22, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Currently the term dis legomenon has zero uses on Wiktionary, so I don’t know what could be categorized in it, but Vorziblix surely finds some dis legomena, Egyptian scholarship is likely a copious source for it. Palaestrator verborum ^{sis loquier 🗣} 12:30, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

There’s ꜥmꜥm (“bread container”) and ꜣ (“to tread”) as far as Egyptian dis legomena go, but I’ll wait until more crop up before looking into categorizing anything. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 13:43, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Question

hello, do you prefer Glagolitic or Cyrillic alphabet? --2A02:2788:A4:F44:F536:D76F:C08:ABC2 19:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Are these even commensurable from the standpoint of the present? Palaestrator verborum ^{sis loquier 🗣} 19:16, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

They were probably one-to-one equivalent in the original alphabets, but in the present they’re generally not commensurate. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:25, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@2A02:2788:A4:F44:F536:D76F:C08:ABC2: I prefer Glagolitic myself, but particularly the round Glagolitic, not the later square version. Old Cyrillic ustav is also nice, but I’m less a fan of the civil script or modern Cyrillic. (This is all from a strictly aesthetic standpoint, of course.)

One note, though: most currently existing Glagolitic fonts are awful and fail to capture the look or intended forms of the original manuscripts. The letter Ⰾ in particular is always butchered (in the oldest manuscripts the three circles are all, well, circles, they don’t touch, and they’re instead connected by three lines). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:25, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

This is the blocked user User: Awesomemeeos fyi. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 23:28, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I see, thanks. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 23:46, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

affret etymology

Hi. You entered an ety of a- + fret; is that right? Chambers 1908 says "probably from Italian affrettare, to hasten". Equinox ◑ 23:26, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Equinox: Looking at Oxford, they have two senses, one ‘To fret, annoy, trouble’ from a- + fret and one ‘Furious onset; immediate attack’ from affrettare; you’re right that the sense currently there is from the latter. I (or whatever source I was using six years ago) must have confused or conflated the two; my apologies! This was one of the first words I ever added, and I’ve tried to be more careful since those days. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 23:44, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

EWDC #3

Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month.

• beflecks, pignerating, renewalism, glucoronide, apepsias, fushions, pumie, blunked, spattee, sklim

Equinox ◑ 04:50, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Coptic. Dialect J

Hello! You wrote Dialects section in Wiktionary:About_Coptic. I have a question about it. You mentioned there Dialect J. What is that? I'm not able to find any info about it anywhere. 212.90.63.227 20:30, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately information on Dialect J is extremely sparse and hard to find, so my own knowledge of it is limited. It’s mentioned a few times in the Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, e.g. at the entry for Coptic alphabets, where it says that ‘J is the language of a Coptic schoolboy’s tablet (end [?] of third century; cf. ibid. [Kasser, 1981a], pp. 113–115)’. It is a ‘very small subdialect’ accounting for 0.001 percent of Coptic texts. I imagine you could find more information if you looked up pages 113–115 of Rodolphe Kasser’s Prolégomènes à un essai de classification systématique des dialectes et subdialectes coptes selon les critères de la phonétique, vol. III: Systèmes orthographiques et catégorries dialectales, but unfortunately I don’t have access to that work myself. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:25, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Further information is given in the article on Dialect i, where it is mentioned that J is from ‘the text of Crum (1934; from the second half of the third century, bought in Luxor), which indeed presents […] a vulgar orthography that appears rather strange’. There is speculation that J may be a variant of i or an abberant form of A, but this is ‘lacking proof’. The Crum 1934 work cited is “Un Psaume en dialecte d’Akhmîm” in Mémoires de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale 67 (1934):73-86, if you’re interested. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 04:05, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I looked for Kasser's article you pointed (Prolégomènes... vol. III... in Le Muséon 94, 1981). Although I wasn't able to read it, I found out something with a help of snippets. There he divided all the dialects into six groups (dialects and subdialects are in brackets): Groupe akhmimique (A, C?), Groupe lycopolitain (i, i7, L, L4, J), Groupe mésokémique (M), Groupe fayoumique (F, F4, F7, F8, F9, V, V4?, H, N?), Groupe saïdique (P, S), Groupe bohaïrique (B, B4, B7, B71?, B74?, G) (pp. 120-122). Dialect J is in Groupe lycopolitain. At the page 120: "J : protodialecte (? partiellement sporadique) d'une variété de L mal connue et non attestée plus tard (cf. 23.3.14)". Very strange that he never mentioned Dialect J in his main entries (Dialects, Dialects, Grouping and Major Groups of and Geography, Dialectal) for Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, although he took the same approach of classification in Dialects, Grouping and Major Groups of.

