User talk:Pasquale

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Willkommen, bonjour/bonsoir, salve, kia ora!

Good to see another linguist declaring himself.

Do you know you can get your previous anonymous edits attributed to your user name? Wikipedia:Changing_attribution_for_an_edit

If you could bear to glance at the very new WP for a reviving modern Polynesian language with over 100,000 speakers but only half a dozen WP contributors, please see my last 500 contributions (haha)

Kind regards Robin Patterson 01:39, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

List of alternative country names

Could you possibly add new entries in an alphabetical order? That eases later additions a bit. Halibutt 14:05, Jul 9, 2004 (UTC)

Refer to the talk page. A proposal was made and I implemented it. --Jiang 22:38, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you have objections, then make them. We'll act on consensus. No objections were made to the proposal to split the article. --Jiang 22:41, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Pasquale, in case you looked and gave up in disgust that I didn't keep my promise, I have made a start -- a day late (sorry) -- on answering your questions re my interventions in the List of alternative country names. See my talk page. -- Picapica 23:39, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've now finished my answers. I ought to let you know, too, that I have referred to you on User talk:Pne -- Picapica 20:07, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Transcription of Greek spellings

Hi Pasquale, I've answered you on my talk page. -- pne 07:32, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

List of alternative country names 2

Hi, could you please add a note in the List of alternative country names that Serbian J is equivalent to English J like in for an example : You

List of alternative country names 2

Hi, could you please add a note in the List of alternative country names that Serbian J is equivalent to English J like in for an example : You

[[User:Avala|Avala|★]] 17:46, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

---

Hi, Pasquale.

• Actually, Południowa Afryka means in Polish rather "Southern part of Africa". For the country, Afryka Południowa or Republika Południowej Afryki is usually used. Reverse word order emphasizes the fact that the adjective here is denominative rather then descriptive. Such order is also standard in many other similar Polish names, like N/S Korea, Northern Ireland or Western Samoa.
• Rakusy as name for Austria were used primarily between 14th and 17th century. This word is unrecognizeable by nearly all users of modern Polish, so I believe that including it in your list has very limited value.

Naive cynic 01:52, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

PS: Thanks for fixing my sloppy cyrillic transcription. :)

Rakusy perhaps is unknown, but Rakusza is still understandable (at least among those who passed their final school exams from history). The word is also reflected in many royalty names like Elżbieta Rakuszanka. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 04:12, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

It doesn't appear in PWN encyclopedia, PWN thesaurus or Polish wordlist. Google search gives one hit - name of a horse. -- Naive cynic 08:57, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Hi N.c.,

As far as South Africa is concerned, your point is persuasive. I had assumed that, since the full official name is Republika Południowej Afryki, the short name had to be Południowa Afryka, but adjective placement is a subtle linguistic distinction in Polish, requiring a sense for the language that I do not have. So, I have already restored Afryka Południowa. (On the other hand, USA seems to be given everywhere as Stany Zjednoczone Ameryki.)

I can very well understand it being confusing sometimes. Since Polish is a highly inflected language, its word order is very flexible, but it still often carries subtle stylistic (or, in this case, semantic) distinctions.

For the US, both names are used, but neither is common. -- Naive cynic 22:19, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

As far as Rakusza is concerned, you have to consider the following. The List of country names in various languages has had nearly one thousand contributions, and Rakusza has been there since the very first contribution. This article was started on 7 Jul 2004 by [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] with four country names, one of which was Austria. Now, you say that Rakusza does not exist, that only Rakusy existed, primarily between 14th and 17th century. Could it be that Halibutt erroneously back-formed Rakusza from the adjective form Rakuszanka??? For the time being, I have changed it to Rakusy. Personally, I believe including historical forms in this list is of great value. Several other historical forms have in fact been included.

I can't (of course) say that *Rakusza doesn't exist, I have simply never seen it (as opposed to Rakusy which used to be quite popular at that time). Since the meaning (but not the etymology) of Rakuszanin and Rakuszanka ("an Austrian", "a female Austrian") is still recognized in some regions, it seems possible that *Rakusza would be some kind of back-derivation from them. You could perhaps ask Halibutt about his source.

I wasn't aware that the list was supposed to include historical forms as well, this of course invalidates my previous comment. :) -- Naive cynic 22:19, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

BTW, can anyone explain the etymology of the "Raku-" forms for Austria in the West Slavic languages? The other etymology I am dying to find out about is Lithuanian Vokietija and Latvian Vācija for Germany.

Polish Rakusy comes from Rakus ("an Austrian", historically), which itself comes from Czech Rakous. According to Aleksander Brückner, the Czech name comes from the castle of Rötz (Rakous, in Czech) in Bavaria, at the Bohemian border. I guess that Czech sources can provide more details.

I have heard these Baltic names to come from Vagoths which supposedly were Gothic tribe inhabiting Gotland, but you should probably verify it. -- Naive cynic 22:19, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

Pasquale 17:57, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

List of country names in various languages

Hi !

Thanks for your feedback regarding List of country names in various languages. I completely agree with you what it comes to cyrillic transliteration and I apologize my previous slightly messy edits. Anyway I decided to use ISO-9:1995 transliteration for cyrillic letters and changed previous edits to match this. I hope this makes text look more uniform from now on. --Kulkuri 16:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hello, Trying to figure out how the Scandanavian place names in List of country names in various languages settled on the convention of using the Latin form as the standard for rendering in English. Have not found this approach common in English language publications - much more common to use an Anglicized form of the Swedish, Norwegian or Danish. Since you appear to be the founder and strongest contributor, am hoping you can clarify (or direct me to the source of this Wiki convention). Thanks Williamborg 16:47, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the pointer to the VfD. I found your attitude there a little disconcerting, btw. But I voted for keep because I find the collection useful the way they are. -- pne (talk) 20:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

city name changes

Hi! I am really sorry if I changed some city names but I didn`t have any vandal intention and I hope you will show some respect for what I done and how many city names I have added. What I thought that Lozanna was a typo because nn and it is read Lozana. I hope that we will stay in friendly realtionship and that we will cooperate instead of accusing each other.

[[User:Avala|Avala|★]] 19:02, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Elymian language at the Sicels entry

"the Elymian language, which some would consider related to Ligurian or to Anatolian." Would you be a little more specific here please. We need your help. Even to identify "Some" perhaps. Or "How" would help. Perhaps you'd best re-edit the Elymian entry. And please add an External Link, if there's anything on the web, to help us out. Thank you. Wetman 06:13, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Megara Hybaea

Megara Hyblaea, I suppose (a "L" is missing) [1] from Italy

Grazie! Pasquale 18:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sanksrit origin for Afghanistan

No, I'm not aware of the use of the word sthaana in any comparable sense in Sanskrit. I come from a community where the word for temple is devasthaana. This may be understood to mean 'place of the gods', but it does not mean 'country of the gods'. I don't claim to be an expert, but I do claim to be reasonably sure that the name Rajasthan is a relatively recent derivation, due to Persian / Urdu influence. No doubt there are linguistic nationalists who would do anything to claim a Sanskrit origin,

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~huet/SKT/DICO/s.html#sth=ana

The comparable words in Sanskrit for the Persian meaning of 'stan' (country, land) would be desha, or sometimes perhaps bhumi or a derivation. Do you have any counter-examples of the term sthaana used for land/country, unambiguously derived from Sanskrit? Imc 17:25, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Pasquale. I've read (skimmed) through the talk page for these etymologies. It's entertaining sometimes! Imc 19:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Geographical names

Greetings, Pasquale. I have recently stumbled upon a large database of geographical names in various languages, and I thought that it might perhaps be of interest to you. You can find it at http://www.eki.ee/knab/knab.htm. Another such database, though apparently much smaller, is at http://www.geonames.de/indcou.html. -- Naive cynic 20:55, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC) -- Thanks, Pasquale 19:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hello, Pasquale. Thanks for your pointer to the discussion on European cities with alternative names; I do indeed not visit it often, but tend to agree with your points. I left a comment on the talk page. -- pne 07:17, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Finno-Ugric languages

A debate on the validity of Finno-Ugric is going on at Talk:Finno-Ugric language; as a historical linguist, your input would be particularly welcome. - Mustafaa 21:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Folk/fake etymology

The distinction between folk and fake etymology didn't originate with me! They're completely different things, and they're not even opposites. Folk etymology is a process that changes a word or phrase; that process is part of the actual history of the word of phrase.