P.S. I also found his Les Dialectes coptes, where he describes Dialects C, D, E, N. 212.90.63.227 15:10, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

P.P.S. I also wanted to ask about Dialect X1. It can be seen, for example, in the 12th map of Geography, Dialectal (p. 3). But I already found it in one of the map sources. Wolf-Peter Funk's "Dialects Wanting Homes: A Numerical Approach to the Early Varieties of Coptic": "X1 Dialect attested by a single fragmentary manuscript (Pauline Epistles, bound with Cambridge Univ. Libr. Or. 1699); see Funk (1986a: 50f.)" (in Historical Dialectology, Regional and Social, ed. J. Fisiak (1988), p. 157). 212.90.63.227 20:22, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I’m not sure either why J was excluded from the main entries; it is pretty odd. Regarding X1, I must confess I don’t remember having come across it before, so I don’t know any more about it than you do, and I’ve no idea where to classify it. It looks like the use of the label might be idiosyncratic to that single Funk paper, though. Thanks for the links and references! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 11:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I guessed it actually :-). Funk attested Dialect X1 or Dialect of Paul's fragments (Dialekt der Paulus-Fragmente) by fragments of Pauline Epistles from so-called Cambridge manuscript. The paper starts with assessments that the manuscript belongs to Lycopolitan ("subachmimisehen") group. As I understand, the question is whether the dialect can be reduced to any other known dialects of L or it is independent. And while Funk claimed that the dialect was independent, Kasser believed that the dialect was a subdialect of L4 (manichaean texts). It certantly has interesting characteristics, but for Kasser the dialect was just a variation of L4 with siglum L43 ("Orthographe et phonologie de ia variete subdialectale lycopolitaine des textes gnostiques coptes de Nag Hammadi" in Le Muséon 97, 1984, pp. 310, 312). 212.90.63.227 16:02, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the credit on my coptic appendix

I have created a coptic appendix for Bohairic/Fayyumic Coptic and I would like to gauge your thoughts on them in terms of accuracy and usefulness.

@Aearthrise: Thanks for your work! I’ve skimmed over it, and it seems like a useful summary. A few notes:

• The pronoun section seems out of place for an appendix on verbs. Perhaps a template like this one would be more useful for displaying the personal pronouns at each pronoun entry instead.
• Under ‘consonant changes’, it should presumably say the changes occur preceding the vilminor/blemner letters, not following them.
• It looks like part of a sentence might have been accidentally deleted under ‘durative sentences’.
• It’d be nice, for each verb form, to eventually have a summary of its meaning and use, if you have a chance to get around to it sometime.

In general, it’s a promising beginning. Thanks! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 11:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

EWDC #4

Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month.

• figurer, rippiers, moating, parded, girosols, smur, cupgall, batler, aemuled, draunt

Equinox ◑ 23:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Any suggestions for getting into the Ancient Egyptian lexicon?

I noticed you were seriously involved in the ancient Egyptian lemmas and I'm super interested in Ancient Egyptian. How do you recommend I can get into this so that I can do it as good as you do, since I already have some words (mostly names) I'd like to post. AncientEgypt23 (talk) 16:31, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Names Cambyses

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /kɛmbiːt͡ʃɛt/
  • Conventional anglicization: kembytjet

Darius

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /intiruːiːuːɑʃɑ/
  • Conventional anglicization: intiruyuasha

Artaxerxes

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /xɑʃɑiːɑruːʃɑʔɑ/
  • Conventional anglicization: khashayarushaa

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /ɑruːrɛxʃɑʃɑs/
  • Conventional anglicization: arurekhshashas

Alexander

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /ɑruːksinɛdrɛs/
  • Conventional anglicization: aruksinedres

Philip

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /pɛruːpuːiːsɑ/
  • Conventional anglicization: perupuysa

Tiberius

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /tiʔiːbɑriːuːaiː/
  • Conventional anglicization: tiybaryuay

@AncientEgypt23: Hello! There are a number of possible places to go from:

• As far a starting point for learning the language in general goes, it’s best to pick up a modern grammar of Middle Egyptian and read through it to start off; Hoch’s grammar and Allen’s grammar are probably the best English-language choices currently available, and Loprieno’s introduction is also great if you have a strong background in linguistics (but otherwise best left for later). All three are currently on archive.org. Allen and Hoch differ on a few points of terminology and interpretation, where Wiktionary tends to follow Allen, but either one provides a solid foundation.
• For tools relating specifically to information on the lexicon, there’s a lot of useful ones readily available:
  • Faulkner’s dictionary is the best currently existing English-Egyptian dictionary, although it only covers the Middle Egyptian period.
  • The Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae is probably the best lexicographic resource available; it lets you look up words and see all the texts where they’re attested as well as a host of other tools. You have to register on the site to use this, but it’s free. Unfortunately the interface can be hard to get used to, and a knowledge of German can be helpful.
  • The most comprehensive and useful dictionary of Egyptian existing to date is the Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache, which can be downloaded here as a series of PDF files or otherwise accessed from a page within the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae. It’s written in German, though, so it may not be the most accessible work if you speak only English.
  • Most grammars of Egyptian include vocabulary at the back for reference.
  • Foreign words and names in Egyptian were written using a different system from native words. The writing of native Egyptian words represented only the consonants, leaving the vowels unwritten, but the writing of foreign words tried to represent both consonants and vowels using a system called ‘group-writing’. This system changed several times over the course of Egyptian history; there’s some detailed information about it in James Hoch’s Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (unfortunately not readily available anywhere online).
  • Avoid anything written by E. A. Wallis Budge; it’s all horribly outdated.
• As far as stuff helpful for editing Egyptian entries on Wiktionary goes, Wiktionary:About Egyptian describes our basic policies, and on this page you can find the basic template I use for making Egyptian entries.
• Citing the source where you found your information is always a good idea; unfortunately we’ve had a few users adding nonsense to Egyptian entries before, so it’s nice to be able to verify what gets added.

If you have questions about anything I’d be happy to help. Otherwise, you can get started adding entries if you like, and I can fix them up afterward if needed. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:57, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Wow thanks! One last question, some of the names I posted as examples are subject to differing eras of pronunciation. Like, Alexander's name had the "l" sound in it, but nowadays it's considered an aleph. When using {{egy-IPA-E}}, do we leave it as it is or insert the pronunciation that it actually would've been? I see on the policy page you linked that it says to at least write it as "ꜣ", but it doesn't say what is recommended for transliteration. AncientEgypt23 (talk) 20:11, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

@AncientEgypt23: {{egy-IPA-E}} generates the conventional ‘Egyptological pronunciation’, which is used by modern Egyptologists for convenience, but was not how the ancient Egyptians actually pronounced the words. The actual ancient pronunciation was often much different; you can check the entry at jnk for an example showing the reconstructed ancient pronunciation during various stages of the language. So, in short, when using {{egy-IPA-E}} you should leave it as it is, but you can also add the reconstructed ancient pronunciations above that template if they’re known. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 20:30, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Coptic/Demotic Descendants

Coptic script has been recorded since the first century AD, and Demotic script until the fifth century AD. There are words that overlap in this early period; e.g. Old Coptic ⲥⲟⲩ(star) overlaps with the transliteration of the Demotic spelling, which is sw. The descendant from ⲥⲟⲩ is ⲥⲓⲟⲩ(Bohairic, Fayyumic, Sahidic). In the etymology section, I find it misleading to put that ⲥⲟⲩ is a descendant of Demotic when the only difference is script, not time period. I would like to know how I would rectify this situation.

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 17:49, 13 February 2018‎(UTC)

@Aearthrise: Yeah, I’m not entirely sure how to deal with Old Coptic myself; I avoided creating Old Coptic entries for that very reason. Old Coptic isn’t really a language or dialect; it’s just the name for pagan texts written in a particular kind of script. The Old Coptic script was used to write various dialects, even including classical Egyptian in one case.

I would definitely avoid labelling later Coptic words as descendants of Old Coptic ones. Old Coptic is not the source dialect that later diverged into the other Coptic dialects; it’s not a single particular dialect or langauge at all, and it was mostly used after Coptic had already started to break into different dialects, so any given Old Coptic word is not likely to be ancestral to the equivalent Coptic word from a later dialect. The Old Coptic forms are best treated as alternative forms, not ancestors, of other Coptic words.

Demotic and Old Coptic do overlap in time period, but by that time written Demotic no longer reflected the spoken language. It was conservative and increasingly archaic, reflecting what the language had been like a few centuries before. Old Coptic, on the other hand, (usually) more closely reflected the spoken language, which had changed in the meantime, so it (usually) represents a later stage of the language. The grammar, for example, is closer to later Coptic than to Demotic. For that reason, it still makes a good amount of sense to describe Old Coptic as a descendant of Demotic. (Exceptions exist, like that classical Egyptian papyrus mentioned above, but that probably shouldn’t be treated as Coptic at all, despite the script.)

tl;dr: I’d recommend treating Old Coptic as descended from Demotic but not ancestral to the later Coptic dialects. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 00:51, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Gratitude

I would like to extend my thanks to you for being so patient with User:AncientEgypt23, and attempting to help them. It was very noble of you to take out so much of your time to help someone else. PseudoSkull (talk) 17:24, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I tried as best I could, even if it regrettably didn’t work out. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 23:12, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

EWDC #5

Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month.

• donnot, caumstone, poesying, silenus, containerports, tebbads, mijnheer, shellcrackers, silicating, bogyism

Equinox ◑ 00:23, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Construct states

It looks like a lot of construct states have been added without hyphens or double oblique hyphens, sometimes leading to doublets like ⲉⲣ (er), ⲉⲣ- (er-). Any opinion on this? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:11, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: I’d say the doublets should definitely be merged, ideally in favor of the appropriately hyphenated versions, and the non-doublets should also be moved to properly hyphenated entry names for consistency’s sake. After all, consensus leaned toward including the hyphens when Coptic standardization was last discussed. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 14:42, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

That's what I thought (and, as a result, that's what WT:ACOP now says) but looking at the discussion, it looks like the consensus wasn't very strong (basically you and me in favour of having the entries in hyphenated namespaces, with the others showing qualified support or supporting an alternative).

Also, could you recommend any literature on Coptic phonology? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:33, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: Hmm, I suppose you’re right; two in favor, two ‘fine’/‘OK’, and one against isn’t too strong of a consensus. Still, having consistency in the entries one way or the other is, I think, worthwhile, and this does seem to be the favored option of the two, even if a bit weakly.