The reason that the phrase "kitty-corner" exists is that enough people mistook "cater-corner" to be about cats that it caught on. You can't explain why "kitty-corner" exists without talking about the process by which people misunderstood its history and changed it based on that misunderstanding. That process is folk etymology.

But when you say something is a fake etymology, you're simply saying that that particular account of its history is inaccurate. It's just an etymology that's fake.

In other words, to say "cater-corner" refers to the way cats walk is a fake etymology, because, well, it's not true. But to say "kitty-corner" developed from "cater-corner" because many believed "cater-corner" to refer to the way cats walk is a description of an instance where the folk-etymological process occurred.

"Popular etymology" isn't a synonym of "folk etymology". It's an etymology which is popular instead of accurate, which is fake etymology. It's "popular" like "popular belief". It has the advantage of not looking quite so judgmental in the middle of an article that isn't about a word's history. I have no idea which way this should go having dug further. See Talk:Folk etymology.

So when you're talking about an explanation of a word's history which is well-known but wrong, you have a fake etymology; when you're talking about the way that misunderstandings can create change in a word of phrase, you're talking about the process of folk etymology. "Fake etymology" basically means "fake history-of-a-word"; "folk etymology" means something closer to "folk changing-of-a-word".

(Note that Folk etymology and fake etymology still need some work; folk etymology still doesn't capture that folk etymology is process and not result. Auto movil and I were fighting over that a bit and have settled down to only discussing it; I've put what I think is a decent explanation of the difference on his talk page which you might find useful.)

"Folk etymology" is generally misunderstood that way, because it looks like "etymology" being modified by an adjective, and because it's so similar to "fake etymology", and because some particular fake etymology must be involved in the process of folk etymology.

Man, I really need to get this stuff back on the article's talk page. I'm going to cut and paste a bit of this and a bit of what I wrote to User:Auto movil onto the article's talk page, and we should probably continue the discussion there. :-) — mendel ☎ 14:42, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Done -- let's continue this discussion on Talk:Folk etymology. — mendel ☎ 16:06, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

You wrote:

But then, why say fake etymology and make such a big deal of it

I have no idea. The article was there when I came along, and it seemed like a good place to move all of the not-really-folk-etymology bits from fake etymology. And then when it came time to fix the articles that pointed at folk etymology but were talking about mistaken etymologies, pointing them at fake etymology followed naturally. But if you can think of something better to do there I'm all ears. I think "fake etymology" is a confusing and awkward term. Google returns mostly Wikipedia mirrors for it, but I'm hesitant to stick it on VfD because I think a list of etymologies that are inaccurate but popular is useful.

It was important to me to get folk etymology to stop talking about etymologies that were wrong, but I don't really have any investment in fake etymology except as a place to stick the stuff that doesn't belong on folk etymology. Thoughts? — mendel ☎ 00:44, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

I hear you. Sounds good. Let's mull it over for a while. It's not a life-and-death situation. I think you've got some good points there. The main things now are: Are there better expressions than fake etymology for that particular (and fascinating!) meaning? And, what exactly does Popular etymology mean -- and so, what sould it redirect to? Pasquale 01:13, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A disambig page for popular etymology is an excellent solution. I feel sort of silly for not thinking of it myself. I'll throw one in place shortly. — mendel ☎ 01:28, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Some background on the Finno-ugric debate

Hi Pasquale,

On my talk page you wrote:

"There is absolutely no serious scientific dispute about the status of the Finno-Ugric language family. You have done a disservice to the Wikipedia by elevating this troll to such high status. Pasquale 21:31, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)"

Let me give you a little background on the subject of the Finno-Ugric debate and User:Antifinnougric.

In Hungary there is a highly charged political debate between academics who support the finno-ugric theory and their usually (far) right wing critics. You are correct that there is very little serious debate in the linguistic community. But in Hungary the debate is not linguistic, it's political. We've reached a point where Hungarian academists rarely dare to speak up and criticise the proponents of alternative theories lest they be charged with being "Anti-Hungarian" and "serving foreign interests" by "trying to hide the true origins of our language" (exactly the kinds of rhetoric Antifinnougric repeats).

The alternate theories range from relatively moderate supporters of Turkic origins of the Hungarian language to truly radicals supporting Sumerian and even Japanese origins. Usually the closer the proponents of a theory are to the fringes of the political spectrum the more off the wall their theories and the more agressive their rhetoric become.

Hungarian Wikipedia editors treat User:Antifinnougric in a very special way. He is the first truly radical editor (both in a political and "scientific" sense) in the Hungarian Wikipedia and he was the one who started the first ever edit war on the Hungarian pages (still going on in some sense). What many of us are trying to do is set up a positive precedent by being extremely polite and patient with him and follow all the guidelines described in Wikipedia:NPOV, Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Wikilove. It's often not easy, he had upset many editors with his behavior and his radical views on finn-ugric theory in the Hungarian WP could not be formulated into acceptable articles yet.

I hope this sheds some light on why many Hungarian editors (including me) seem to be surprisingly patient with him. I know his tendency to start edit wars (if you look at the page histories, you'll see that there are still edit wars going on) and the best I can do when I see him insert arguments of his campaign trying to discredit the finno-ugric theory is to mark articles being POV and needing attention and hoping that editors with a background in linguistics and above all enough patience will come and correct his often incorrect and/or POV statements. (Although I'm Hungarian I'm a software guy and I know little about linguistics).

Cheers, Nyenyec 23:54, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Nyenyec,

Thank you for your reply, but I am afraid your "polite" policy is quite misguided. The appropriate thing to do would be to bar this individual from the Wikipedia, in Hungarian, English, or any other language. He has now brought his two idiotic questions to my talk page (above), not realizing that no linguist is ever going to bother responding to them, because they make asolutely no sense. I understand what you are saying about the political debates and I am aware such debates exist in many countries, but they have absolutely nothing to do with linguistics. In India, for example, there is a raging debate about the autochthonous origin of the Aryans, with many people believing Sanskrit is native to India since creation and, therefore, all other Indo-European languages, to the extent they are related to Sanskrit, must come from India. These theories invade the Internet too, but they are ignored by linguists, because they have no scientific merit. It is a mistake to engage these crackpots in a debate, because it leads nowhere. As I have said before, I would not engage a physicist in a debate on the quantum theory, because I don't know anything about it. But at least I know I don't know anything about it. So, I don't believe I am being an élitist if I ask non-linguists to leave Linguistics to linguists. Pasquale 21:38, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Improvements to Finno-Ugric languages

Hi Pasquale,

Thanks for correcting what I wrote in Finno-Ugric languages#Structural features. You say that "my" and "your" are not possessive pronouns; do you realize the page on possessive pronouns says otherwise? I don't know one way or the other, but you might want to correct that page if it's wrong. Also, at Talk:Uralic languages#Possessive pronouns, Dhanak says "enyém means mine, tiéd is yours" in Hungarian. Again, I have no idea whether that is correct.

It's clear you're quite frustrated with User:Antifinnugor's behavior, as are we all. Try not to take it personally! Also, note that Finno-Ugric languages has improved a lot since her attacks started on November 9. Her actions have caused a lot of people to think about the topic more critically, and the article has benefitted from that.

Dbenbenn 03:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. The difference between a possessive adjective and a possessive pronoun is very simple: The adjective is followed by a noun (e.g. "my book", "your book") while the pronoun is not ("mine", "yours"). It is the same difference as between a demonstrative adjective and a demonstrative pronoun (e.g. "that book" vs. "that"). Forgive me if I say so, but this is Grammar 101. Now, it may be that the reason these are often confused is that in many languages they are identical (e.g. Italian "il mio libro" vs. "il mio"; "questo libro" vs. "questo").