Regarding Coptic phonology, a good quick modern overview appears in section 3.6 of Loprieno’s Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction (or section 22.6 here, which is the same thing republished). Carsten Peust’s Egyptian Phonology: An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language‎ goes into much more detail in certain areas of Coptic phonology and provides a dissenting voice regarding some of Loprieno’s conclusions. Hintze’s Zur koptischen Phonologie is an excellent paper and approaches the subject more synchronically than diachronically. There’s also entries in the Coptic Encyclopedia, such as “Aleph”, “ꜥAyin”, Cryptophoneme, Syllabication, etc., that summarize specific phonological topics. Worrell’s Coptic Sounds was an important publication in the field, but is in many respects outdated by now. Overall, some aspects of Coptic phonology are still under debate and revision, so authors may not always agree on every detail. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 23:51, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Coptic Sources

Hello Vorziblix. For better Coptic pages, I would like start adding to sources. You showed me how to find them at an earlier time, thank you, but I don't remember where you wrote the process. Might you provide me the instructions again?

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 14:00 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise: Hello! I’m not exactly sure what you mean by ‘adding to sources’. Do you mean adding citations to reference works? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 23:57, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

@Vorziblix: Yes, I would like to learn how to use citations and references. The only reference I can understand is the Crum Coptic dictionary because it has a link.

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 20:12 11 March 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise: Ah, all right. Most references are made using reference templates; you can see all the reference templates that exist for works specifically dealing with Coptic at Category:Coptic reference templates, and, if needed, you can make new templates by following the model of existing templates. Generally, references give at least the author and the title of the work cited, so you can find the relevant work online or in a library, etc., with that information. Unfortunately not all works are available online, so some can’t be referenced with a link. Regarding the sources I gave you earlier, I think these are the ones I linked for you (correct me if you meant something else):

‘For Demotic the standard lexicographical works are Wolja Erichsen’s Demotisches Glossar and the Chicago Demotic Dictionary, and for Egyptian you have the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache and the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae freely available. For Coptic, Crum’s classic dictionary is online.’

If you’re looking for further resources in any specific area, I might be able to provide them. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 12:54, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Damascus

The etymology here should probably go back to Egyptian, no? I'm a little lost on where the ultimate origin is, and how the Aramaic route that led to European languages diverged from however it got to Arabic. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:28, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: As far as I can gather, it looks like the origin is unknown. Egyptian tjmsqw is definitely a loanword from some local language: the orthography is New Kingdom ‘group-writing’ (conventionally used for writing foreign words) representing ta-mas-qu₂ per {{R:egy:Hoch 1994}}’s system, and in any case there’s no plausible Egyptian-internal etymology, and t and q are incompatible in Egyptian roots. Given that it’s not native Egyptian, the other names are likely to also be loans from the original language rather than from Egyptian. I’d guess the original name was either Semitic or perhaps Hurrian, but I’ve found no definitive modern answer; many Semitic etymologies have apparently been proposed and later refuted. The Aramaic looks to be folk-etymologized; per Pitard’s Ancient Damascus: A Historical Study, the -r- may be no older than the Persian Period, and it is ‘unlikely that it is primitive’. I’d assume the Greek is also from a form without -r- rather than the given Aramaic. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:04, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I've noted that the Egyptian term is borrowed; even if we don't know the origin, I reckon it's worth making that explicit in entries. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:20, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Coptic ⲉⲧⲉ-

Might you know or have the etymology of the Coptic usage ⲉⲧⲉ (that is, that are, etc.)?

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 19:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise: The shorter form ⲉⲧ- (et-) is from ntj (“which is”), with an irregular loss of the initial n. ⲉⲧⲉ- (ete-) is the same word compounded with jw (proclitic particle), that is, it comes from a compound of ntj jw. References: {{R:egy:Peust}}, p. 157 and {{R:cop:Černý}}, p. 38. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:54, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Vorziblix: Thank you Vorziblix, I have made the entries!

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 19:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Discord verification

Hi, I want to verify that it actually is you who joined the Discord server under the username Uzhdarchios#1434. Please reply that it was you if it was, and I will give you the administrator role. Thanks. PseudoSkull (talk) 06:04, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hey, it’s me indeed. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 06:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

EWDC #6

Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month.

• mottier, canceleered, sanitaries, boschvelds, sitiology, rouens, puers, polyglott (not polyglot, but a type of book?), anerly, airn

Equinox ◑ 21:24, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Ⲉⲃⲟⲗ

I see the hieroglyphics you had posted were "Beneru"

. I am having trouble wrapping my brain around its evolution into ebol ⲉⲃⲟⲗ.

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 20:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise Well, ‘beneru’ is a non-historical modern conventional representation that is not how the Egyptians would have pronounced the word at all. Since no vowels were written in pre-Coptic Egyptian, the hieroglyphs properly represent bnrw; all the ‘e’ vowels in modern Anglicizations of Egyptian words are modern inventions added for convenience, but were not there historically, and , , , , and historically represented consonants, not vowels. They only may have (debatably) represented vowels in transcriptions of foreign loanwords, but they were always consonants in native Egyptian words.