Many languages do not have either possessive adjectives or pronouns because they simply use the genitive of the personal pronouns, strictly speaking the equivalents of "of me", "of you", etc., but with a case ending instead of a preposition; e.g. Japanese "watashi" ("I") : "watashi-no hon" ("my book"), where the suffix "-no" is the equivalent of a genitive case ending. This works just fine. You will obviously see how there is no loss of meaning if you say "book of me" rather than "my book" (adjective), or "of me" rather than "mine" (pronoun).

Believe me, I do not take User:Antifinnugor's behavior personally at all. The things this person says are clearly borne of ignorance and they are just good for a laugh. However, I have also said that this person, who clearly fits the definition of crank, if not troll, should have no place in the Wikipedia. By the way, I did not realize that User:Antifinnugor was a she. You can only feel sorry for this person.

Pasquale 21:10, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The phrase "friend of mine" is an interesting exception, eh? As far as Grammar 101 goes, I admit I don't know anything formal about grammar. The fact that I'm completely ignorant of linguistics means I see inconsistencies or confusing explanations that an expert such as you might overlook. (To steal your phrase, I would be perfectly capable of debating a physicist.) Anyway, since the article should be aimed at regular people, it makes sense for me to question anything I can't understand.

If I had referred to Antifinnugor as "he", would you have assumed I knew she was male? I tried to phrase what I wrote in gender neutral terms, but I felt constantly saying "this person" was too awkward. So I arbitrarily picked "she". And as a bonus, it points out the issue of systemic sexism in English.

In my experience, when a native Hungarian speaker tells a story in English about an arbitrary person, whose sex is not identified, she tends to switch back and forth between "he" and "she". The Hungarian doesn't even notice she's doing this until the terribly confused American listener mentions it. I have a theory that Hungarian brains can think of gender-neutral people in a way that American brains can't, simply because the Hungarian language supports gender-neutral speech. --Dbenbenn 01:37, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, Dbenbenn, the phrase "friend of mine" is actually not an exception. As for my statement about Grammar 101, it was not meant to be in any way a reproach, I thought that was clear. And, in any case, as you can see from the talk page, I had to backtrack on that terminological point, since clearly the Wikipedia article on Possessive pronouns uses the terms determinative possessive pronouns and independent possessive pronouns for what I was referring to, respectively, as "possessive adjectives" and "possessive pronouns". Furthermore, I totally agree that the Wikipedia contents should be aimed at the general public. When I have made references to linguists vs. non-linguists, I assure you I was not trying to score points or get on a high horse, but I was simply referring to very specific factual points.

I definitely was assuming User:Antifinnugor was a male because of her aggressiveness. I don't believe it's sexist of me to assume that. I would say statistically it would be very unusual for a female to be so combative in the face of a host of people telling you you are wrong, and to fight them individually one after the other.

As far as gender-neutral usage is concerned, as a linguist (you'll forgive me!), I'm well aware of a host of languages that have a single, gender-neutral third-person pronoun, including Turkish and all other Altaic languages, and also Chinese. (Although in Chinese there are different characters for 'he' and 'she', the word is the same, "ta1", and linguists have proven that the word was always the same and that the two different characters always represented a purely graphic, not verbal, distinction.) Most if not all of these languages are spoken by cultures that are traditionally quite sexist, proving once again that there is rarely any correlation between linguistic and cultural features. Pasquale 02:19, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Article disputes

Hello, and thanks for your note on my talk page. A good place to start when in disagreement with another user regarding the content of an article is Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Even when it seems someone else is completely off base in the information they are contributing, it's important to follow the appropriate steps to ensure a smooth resolution to the issue. Hope this helps.  – Jrdioko (Talk) 02:45, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Walliser/Walser

I was wrong to equal Walliser and Walser. My main critique on the article was that to me, it looked as if there were the Walser language standing as a language on its own as opposed to the Alemannic language/dialects spoken in the Wallis as well as in other parts. The dialects spoken by the Walser are very heterogenous. They differ from each other as much as they differ from the Alemannic dialects of the Wallis.

I'd rather prefer to have an article on Walser migration with a section on the dialects, since they are only one of the different elements that constitute the Walser, together with the denominations (many place names) and the culture (a special type of settlements and of agriculture).

I've made several changes to Walser language, mainly replacing language by dialects. Especially in linguistics, the Alemannic varieties are considered dialects. The wikipedia articles on Alemannic speak all of dialects, not of languages. J. 'mach' wust 14:24, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Allow me to cite your own reply here so the everything stays on the same page:

OK, I read your message and saw your changes. I understand what you're saying about the Walser diaspora speaking a rather diverse group of dialects rather than a language. And I've studied enough dialectology (including German dialectology) to know what you're talking about. While in a strict dialectological sense, you are most probably quite correct, the fact remains that a lot of sources, including the Ethnologue (a link is available on the Walser page), consistently classify Walser as a separate "language" from Alemannic, possibly simply to underscore the distinctive Walser ethnic identity. This identity is very strong and it specifically identifies the diaspora, all the way from Haute-Savoie to Tyrol, but not the Walliser who stayed in Wallis. This is a very common phenomenon all around the world (e.g. the Cajuns of Louisiana vs. the Acadians who stayed behind in New Brunswick), so it's no surprise that it should be so. Historical and political considerations often trump a strictly dialectological classification and it makes sense that it should be so. Otherwise, if you were to apply a strictly dialectological approach, you would have to say that there is no Dutch language, but that Dutch is simply part of the Low German dialect continuum. While that is technically correct, it would not be very "politically correct" and it would get you into a lot of trouble. Regards, Pasquale 17:00, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How come you're affirming that there's a strong ethnic identity among the Walser diaspora? For more than half a millenium, they've been seperated from each other, not only by high mountains, but also by regions where other people live (many Walser settlements are isolated), by political borders and by confession (they left the Wallis before the reformation and some became protestant). Therefore, I think that the Walliser identity is much stronger than the Walser identity.

The language of those who live within German speaking areas has assimilated to the surrounding dialects. That is, it has become less archaic than the original Walliser dialects. I knew Walser people when I visited a friend in Liechtenstein (his father is from Triesenberg). In my Bernese German ears, their dialect was identical to the Liechtensteiner dialect, and very different from the Walliser dialect (which I can hardly understand). I guess that one has to be from the region in order to hear the differences between the normal Liechtenstein dialect and the Walser Liechtenstein dialect.

Politically, it is very strange to Swiss people if the Walser dialects are considered a language on its own, and I'm sure it is even stranger to Walliser people since the purest/oldest Walliser/Walser dialects are spoken in the remote valleys of the Wallis (in Italy/Ticino, the Walser language is fading into an old peoples' talk—like the Swiss French patois).

It seems to me that the "Walser language" is an internet myth produced by the ethnologue report. My faith in the ethnologue report is a little bit restored by the fact that the entry on Alemannic mentions Valserisch as an Alemannic dialect. J. 'mach' wust 18:45, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I agree we don't disagree any more. I also based myself on what seems to be the consensus among Swiss linguists. Thanks for the link. A nice page, and surprisingly a page both of us can use for supporting our points of view! It clearly is a Walser page, but it makes no big deal of Walser identity and includes the Walliser in many respects (e.g. in the Internationalen Vereinigung für Walsertum). :) J. 'mach' wust 06:47, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Noemi

I've got one question regarding the redirect for the article Noemi. Are you sure this is correct translation? In Douay-Rheims Bible as well as King James version the name Noemi is connected with somebody different than Naamah. Do you think I could delete the redirect, write an article about Noemi and possibly add disambig to the page pointing to Naamah? --Bebenko 12:17, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have to correct myself. I found Naomi (Tanakh) to be the article I wanted to write.

• According to the first reference I mentioned, Noemi should be the name
• according to the second, Naomi is right

Do you know, as linguist, which one is right? Thanks. -- Bebenko 12:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Bebenko. Frankly, I always thought that Noemi and Naomi were two forms of one and the same Biblical name, both perfectly valid English forms of the name. My assumption was that one form (Noemi) was based on the Latin tradition, which is based on the Greek tradition, based in turn on the Aramaic tradition, while the other form (Naomi) was taken into English directly from the Hebrew tradition. There are many other such doublets of Biblical names in English and I would not presume to favor one over the other. However, according to the Wikipedia, Noemi is a variant form of Naamah and a totally different name than Naomi. So, I don't know what to tell you. I must confess my ignorance in matters of Biblical exegesis. Pasquale 17:56, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Noric language?

Ciao Pasquale, Since you created the article Noric language, can you provide some sources for it? As I mention on its talk page, none of the sources on Celtic languages I've consulted mention it. Is it actually attested, or does one simply assume that the inhabitants of Noricum must have spoken something, and that it was probably Celtic? Thanks, --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 8 July 2005 21:44 (UTC)

Thanks Pasquale, I'll see if I can track down Rmhermen and see what he knows on the matter! --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 9 July 2005 06:32 (UTC)

Can you add sources for the opinion that Lepontic might not be Celtic? All the sources I can find say it's unambiguously Celtic and extremely close to Gaulish. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 9 July 2005 19:08 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining all that to me! Maybe you could add a source or two to the Lepontic language article so that readers know that one sentence isn't coming out of left field. But also I think there might be some terminology confusion going on: would you agree the non-Latin language of the Todi inscription is a Celtic language closely related to Gaulish? It sure looks like it to me, but maybe you'd call it Cisalpine Gaulish and not Lepontic. Paul Russell in An Introduction to the Celtic Languages (p. 6), though, calls it Lepontic. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 08:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made Noric language a redirect to Noricum. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 22:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you consider me a Johnny-come-lately messing up your carefully crafted contributions. You didn't seem to have any particular attachment to Noric language so I thought you wouldn't mind me making a redirect. As for Lepontic language, I have no emotional investment at all in the question of whether there is one language here (a Celtic language variously called Lepontic or Cisalpine Gaulish) or two (a non-Celtic language related to Ligurian called Lepontic, and a Celtic language called Cisalpine Gaulish). All I care about on the matter is that if both views are currently represented in the published literature, both views are mentioned in the Lepontic language article, with sources cited for each. In Eska and Evans's chapter on Continental Celtic in The Celtic Languages (Routledge 1993), they mention Whatmough 1933 and Pisani 1964 as exponents of the view that Lepontic is related to Ligurian, so I'm adding those two refs to Lepontic language. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 09:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I'm glad I'm not the one your bitterness is direct at! Anyway, I have restored the original wording at Ligurian language, but I've also added an {{Unsourced}} tag because it really does need sources added. Ideally, the article should one day say: "Researchers A, B, and C have argued Ligurian is an Indo-European language for the following reasons: (blah, blah, blah). Researchers X, Y, and Z, on the other hand, have argued it is not Indo-European for the following reasons: (blah, blah, blah)." That way if anons come along and change it, you can challenge them to cite their sources, and remove their edits with impunity if they don't. And of course the same goes for the two sides of the Lepontic question: "Lejeune and Eska argue that the earliest Lepontic inscriptions are in a Celtic (but non-Gaulish) language, which became more similar to Gaulish after the Gaulish invasion of northern Italy in the 4th century BC [or whatever it is exactly they argue; I'm just guessing here], while Whatmough and Pisani [and whoever else] argue that Lepontic is not Celtic at all, but rather related to Ligurian, and is a completely different language from the Cisalphine Gaulish found after the 4th century." BTW, in case you haven't noticed, Nantonos has put a lot of the things you said about Lepontic and Ligurian on Talk:Ligurian language so that interested parties can read it even if they don't happen across my talk page. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 20:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Gaulish

To clarify, I was referring to 'The Dialects of Ancient Gaul' and it was the idea that there were large numbers of regional dialects in Gaulish that I was describing as discredited. --Nantonos 03:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Zero-width spaces

I have noticed that you removed zero-width spaces intended to allow long hyphenated words to be divided at the end of the line from list of European regions with alternative names. Out of curiosity, what kind of problems does their presence trigger? -- Naive cynic 18:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Naive, the reason why I removed those "zero-width space" characters is that, on a normal laptop PC such as mine, which includes lots of character sets needed to display plenty of exotic languages (but not all), those characters are displayed as boxes (i.e. unrecognizable characters) after the hyphens. In my very standard, very run-of-the-mill display, those long hyphenated words are divided anyway, without needing those special characters. Since my PC is quite an average one, I have to assume lots of users will be experiencing the same problem, i.e. displaying those boxes after the hyphens, so it seemed practical to remove them. I hope you will agree. Pasquale 21:25, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I have investigated this problem briefly. It seems that, with an exception of fonts for some Asian scripts, Microsoft doesn't include support for zero-width spaces in fonts distributed with Windows. Oh well... -- Naive cynic 07:08, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Would a zero-width non-joiner serve the same purpose? --Nantonos 21:33, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

No, zero-width non-joiner prevents the characters around it from forming a ligature, but it has no effect on word boundaries. Besides, ZWNJ shares a similar level of non-support with ZWS. · Naive cynic · 10:12, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Proto-Celtic *φ

Hi Angr,

I have a hunch you may be responsible for a great deal of what's on this excellent page, although, who knows, I may be wrong, as I didn't bother to check its history all the way back. Anyway, my question for you is this: What is the wisdom of indicating the outcome of PIE *p as Proto-Celtic *φ? Since the change of PIE *p to zero is Common Celtic, it is only logical to set it up as Proto-Celtic. Last time I checked, that is standard procedure in Historical Linguistics. While *φ may have been an intermediate stage BETWEEN Proto-Indo-European AND Proto-Celtic (and even that is not required), it makes no sense to assign that phoneme to the Celtic proto-language. If the only evidence is Latin silva Hercynia, then that's no evidence at all. The ancient Romans frequently placed an orthographic h before vowel-initial foreign names. The examples are in the dozens, if not the hundreds (Heruli, Hermunduri, Helvetii, Histri, etc.). But even if some of these actually had an /h/ sound at the beginning of the word, how does that warrant Proto-Celtic *φ? At most, one can set up a Proto-Celtic *h/0, or *(h) with a big question mark next to it. Pasquale 19:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi Pasquale, the main reason for positing *φ rather than *h or zero as the (early) PC outcome of PIE *p is its behavior in consonant clusters. PIE *pt and *ps show up as [xt] and [xs] in attested Celtic languages, which is more likely to come from an earlier [φt] and [φs] than from [ht] and [hs]. Also word-initial *sp- shows up in Brythonic as [f] (Welsh ffêr "ankle" < *speret-) and in Old Irish as [s] in unlenited and [f] in lenited position (seir "heel" vs. dí pheirid "two heels"). The Old Irish outcome is the same as that of original *sw- (siur "sister" vs. a phiur "his sister" < *swesor-), but the Brythonic outcomes of *sw- and *sp- are different (*sw- becomes Brythonic [xw] as in chwaer "sister"). So it seems best to reconstruct early PC with *φ for all PIE *p, and late PC in which *φ has become zero (presumably through a stage [h], possibly but not necessarily attested in Latin spellings) word-initially and intervocalically, *φ has become [x] before obstruents, and initial *sφ- remained (or at least remained distinct from both *s- and *sw-) until after the breakup of Proto-Insular Celtic. At Lusitanian language it is argued that the retention of *p in PORCOM proves Lus. can't be Celtic, but I think it's remotely possible that it's just a spelling of [φorkom] and that Lusitanian broke off from the other Celtic langs before *φ > *h. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi Angr,