The reconstructed syllabification rules for Egyptian imply that bnrw would have been pronounced /b˘nɾ˘w/ in Old Egyptian, where ˘ represents an unknown short vowel. During the late Middle Kingdom to the early New Kingdom, final -w and -j were lost, along with any unstressed short vowels that immediately preceded them. Also, around the time of the New Kingdom, /b/ changed into /β/ amost everywhere. Thus, the word would have been pronounced /β˘nɾ/ by Late Egyptian.

In the course of evolution from Late Egyptian to Demotic (or perhaps even earlier), some instances of /ɾ/ unpredictably became /l/. Further, a process called sonorant shift took place in many words, whereby the phonemes /m/, /n/, /ɾ/, /l/, and /β/ often changed into each other when they appeared near each other. In this particular word we see an assimilatory sonorant shift in which /n/ assimilated to the following /l/. Finally, doubled consonants simplified to single ones. Thus /β˘nɾ/ became /β˘nl/, then /β˘ll/, then /β˘l/, which is exactly the structure we see in Coptic ⲃⲟⲗ (bol, “outside”). ⲉⲃⲟⲗ (ebol) is just this noun with a prefix ⲉ- (e-) added to the front.

If you want detailed information about the way Egyptian sounds evolved into Coptic sounds, see Appendix:Egyptian pronunciation. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise Incidentally, Coptic ⲛⲁ- (na-) as a marker of the imperfect derives from Egyptian wn.jn and not n; this paper has details. The inflectional prefix ⲁ- (a-) for the Present II also comes from Late Egyptian j.jr (a form of jrj (“to do”)) and not ꜣ (remember, the vulture was not a vowel!). If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 22:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Vorziblix: Thank you, you are a master of the Egyptian language! I have one book at my disposal to study Hieroglyphics- 'How to read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, by Mark Collier & Bill Manley'. The book allows me to "read" the Egyptian language(mostly learning Middle Kingdom words), but it barely teaches the linguistic properties of the medu nuteru. The grammar is very simplified- the 5 verb tenses in the book are: Past, Present, Future, Verb Negation, and the Infinitive. Thank you for showing me more information!

Also thank you for fixing my hieroglyphics, you really are a great help! Feel free to make improvements at any time!<--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 23:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise Sure thing! The Collier/Manley book is decent as far as it goes, but definitely a bit simplified; it would be good to follow it with a more substantial grammar, like Allen’s Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs or Hoch’s Middle Egyptian Grammar.

As far as verb tenses go, Egyptologists have an unfortunate tendency to invent many different sets of terminology for all the verb forms. Collier/Manley’s terminology corresponds to the terminology used here on Wiktionary as follows:

Collier/Manley	Wiktionary
infinitive	infinitive
past	perfect
general present	imperfective
specific present	periphrastic imperfective
future	subjunctive

Lots of the less common verb forms are left out. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 00:38, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

ϫⲱϫ

I need help finding the etymology of the term ϫⲱϫ(baked bread); I suspect that it is t-ḥḏ.

--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 20:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise: It can’t be t-ḥḏ; Bohairic ϫ (č) can originate from Egyptian ḏ or g, more rarely from q or k, but not from t. And ḥ would be expected to result in ϩ (h) here, not disappear.

Černý gives an origin in Demotic gꜥgꜥ (“loaf of bread”), which is in turn a loanword from Semitic. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:22, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Vorziblix: Thank you, Vorziblix 02:44, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Sure thing! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 03:11, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

ⲉϥ-, Coptic Egyptian Gerund Form

Does the Coptic gerund form (ⲉⲥ-, ⲉϥ-, ⲉⲩ-, etc.) come from Classical Egyptian?

<--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 21:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise: Assuming by ‘gerund’ you mean the circumstantial, then yes; it comes from everyone’s favorite sentence-initial particle jw. (The attached -ⲥ-, -ϥ-, -ⲩ-, etc. are just suffix pronouns.) — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 22:05, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Classical Egyptian Course

I like your work on the Classical translation of the bible.

I have been working on a Coptic Egyptian course for beginners- I would like to create one for Classical(Middle) Egyptian. Would you be interested in a collaboration?

<--Aearthrise ^{(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ)} 23:59, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aearthrise: Thanks! Sure, I would collaborate; I may not have much time for the next week or so, however, as I have to study for various real-life things. The course you made looks nice, too! A few points regarding it:

• Modern Egyptologists generally avoid calling the writing ‘hieroglyphics’; they call it ‘hieroglyphs’ or ‘hieroglyphic writing’ or just ‘hieroglyphic’ instead. Thus, w:James P. Allen writes ‘Each sign in this system is a hieroglyph, and the system as a whole is called hieroglyphic (not “hieroglyphics”).’ This is sort of a weird shibboleth among Egyptologists.
• Cartouches were used for certain royal names, but their use for the names of commoners was rare. Mostly the names of common people just had a man or woman determinative added to the end instead.
• Determinatives change, even in the same word, based on what they refer to. Thus, jnpw as the name of a god could be written as , but as the name of a dog, the determinative would be expected to change to a dog, i.e. .
• ‘Archaic Egyptian’ specifically means the type of Egyptian spoken before the Old Kingdom. Not a single complete sentence of Archaic Egyptian survives. It’s different from Classical (=Middle) Egyptian.