Thanks for your exhaustive reply. Yes, it all rings a bell, as I actually studied all that stuff. I actually even studied Welsh at some point. Well, yes, in the main, that whole reasoning is quite persuasive. Here are a few points of detail that don't really affect the overall argument: (1) the initial *sφ- reflected by the Insular Celtic outcomes may actually even be *sf-; (2) the Celtic clusters [xt] and [xs] may be from earlier [φt] and [φs], but also from [ft] and [fs], and -- I don't see why not -- from [ht] and [hs] (I think they are all legitimate intermediate stages, with parallels from other languages); (3) if Lusitanian PORCOM had represented [φorkom], it would probably have been written **FORCOM (I'm confident you can find other examples of F being used to represent [φ], but not P); (4) personally, I am favorably inclined to consider Lusitanian as an Indo-European language close but different from Celtic, since I am convinced there existed a large group of Indo-European languages in Western Europe -- ranging from Portugal to Austria and from Denmark to Central Italy -- that preceded Celtic (e.g. Ligurian, etc.); (5) personally, I don't believe in the existence of a Proto-Insular Celtic, but that does not affect your argument. In any case, I don't question the substance of your explanation. But here's another question: What is the evidence for PIE *g^wh still being *g^w in Proto-Celtic? Pasquale 20:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Yes, *φ could just as easily have been *f; there's nothing really to decide between them. I'm not saying I necessarily believe PORCOM was pronounced [φorkom], just that it's not impossible. If your language has /φ/ but no /p/ or /f/ and you adopt a writing system from a language that has P and F but no symbol for /φ/, I bet each letter has an equally good chance of being the one you pick. Maybe especially if you have the cluster /sφ-/ and the language whose writing system you're borrowing has words with SP- but none with SF-. Anyway, I'm not arguing in favor of this position, merely saying that I think that PORCOM isn't definitive evidence Lusitanian is non-Celtic, because PORCOM doesn't have to mean [porkom]. As for *g^wh being *g^w, it's because Welsh shows [gw] and Irish shows [g] + vowel rounding in words like W. gweddi, O.Ir. guide "prayer" < *g^whed^h- and W. gwanu, O.Ir.gonaid "to wound" < *g^when-. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 21:05, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi Angr,

Thanks again. Yes, of course, PORCOM need not mean porkom, since we obviously know next to nothing about Lusitanian. Furthermore, I really couldn't say what options the Iberian syllabary had to offer a Celtic or, in any case, Indo-European language of the Iberian peninsula. Thanks also for clarifying Proto-Celtic *g^w. I have one more question for you. Since you explained so clearly the Insular Celtic outcomes of the PIE cluster *sp, can you tell me what the outcomes of that cluster are in Gaulish, word-initially and medially? I can't think of any examples off hand. Pasquale 00:56, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Apparently there's no evidence of *sp- in Continental Celtic. There aren't that many Celtic words starting with PIE sp- in the first place; the "heel/ankle" word seems to be the best one, and it's not surprising if that word is unattested in Gaulish and Celtiberian. As for the development of sp- itself, Kim McCone (Towards a relative chronology of ancient and medieval Celtic sound change, ISBN 0901519405, p. 45) says:

In the virtually certain event that φ > Ø occurred everywhere else before the end of Proto-Celtic, it would be strange indeed if φ survived as a separate phoneme after s- in a mere handful of words for centuries longer until after the separation of British and Irish. The obvious solution is to postulate that s impeded the change of a following p to φ rather as the shift p > f did not take place after s in Germanic.... The general loss of φ would thus not have affected sp- and survival of this cluster until after the end of Insular Celtic is unproblematical, since lack of a voiced/voiceless opposition in stops after s- in Celtic would entail analysis of [p] in this environment as an allophone of /b/.... Thereafter we simply need to posit sp- > sw- in Irish and > f- in British.

In fact, in P-Celtic the [p] of sp- would have been interpreted as /p/ < *k^w anyway. sp > f in Brythonic is supported independently by the Aspiration Mutation, by which initial p is mutated to ph after words formerly ending in s. One other point, the PC reflex of PIE *p must have been labial (not [h]) because it went to [w] between a back vowel and n in OIr. súan, MW hun "sleep" < *sōnos < *suwnos < *suφnos < *supnos and OIr. cúan "harbor" < *kōnos < *kawnos < *kaφnos < *kapnos. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 08:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi Angr,

Thanks for your reply. I did suspect there was no evidence of *sp- in Gaulish. Personally -- since I do not believe your Insular vs. Continental Celtic split is anything but the result of late convergence and shared innovations -- I would expect in Gaulish something similar to the Brythonic outcomes. Interestingly, there are a few instances of initial f- in Gaulish, but they are usually interpreted as *w-. Pokorny, for example, analyzes the Gaulish place name Fernodubrum as 'Erlenwasser' (i.e. "alder-water") from the lemma *wer-(e)na: 'alder, poplar'. Another such instance I have come across is the Vindelician tribal name Focunates, which some have compared to Vocontii. Perhaps one might want to look instead for a possible *sp- in these.

Your quote from McCone makes little sense to me and further erodes whatever respect I might have had for McCone's opinions. If the initial cluster *sp- had been reanalyzed as phonemically /s/ + /b/, then its outcome should have been that of -s#b-, not of -s#p- ! I am familiar with the Aspiration Mutation (in fact, I have some ideas of my own about it), but clearly it applies to word-initial fortis phonemes only (which were most probably not just voiceless but voiceless aspirated in Insular Celtic) and certainly not to word-initial lenis phonemes (even if they were phonetically voiceless). So, I submit McCone is simply wrong (once again) and you have to go back to positing Proto-Celtic *sp- > *φ- or *f- to explain the known outcomes, i.e. (to quote from your first reply to my inquiry about Proto-Celtic *φ): "in Brythonic as [f] (Welsh ffêr "ankle" < *speret-) and in Old Irish as [s] in unlenited and [f] in lenited position (seir "heel" vs. dí pheirid "two heels")."

Your point that "the PC reflex of PIE *p must have been labial (not [h]) because it went to [w] between a back vowel and n in OIr. súan, MW hun "sleep" < *sōnos < *suwnos < *suφnos < *supnos and OIr. cúan "harbor" < *kōnos < *kawnos < *kaφnos < *kapnos" is very well taken. This point surely lends stronger support for positing Proto-Celtic *φ or *f (rather than *h) than any other consideration. (In particular, there would be no a priori reason to think that a [φ] can more easily turn to [x] than an [h] in clusters such as *pt and *ps. For an example of [h] > [x] in clusters, simply consider your own example, Welsh chwaer < *swesor- 'sister', where [s] most likely went through [h] before becoming [x].)

Finally, a small argument in favor of the primacy of a Q-Celtic vs. P-Celtic (rather than Insular vs. Continental) dialect split. Since PIE *g^wh- shows up as w- in Gaulish, and since both PIE *g^wh- and PIE *w- show up as gw- in Brythonic, you should conclude that PIE *g^wh- became *w- in Brythonic as well as Gaulish (i.e. P-Celtic) and only later did *w- become gw- in Brythonic (more or less at the same time as the very same w- > gw- sound change took place in most -- though not all -- Romance dialects, most of the examples of course being provided by Germanic loanwords in Romance). It is the Irish reflex (g- + vowel rounding) that is divergent. Pasquale 18:49, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

---

The argument from the Aspirate Mutation was mine, not McCone's, so you have to blame me for it, not him! But my point was, [sp] would have to be interpreted as /sb/ only in Q languages; in P languages it could be interpreted as /sp/ and therefore treated the same as /s#p/ (provided *k^w > *p preceded Spirantization in Brythonic, which seems likely). The problem with positing a "Gallo-Brittonic" sound change *g^w > *w followed by a Brythonic *w > *gw in word-intial position is that PC *g^w and *w stay distinct in word-internal intervocalic position in Brythonic. PC *w remains [w], but PC *g^w becomes [v] in Welsh deifio "burn" < PC *deg^w- < PIE *d^heg^wh- and nyf "snow" < PC *snig^w- < PIE *snig^wh- (unlikely to be a Latin loanword). So PC *g^w and *w were still distinct, at least word-internally, in Proto-Brythonic, so it doesn't provide evidence for a "Proto-P-Celtic" after all. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:46, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi Angr,

For some reason, I only now noticed your reply of 12 September 2005. You point out that the fact that PC *g^w and *w stay distinct in word-internal intervocalic position in Brythonic (PC *w remains [w], but PC *g^w becomes [v] in Welsh deifio "burn" < PC *deg^w- < PIE *d^heg^wh- and nyf "snow" < PC *snig^w- < PIE *snig^wh-) presents a problem with positing a "Gallo-Brittonic" sound change *g^w > *w followed by a Brythonic *w > *gw in word-intial position.

But let's see. As far as Welsh deifio is concerned, Pokorny says it shows [v] from *w before semivocalic i (citing Thurneysen KZ. 61, 253, Loth RC. 42, 58; see Pokorny, root *da:u- 317, but cross-referenced under *d^heg^wh- 380). And the same may be true for nyf "snow", cf. nyfio "to snow". So, the evidence for the assertion that PC *g^w and *w were still distinct, at least word-internally, in Proto-Brythonic is not very strong.

Furthermore, assuming for a moment that we can accept this evidence as good, do you know what the word-internal reflex of PC *g^w is in Gaulish? If Welsh indeed has [v], that would point to a labialized word-internal *-b- < *-g^w-. Now, do we know that Gaulish had **dew- and **niw- in these roots, as opposed to **deb- and **nib-? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe any of these are attested. Or is there other evidence?

Given how meager the evidence for different word-internal treatments of PC *g^w between Gaulish and Brythonic is, I would stick to my analysis for word-initial PIE *g^wh- > PC *g^w > P-Celtic *w- > Later Brythonic gw- as the most probable sequence of sound changes. Pasquale 17:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

"So called Moldovan language" and romanian

Hello Pasquale!

I would like in the most polite manner to have a look on the Moldovan_language where I have added some edits on the talk page [[2]]

The truth is that "Moldovan" doesn't exist. It's about romanian with a different name. The fact is that is identical with romanian. Romanian is a latin language like french, italian, spanish, portuguese. The Soviet propaganda and the russians experts since 1812 tried to make a difference on political reasons. Even internationally at the most official level is recognized that "so called moldovan" is nothing else but romanian. [[3]] Please feel free to express your opinion!  Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Yes Pasquale, you are right. Thank you so much. You may take part of the action on a vandalism report, see the link. [[4]]  Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Hi Pasquale,

thank you so much for your efforts. Actually I would like to stress some facts:

• there is no unitary Moldovan language
• Romanian dialects are 4 (four): Daco-Romanian (Romanian); Aromanian; Megleno-Romanian; Istro-romanian.

As you said Romanian is precisely one language. The dialectal variation (languages spoken in different regions of Romania like Oltenia, Muntenia, Transylvania, Moldova) what you ment may be called romanian with some forced terms of "regionalism" words but since they are identical we cann't say that they are dialects.

I would like you to state the truth that there exists no unitary Moldovan language (even politically was officially declared official between 1991 and 1994 "Romanian" as the official language of Moldova), is the same latin language with a different name. Mă bucur că îţi place foarte mult limba romînǎ. Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Sorry Pasquale but not involving in this is just the same as you agree with thess lies. If you as linguist you don't involve who must then?  Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Thank you Pasquale, you are very kind. I will base on your help when the times comes :). Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Now it would be great to have also your opinion as linguist on the page Talk:Moldovan language. Multumesc anticipat. Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Changes to the Napolitano article

Hi Pasquale,

thanks for fixing English in the Napolitano article. I've much appreciated it. I'm not a native English speaker. But I'm Italian and Neapolitan. So I would like to point out that:

• The Italian Wikipedia is not an authority on Neapolitan spelling (or for that matters, Italian spelling). I assure you that Neapolitan is a language on its own. "Cupià" and "Cupia’" are both used, but "cupia’" is the spelling used for the book (I would not argue about which one is better in general).

• I know that "to etc." means *also* "in order to etc." but it also is the simple infinitive form. I wanted to avoid it to be confused for the latter, which in Neapolitan would be "cupia'" (without "pe", which BTW is most commonly written "pe'"). That's also the reason why I changed "translates to" to "translates as": "translates *to* in order *to*" is quite cacophonous :) It doesn't matter now, as all references to the book have been removed, but if "translates to" is the only correct form I would have probably written "it may translate to" (which is better anyway, as there are various translation choices).

(please, reply here, so that the discussion is not fragmented across different pages)

Regards, --Gennaro Prota ^(talk) 18:38, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Ciao ho risposto alla tua risposta sulla mia talk page :) Ti prego di aggiungerla alla tua watch-list così manteniamo l'intera discussione in un unico posto (c'era una nota in piccolo, nel messaggio sopra, che diceva di continuare qua, per lo stesso motivo; l'importante è non sbrandellare la conversazione su due pagine diverse). A proposito, ho visto che ti occupi di localizzazione di software. Io sono un programmatore C++. Magari ci incontreremo qualche volta —e io non saprò mai che tu sei Pasquale! ;) --Gennaro Prota ^(talk) 00:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Ronline for Admin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Ronline and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Ronline . I have nominated Ronline to be Administrator for English Wikipedia. Let's vote for him! Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Alexander for Admin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Alexander_007 ,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Alexander_007 . I've nominated User:Alexander_007 as admin. Let's vote for him! -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 14:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Gaitelgrima

I noticed that you added the tidbit that the Gaitelgrima who was a daughter of Guaimar III was also called Altrude. While this squares with what I know, I was wondering if you knew something I didn't. Did this Gaitelgrima/Altrude really marry both Drogo and Humphrey in succession? Is she the mother of Abelard and Herman by Humphrey and of Richard of Salerno by Drogo? Is the said Richard even Drogo's son at all? If you can't answer any of these questions, no matter: most scholarly works I've read apparently can't answer them either. Srnec 04:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Last message about the location of Georgia

Dear Pasquale,
I know that we have stopped discussing this issue, but I just have to comment on yout post on Kober's wall. You tried to prove that Kober's notes that 70% of Georgia being in Europe were incorrect. Well, if you simply go to the world atlas web site, the web places Georgia and whole Caucasus region in Europe. File:Eunewneb.gif File:Asnewzzz.gif


The web site does not place Georgia is Asia at all. In, fact it does place Turkey in Asia, even though Turkey is about to become a part of European Union.

In addition, you cited National Geographic Society, which is basically an US based organization. It would be nice to consult some European points of view about the continent. The profile of Georgia on the BBC web site tells us that Georgia is fully part of Europe. So, please let us just end the argumet, because I am willing to compromise and I think that Eurasia is also a correct geographic term to use in the article, when it really should be Europe. Sosomk 00:42, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Fine. Thank you for pasting these two maps, by the way. I find them both fascinating. The second one puts European Russia in Asia, and both put Cyprus in Europe and the Sinai Peninsula in Africa. Oh, well! Obviously, this is all a matter of opinion, not of science. Pasquale 19:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

AfD:Names of European cities in different languages

I notice you've contributed in the past to Names of European cities in different languages and its successor pages. There are proposals to delete these articles and the discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of European cities in different languages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of Asian cities in different languages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of African cities in different languages might interest you. AjaxSmack 18:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Pasquale 21:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, these articles have been deleted, despite your good argumentation and despite a 25:11 majority of keep votes. Please see User talk:Mackensen for background. I'm personally not enough attached to them to initiate a Deletion Review on my own, but I'd certainly support one if others are interested. Your thoughts? Fut.Perf. ? 11:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I contacted a bunch on admins on this and only one has responded thus far; he is putting the matter on deletion review. When it comes up, I hope that you will repeat the reasons you thought these articles should be kept. Golly, we have articles on every two-a-penny pokeman creature, but this is unencyclopedic? Carlossuarez46 19:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I have asked the admin User:Dbiv to keep you and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise in the loop. He seems like he's an upright person and he'll probably notify us when the review is going to be so we can chime in. Meanwhile I am seriously considering becoming an admin to stop these sorts of shenanigans. Carlossuarez46 19:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, Carlos. I have seen other admins behave in a similar abusive fashion before. While most admins are fair-minded and considerate, there is a small number of them out there who are out of control and basically think they can do whatever they want. And other admins are wary of intervening. My opinion is that a severe reprimand is called for here, as well as User:Mackensen's demotion from admin, if not his expulsion from the Wikipedia. Pasquale 19:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh the irony...