In general, looks like a promising start! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 03:16, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Damis Tyana

If you get a chance, here's a new user whose contribs could use a once-over. I was worried at first for obvious reasons, but it seems it's not a new account. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:57, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure! I’ll look over them. They seem to have unknowingly duplicated ṯwfj at ṯwfy, which I’ll clean up, but otherwise everything looks good at a cursory glance. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 03:52, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate it. Egyptian is just such a pesky language to take care of sometimes, the kind that we never make any headway on unless someone like you has devoted a lot of time to it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:55, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

cyphi

Is κῦφι (kûphi) this same ṯwfj? Because that Greek word ended up in chufa as a kind of sedge again and Hebrew סוּף (sūf, “reed, bulrush”) is from this Egyptian word. Please add the etymon at the Ancient Greek, Vorziblix, respectively state it if the Egyptian etymon is not known. Fay Freak (talk) 17:28, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Not in this case; κῦφι (kûphi) is from kꜣpt (“incense”), which we don’t have yet, but it’s a derivation of kꜣp (“to cense”), which we do. I’ll see about adding kꜣpt when I get the chance. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 01:08, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/68.191.50.83

A prolific IP has decided to enter the world of Egyptian. @Chuck Entz, is this anyone we know? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the heads up. I think Special:Contributions/24.105.170.133, who was also editing Egyptian onomastics today, might be the same person. So far their work seems decent enough as far as Egyptian is concerned, though several transliterations have needed adjustment. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 23:29, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Probably not. The IPs don't match, and their emphasis is different: they've been doing boatloads of name entries for some time now, and they've done more in Japanese than in any of the languages that have been the trademark of the person you seem to have in mind. They do seem to be focused on volume more than quality, so they bear watching- but that's not enough reason to use checkuser tools on them. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:19, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, I didn't think this was Bedrock or anyone else evading bans. I simply don't even look at IP addresses, whereas I know you keep track of ranges, so you might know if this is a known quantity or not. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:56, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Why is Old Novgorodian a separate language in Wiktionary?

Hello (again),

As far as I know (based on Russian sources like Zaliznyak's fundamental monograph), scholars consider Old Novgorodian a dialect, so it's surprising to see the lect as not an Old East Slavic variety (like, as was discussed above, New Church Slavonic is a variety of OCS in Wiktionary) and possibly etymology-only language (even though 'traces' of Old Novgorodian in Modern Russian, unfortunately, is a poorly researched topic), but a fully independent language.

What are the reasons for this? Was looking for a discussion which led to its creation, failed to find one and thought that you as an experienced editor may know.

Thank you in advance! Ain92 (talk) 21:11, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

@Ain92 Hello! I suppose Old Novgorodian is treated as a separate language because it shows some very divergent phonological developments that suggest it split off from Proto-Slavic separately from (and earlier than) any other Slavic branch. In particular, Old Novgorodian is the only lect that apparently didn’t undergo the second palatalization in Early Middle Common Slavic. Since what we call ‘Proto-Slavic’ on Wiktionary is more specifically Late Common Slavic with some anachronisms, this would mean that Old Novgorodian was already splitting off by the time of our reconstructed Proto-Slavic, let alone Old East Slavic. It’s divergent enough that it’s useful to list it separately in the tables of descendants for Proto-Slavic entries.

There’s some discussion of these issues at this link here, but the editors didn’t reach any consensus, so not much came of it.

Personally, I’d be inclined to split New and Old Church Slavonic into different languages as well, but we’ve never worked out how to deal with all the different recensions of New Church Slavonic, so the old status quo of merging them has prevailed for the time being.

In the end, whether to call something a language or a dialect is mostly a matter of convention; after all, going by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic could be considered two dialects/registers of a single language, too. So we end up choosing whatever conventions are convenient for us on Wiktionary. In this case I think either way could work. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 05:35, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for an operative answer! I didn't have time to read the discussion you linked yet, so a quick preliminar answer before I get to it:

1. Of course, I do know about non-palatalized (or to be more accurate, non-affricate) forms in ON. I should note that some traces of archaisms like кҍле and хҍрь were left in mid-20th-century Pskovian dialects (and also, more rarely, in Novgorod and Arkhangelsk Oblasts as well as Karelia), as found by Sofiya Gluskina in 1968 ("О второй палатализации заднеязычных согласных в русском языке"). Obviously, this doesn't make Pskovian dialect a separate language ;-D (and neither does retention of some ON-specific innovations).
   • There is actually a hypothesis that this 'non-affricateness' is a secondary phenomenon and thus a pseudo-archaism (Trubachev lists two articles on p. 1275 here), but to be fair I haven't researched it and have no idea how accepted it is.
2. There are a lot of shared East Slavic innovations between ON and OES lects (perhaps most important of them being pleophony, but also the way of vowel denasalisation, семь, олень, etc.), and since only shared innovations and not retentions are important for phylogenetic studies it's a scholar consensus now that OES and ON descent from a common lect, see Krysko's 1998 article "Древний новгородско-псковский диалект на общеславянском фоне" (strongly recommend this one) and pp. 275–278 of Trubachev's 2002 monograph "Этногенез и культура древнейших славян. Лингвистические исследования".
   • As you may know, simple tree model doesn't handle innovations spreading over a dialect continuum very well, that's why wave model has been invented (you may imagine something like Innovation D on the figure in Wikipedia, but larger).
3. Regarding the convenience, I don't like duplication like we have in отьць and which we are going to have in sheer numbers when we progress in adding ON lexical data. IMHO examples of both Latin and Ancient Greek show that having several varieties with different etymological codes under one umbrella term works quite good in Wiktionary. We may even reflect tsokanye in OES articles since phonetic templates can show regional and temporal variations in pronunciation.