Deletion Review is going on now: see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 June 28#Names of cities in different languages. David | Talk 19:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Have your say at [[5]] pass it along to others. Carlossuarez46 20:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I had no idea that I was such a rogue admin. Are you seriously suggesting that I need to be kicked off the project for closing a deletion debate? Mackensen (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that was overreacted a bit, I think. But I must say it's understandable users react with some harshness when their own work and their own - expert! - opinion is brushed aside in such a, well let's call it, rogue fashion. Pasquale, I do think Mackensen's decision was within the bounds of policy, if wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

And let me make clear that I've no problem seeing it overturned. Administrators are accorded wide discretion precisely because there's always room to reconsider. I have no ego at stake here. Mackensen (talk) 22:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

What Wikipedia is not

"Perhaps you will now tell me that the Wikipedia is not a place where a specialist's opinion counts at all, but, on the contrary, it's the minority non-specialists that carry the day." Sadly, that is precisely what Wikipedia is not, and is. -- BBlackmoor ^(talk) 04:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

An issue about Georgia

I would like to ask for your attention, because there is a big deal going on on Georgia's talk's page. The argument is to make the Georgia search criterion to result in a redirect to the Georgia (country) page. It is understandable that this is an English wikipedia and most American users prefer a dab page. However, according to statistics more than 2,000 users per month read the article about the country of Georgia and the state of Georgia gets around 800 readers per month. I don't believe that the cultural and historical aspects should be compared of two Georgias, because there is nothing to compare. The country of Georgia is an ancient hitorical country, has more UN world heritage sites than the State of Georgia, has its own language which is different from all the other languages in the world and etc. I don;t want this to turn into a cultural discussion and also making the Georgia search criterion to result in a redirect to the Georgia (country) page is not an underestimation of the beautiful U.S. state of Georgia.
As an European I would like you to participate in voting, if you find time for it.Sosomk 08:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Personally, I agree that Georgia should go directly to the country, with a link to Georgia (disambiguation). This should be the case for any country in the world, in the sense that any country should take precedence over a province or state of another country. I don't believe any other country name has its Wikipedia page identified as "Name of country (country)", so I don't see why that should be the case for Georgia (country). However, I went to the Talk:Georgia page and saw that the poll was closed on 5 July 2006 with "No consensus". Pasquale 22:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

საქართველოს სკაუტური მოძრაობის ორგანიზაცია

Your userpage doesn't say whether you know Georgian or not, but if you do, could you please take a look at Sakartvelos Skauturi Modzraobis Organizatsia? In particular, the scout oath and the scout law still need to be translated and have been waiting for a translation since the beginning of the year. If you don't know enough Georgian to translate them, perhaps you know someone who can? Thank you very much! -Yupik 07:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm very sorry, Yupik, I just don't know enough Georgian to translate an article. Pasquale 21:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks anyways :) -Yupik 06:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Picapica has smiled at you, Pasquale, a chara! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Smile at others by adding {{subst:smile}}, {{subst:smile2}} or {{subst:smile3}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Happy editing!

Hello

Dear friend, do you have any background/knowledge of Mycenean language and Linear B? If so, please let me know. All the best. Ldingley 18:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I actually did study Mycenean Greek, the language of the Linear B script, many moons ago, although I studied it in transcription, so I can't say that I have much experience with the script itself. I also studied its significance within the history of the Greek language and its position within the Greek dialects. But why do you ask? Is there some kind of ongoing controversy? Pasquale 19:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello. I always wanted to meet a person who studied Mycenaean Greek so I could share some information and ask couple of questions. I am fascinated with Bronze Age Greece for 12 years now and studied various scripts and languages of the Aegean. The Mycenaean Greek is my main interest. Are you also in any way familiar with the Trojan question in term of their language in 1200 BC? Some scholars claim that they spoke Anatolian language (maybe close to Hittite) however, some claim that Troy (Troy VII) spoke Greek. As I know by that time, only Miletus was the Greek speaking city in Western Anatolia. There is always ongoing controversy in the field of Homeric studies and especially Bronze Age Greece :) Thank you very much for the massage and wishing you all the best. Regards. Ldingley 20:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Finally a break for my curiosity regarding the question which bothered me for a while. If a little paragraph you have presented all views and possibilities regarding the language of Troy perfectly. I’m very thankful for that. I will research more about Lydian, Phrygian, Daco-Mysian, Lemnian ,Aegean and Pelasgian. But how could Etruscan be in any connection with western Anatolia? And how about the pre-Hittite nation in Hatusa which actually spoke non-Indo European language? Did Mycenaean Greek changed drastically when comparing to classical Greek? I know the endings of the words were different. And finally how would Mycenaeans call Troy? Troia? Ilion or Ilios? Hittites called it Wilusa (Milet ~ Milawanda Achaia ~ Ahiyawa , etc). Ones again thank you very much and it’s an honor to meet a real scholar of the ancient languages. Best regards. Ldingley 17:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

List of Latin place names in Iberia

Hello, Pasquale, I have seen the discussion about the name of that article and I differ from the conclussions about Iberia and Hispania. Briefly:

1-Iberia is ambiguous, due to Caucasian Iberia and Iberia Airlines, and scarcely used in that form, Iberia (the adjective Iberian is more used). Iberian Peninsula is much more unequivocal, and refers to a precise geographical entity.

2-If we choose names with historical connotations, Greek Iberia is much more out of context that Hispania, that is the exclusively Latin-root term for the region. If an historical term is used (and I see that this is not the case), Hispania would be better. So, from my view, Iberia is the worst of the three options for the title.

Therefore, I plead for List of Latin place names in the Iberian Peninsula. What do you think about this change? Greetings, --Garcilaso 13:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Lutescan

Hi Pasquale, I see you linked once to Lutescan language. Some of us think that article is a hoax, as no non-Wikipedia sources could be found mentioning that language; could you weigh in at Talk:Lutescan language? Best, — mark ✎ 16:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Isarco

Hi, are you sure it is Isarus or Isarcus? On Latin Wikipedia they show http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hisarcus. Thanks! Icsunonove 17:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Isarus or Isarcus are the two variants given in the Latin names of rivers article. I am confident they are correct and actually based on the ancient sources. As for the Latin Wikipedia, I wouldn't place much trust in it. I am sorry to say this, but there is much in the Latin Wikipedia that is more Pig Latin than Latin. In any case, Hisarcus looks like a medieval spelling, embellished with a gratuitous initial h-. This reliable map shows Isarcus. Isarci was also the name of the local Rhaetian tribe. The names are obviously related. Definitely no h- there. Pasquale 16:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ciociaria

Pasquale... Abruzzi or Molise don't include Ciociaria in any sense. It's very wrong. Can you speak Italian? You can translate some citation from it.wiki where i work with many sources. If you can't, i'll try to translate it in English ;-). Ciociaria = Province of Frosinone, or Molise and Abruzzi is a fascist stereotype. See you soon--Wento (talk) 21:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Latin kings template

I clearly do not understand transclusion, as I edited Romulus and Remus although no edit shows up in the edit history, and because I deleted the section, that deleted the template. As it stands it is not the classical list, but someone else's -- eg [[ Latin kings of Alba Longa]] doesn't match the template. I think it was Neddyseagoon who added it, but with no reason given. --Doug Weller (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Elymian article=

I was recently reading the article you wrote about the Elymian language. The last line contains the translation of an Elymian inscription found on a vase in Montedoro. I am extremely curious to know where you got this information, and would love to see the actual inscription. I'm hoping you have access to a picture of it.

I'm not a linguist, but I'm very interested in languages and cultures. This one in particular relates to me, as I'm Sicilian and believe to be of Elymian ancestry. Of course that's only really a guess. My surname, SCALISI, appears to be of Greek origin, but my family comes from western Sicily, as opposed to eastern Sicily where most of the Greeks are. I don't suspect there was any immigration involved, because they come from a small town and have been there, according to local records, for hundreds of years. And the later we go back, I assume the less likely they immigrated. So now doing some research, I've learned that the Elymian settled western Sicily, and were possibly from Anatolia and mixed rather quickly with the Greeks.