• I think the reasons listed above explain why all the Russian historical lexicography ("Словарь древнерусского языка (XI—XIV вв.)", "Словарь русского языка XI–XVII вв.", etymological dictionaries etc.) includes ON under OES, and that's why the aforementioned Zaliznyak's monograph is callet "Древненовгородский диалект" not "Древненовгородский язык". Ain92 (talk) 12:45, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@Ain92 I think you’re probably right. (Thanks for the Krysko article; I hadn’t read that before.) The Old Novgorodian entries we have right now are mostly words that differ from their OES counterparts, but there would be a lot of duplication if we expanded our coverage of either OES or ON. I’d suggest bringing it up at the Beer Parlour to see what other editors say. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:29, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

• I have read the Scriptorium link and don't think it changes my point, but on a second thought, I have another question for you: at what point in time do we, the Wiktionarians, end Old East Slavic? WT:AORV doesn't say a word about that, and BTW the issue has direct concequences regarding more new etymological languages which are in my opinion needed. Ain92 (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

@Ain92 As far as I know, Wiktionarians have never decided on when OES ends and Russian/Belarusian/Ukrainian/Rusyn begin. This is because very few Wiktionary editors have worked much on Old East Slavic at all; we only have 141 OES entries after all these years. Since there’s no consensus, you could make a suggestion for an end date in the Beer Parlour and, if no one objects there, freely implement it. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 01:01, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately I failed to find a scholar consensus on that in Russian sources and all the possible options have drawbacks, so I can't say I have a certain preference for one. However I may write a draft on the options for the community on the weekend. I think it's reasonable to treat this topic separate from Old Novgorodian, isn't it? Ain92 (talk) 09:25, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

• I find it strange to even consider that Old Novgorodian has split somehow. Of course Novgorodian was closer to Muscovite than to for example Cracovian. The second palatalization is just a random isogloss. All of Slavic is just a conglomerate of isoglosses, the formation of national languages and subsequent literary traditions just obscures it a bit. The question needs to be if there a lexical differences that justify different treatment. Other than that it looks like with Serbo-Croatian: The different results of ѣ are itching but we don’t want to duplicate all content because of this, we treat the lects together because they are mutually intelligible, forming and sharing vocabulary across this whole language area, and I imagine it the same in Russia. How was the cultural interchange between the Novgorod Rusь and the other Rusь? I imagine that the difference is rather like between Zeta and Raška: It turns out they still speak the same language in the lands in questions, and in Bosna too they do and even in Croatia, and likewise there wasn’t a distinct “Old Novgorodian that has been replaced by Old East Slavic”; only that peculiarity of lacking second palatalization has been levelled out, today’s Russian of Novgorod continues the former Russian of Novgorod, or formulated negatively, we have now Russian spoken in the Novgorod Republic area because there wasn’t a different language. Fay Freak (talk) 18:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

@Fay Freak Yeah, I agree that merging the two is probably the right choice, as I said above. There are many more isoglosses besides the second palatalization dividing ON from OES — the second palatalization is just the oldest one — and there are also some lexical differences, but I don’t think they are extensive enough to justify separate treatment. However, as I’m no expert on OES, I can’t judge with certainty. The treatment of mutual intelligibility runs into the problem that the entire Slavic area was mutually intelligible until slightly after the end of the first millennium. Thus, OCS, OES, and Proto-Slavic could all be merged into one language if we were to strictly adhere to the criterion of mutual intelligibility. They’re mostly kept separate by reason of scholarly convention rather than having actually been separate languages at the time. But, regardless, (1) Novgorodian was certainly mutually intelligible with Old East Slavic throughout the course of its existence, and (2) scholarly convention does treat those two lects as a single language as well, and (3) it would be convenient for Wiktionary to avoid duplication, so merging ON and OES seems like the right way to go. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 01:01, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

ideogram vs logogram

Hi,

Re. your Template:&ideo, most of the uses I've seen of it are actually logograms, not ideograms. In Egyptological parlance, most ideograms are called "determinatives". There may be others that aren't, but when a glyph is associated with a particular word (or even several semantically related words, distinguished by phonograms etc.), then it isn't an ideogram, but a logogram. The fact that there isn't a Template:&logo template for logograms suggests that perhaps the ideogram template is used for all logograms, which would be incorrect. I don't know, perhaps calling logograms "logograms" goes against Egyptological convention, but if "ideogram" doesn't actually mean ideogram when discussing hieroglyphs, then we have a walled-garden problem, and that will likely prove confusing to a lot of readers.

kwami (talk) 06:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Hello! Indeed, it’s a problem of Egyptological convention not lining up with modern linguistic terminology. As far as glyphs go, most Egyptologists follow the system of classification used by Alan Gardiner in his 1927–1957 Egyptian Grammar, where he uses the categories ‘ideogram’, ‘determinative’, ‘phonogram’, and ‘phonetic determinative’. There have recently been attempts to rectify this state of affairs and figure out a better classification system — for example:

• a 2012 paper, “Egyptian classifiers at the interface of lexical semantics and pragmatics”, uses the names ‘logogram’, ‘classifier’, and ‘phonogram (in the narrower sense)’ for the first three of these classes.
• a few recent Egyptian grammars (Schenkel 1994, Winand 2013, …) have taken to writing ’logogram or ideogram’ instead of simply ‘ideogram’.
• even more recently, a revised scheme was proposed in the 2015 “Hieroglyphic Sign Functions: Suggestions for a Revised Taxonomy”, which also provides a summary of the historical issues involved and previous proposals. Here a distinction is made between ‘logogram’, ‘phonogram’, ‘pictogram’, ‘classifier’, ‘radicogram’, and ‘interpretant’.

However, the field has not yet reached a consensus on what, exactly, a new system of classification for hieroglyphs should look like, even if there’s a widespread sense that the old terminology is outdated; the question remains debated. Simply for that reason, I stuck with Gardiner’s traditional categories, although it’s certainly not ideal. I’m not really sure what the best solution is here, as one choice of terminology would likely be confusing to students of Egyptian, while the other choice would be confusing to people coming to Egyptian from other languages or general linguistics. But I think your suggestion to use ‘logogram’ may be better, since even Egyptologists seem to be (slowly) moving toward using that term instead of ‘ideogram’. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 10:50, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I can certainly see that changing the categories themselves, or their membership, could be quite confusing, and I would have no idea what some of those proposed terms were supposed to mean. But I doubt that changing 'ideogram' to 'logogram' would be a problem, since people are presumably familiar with the latter, or at least it would take only a minute to become familiar with it. I remember the debate for Chinese, when English-language texts felt they had to explain that they weren't using the traditional term 'ideogram' because it was inaccurate. But then, that was back before 'logogram' was likely to have ever been encountered by the reader, and I don't think that's the case any longer. Presumably changing 'determinative' to 'classifier' wouldn't be confusing either, but since AFAICT the current name isn't misleading, I don't have much of a problem with it. Though it would be easier for newbies to learn, since it's self-explanatory, and I think we should keep the newbies in mind.

The problem I have with 'ideogram' -- besides the fact that they aren't ideograms -- is that it seems to perpetuate the pre-Champollion idea that Egyptian was some sort of magical mystery, rather than a normal language. I suspect it plays into New Age nonsense about pyramid power etc too. I can't demonstrate that, but even if it doesn't, I don't think we should be perpetuating inaccuracies on Wikt. Of course, the usage notes under the entry for 'ideogram' itself should explain that it's frequently used to mean 'logogram', especially for Egyptian (though still for Chinese as well), but noting inaccurate usage in the definition of a technical term is a different matter than using it that way ourselves.

Anyway, I would strongly support changing 'ideogram' to 'logogram', and moderately support 'determinative' to 'classifier' -- or maybe to 'determinative (classifier)' or 'classifier (determinative)', so we have both bases covered? Or maybe we do that with both categories? Then people could follow whichever terminology they're more comfortable with.

BTW, I want to thank you for the enormous amount of work you've done on the Egyptian entries. It's been a few years since the last time I looked something up, and I was a bit shocked at how much better the coverage is now. It's really quite an impressive amount of work. So, I'm chastised into just quibbling rather than ranting about improper terminology.

BTW2, do you have any idea what the vocalization of šdḥ (some sort of treated red wine) might've been? I don't even know if it made it into Coptic.

Thanks, kwami (talk) 05:56, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Thanks! I’m convinced; I’ll change ‘ideogram’ to ‘logogram’ at the very least. There aren’t that many glyph entries yet, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

As far as šdḥ goes, it survived into Demotic as štḥ but is unattested in any dialect of Coptic. I don’t think it’s attested in Greek or cuneiform transcription either, so unfortunately it’s unlikely that the vowels can be determined. (The expected Sahidic Coptic form would be *ϣVⲧϩ or *ϣⲧVϩ for some vowel V, depending on where the original stress was. Extremely speculatively, the Demotic vocalization might have been *šətáḥ, if the Greco-Egyptian word στάγμα (stágma) apparently used for this drink was an instance of phono-semantic matching. But this still wouldn’t help us find the Old Egyptian vocalization, since stressed a in a closed syllable before ḥ could go back to any one of the short vowels *i, *u, or *a — and the same is the case for unstressed schwa.) — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 13:00, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. That's what I was afraid of. I'm interested in the Late Egyptian pronunciation, actually, so Demotic speculations might not be that far off. But I can always use the <e> convention if I have to. kwami (talk) 20:17, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

EWDC discussion

Hello! I'm pondering doing EWDC again. See User talk:Equinox/EWDC. Equinox ◑ 04:00, 31 December 2018 (UTC)