Therefore, possibly being related to my origin, I'm very interested in the Elymian culture, language and specifically this inscription. I do not have a Wikipedia account, so you can please write me using my e-mail: trinakria1282@sbcglobal.net

THANKS!

Micheli Scalisi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.57.34.193 (talk) 05:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Noemi

A tag has been placed on Noemi requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Killiondude (talk) 06:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I am really really sorry. I have no recollection of tagging that page. I'd like to blame somebody else in my household (as I'm always logged in to wikipedia), but it probably was me. I don't even remember doing that. Now that I look at it, I don't see why I would even do that. Sorry, my mistake I guess. Killiondude (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi I saw you created Ulcinj

Recently an IP editor 211.27.248.186 has removed the name Montenegrin from Ulcinj . In that article it was written as Montenegrin/Serbian Cyrillic. Do you know which is correct ? or are both of them if you look at the contribs the editor has done this on numerous articles. Regards 安東尼 TALK ^圣诞快乐 14:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Ligurians

Hi Pasquale. Changes to Ligurian language hereby acknowledged. See the discussion page on that article.Dave (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Cut and paste move, hyphens, n-dashes and m-dashes

Hi Pasquale, a year ago I moved Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (with a hyphen) to Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia (with an n-dash) per MOS:DASH. Reason: it's Lombardy and Venetia, not "Lombardic Venetia".

It seems you got confused about the terminology (- hyphen, – n-dash, — m-dash). In any case you cut the content of the moved article and pasted it into the redirect. That's not how we move things here: there is a "move" link left of the "watch" link for this. Now only an experienced admin can repair this and I had to ask for help here. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but I think you may be making it worse.[6] Why don't you just wait with editing until an admin has fixed the problem? --Hans Adler (talk) 15:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hans, my apologies. I stand guilty as charged. I did get confused between hyphens and n-dashes. Those darn n-dashes are so long that they look like m-dashes! Anyway, I think this business of having different symbols for n-dashes and hyphens is just crazy, as there are bound to be cases that stump even the most knowledgeable of syntacticians. And to boot, there is even a separate symbol for minus! I think Unicode is getting to our heads here.

In any case, I have reversed my earlier changes using the same "unorthodox" technique of cutting and pasting. I don't think this makes it worse, as you seem to fear, since most of the history is on the same page and that is the page with the n-dash.

I promise to avoid using the cut and paste technique in the future and to stick to a strict interpretation of the MOS:DASH rules, despite my misgivings! Pasquale (talk) 15:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem at all for me. And I just looked at WP:How to fix cut-and-paste moves. I think the admin can just ignore your latest edits and treat it as in the section "An easy case". If you had done anything substantial that he didn't want to undo it would be as in "A more complex case". Yes, m-dashes are extremely long (as long as an m or longer, in fact), and when I first saw them in older English books I found them very odd. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, fine. The article looks good now. The only issue is the handful of revisions listed in the history of the article with the hyphenated title, all dated between January 26 and June 15, 2009. If an admin can do a history merge, that would be great. If not, it should not be a big problem. Again, sorry about the screw-up. Pasquale (talk) 16:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

My request was declined because it was too complicated, but it shouldn't be a problem because the redirect is needed anyway. So the history is there in any case. Best wishes, Hans Adler (talk) 21:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Names of European cities in different languages

The issue of italicising non-Latin scripts was relatively recently discussed in the Manual of Style and the rule is that no non-Latin script is ever italicised (see MOS:TEXT#Foreign_terms). This is partly because many users who may be familiar with Greek and Cyrillic scripts may be unfamiliar with the italicised versions, but mainly because it is unnecessary — the difference in script serves to differentiate the foreign term from the surrounding text. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 17:43, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not aware of the discussion in the Manual of Style. As I said, there was an extensive discussion specifically with regard to the style to be used in Names of European cities in different languages. This was quite a while ago, but it came after several options were experimented with. What I reported to you was the result of that extensive discussion and experimentation. I agree that the italics make no sense for the non-European scripts (e.g. Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, and the others I mentioned), but Greek and Cyrillic are alphabets in very much the same way as the Latin alphabet, and not very different from it. The italics look very good in those alphabets, and they serve to set off the name itself from the name of the language that follows. Anyway, that was the consensus back then. Pasquale (talk) 17:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

We should probably reopen that discussion, given the MOS debate. Whilst I understand what you mean about the æsthetics, the purpose of setting it off from the text is achieved by the different alphabet and most users will not recognise the italic forms of the characters. — OwenBlacker (Talk)

That may be. However, I completely disagree that most users would not recognize the italic forms of the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, as they are essentially identical except for the slant (please check for yourself!). It is quite different, as I repeat once again, when it comes to Asian scripts, since those indeed do not have a tradition of italics, so that italicizing Chinese characters is quite meaningless. Pasquale (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the character. I agree with you completely with most characters, but the article Cyrillic alphabet itself notes that some characters are quite different when italicised: гдийпт / гдийпт. Indeed, the consonants there are even technically wrong for some languages — see Special Cyrillics.png for more details. Similarly, the Greek characters βθφ aren't necessarily immediately obvious (βθφ). That, combined with the lack of need to differentiate (for the reasons given above and at MOS:TEXT) is why the MoS rule against italicising non-Latin scripts. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

PS: Your interests sound really interesting — mediæval history and languages are right up my street. If ever you want to help out with WikiProject Former Countries, I'm sure we'd be grateful for the assistance :o) (Talk)

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into it. However, I don't know how much time I'll be able to contribute as my day job keeps me very busy! Pasquale (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

No worries. And yeah, that's entirely understandable; I have the same problem. Though any contribution you do have time for would be much appreciated, I'm sure :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

File copyright problem with File:Andre Aciman.jpg

File Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading File:Andre Aciman.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the file. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their license and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. Closedmouth (talk) 12:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Ligurian

Oh, hello there. I'm trying to fill in some of these stubs and skeleton articles on early Italy, in which I seem to have an interest. I notice Ligurian language has grown a lot. That is good I believe as it seems to me as really ancient cultures go the Ligurians are worth some time. I have not read it again in detail but at some point I will. I've been giving it some thought. There is quite a time gap between Cardium and the language substrate. Maybe there is more than one substrate, or substrates on substrates. Anyway it seemed to me before it should be expanded in the direction of multiple-evidence multiple-theory lines and that appears to be happening now. I'd say, great, give it your best shot. It could probably double in size without really being a big article. Over such a long time the situation is bound to have been complex. The Corsicans swear by the really ancient Spanish connection. There is just so much to do here one does not know where to concentrate. Previously we seemed to be getting bogged down on Ligurian language but now it seems we are on the move again. I will be looking at it and moving in parallel as the early Po valley is definitely on my list and I will be getting back to Corsica. I will probably start with Cardium ware as that was never really done to my satisfaction. I will definitely be around if you want me to be, as we are working on related early peoples. Ciao.Dave (talk) 16:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

British Isles

I am not sure whether you intend to be offensive but I disagree with your perspective; a fantastic job results in a star, not a tag.

Until 1949 a collective title for Great Britain, Ireland, and the numerous islands surrounding the two larger islands, including the Isle of Man. In 1949 the Republic of Ireland left the British Commonwealth and so could no longer be included in the title.

• Ref

"British Isles" Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. John Everett-Heath. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press Þjóðólfr (talk) 15:59, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

British Isles is a geographical term, not political. It has nothing to do with the British Commonwealth. I thought that was obvious to everyone. But let's assume you're right. Then, so what? Just change the title to "Britain and Ireland"! Don't make the enormous mess you have made twice already. This is not about being offensive. The damage you cause to the Wikipedia is beyond offensive words! Pasquale (talk) 16:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

BI aside, Wikipedia:Manual of Style is the arbiter. Þjóðólfr (talk) 16:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Finno-Ugric languages

"it was very interesting and pertinent material, and it sounded objective and generally accepted. While it is unfortunate that no one had bothered to add references, it certainly didn't seem like that material was either spurious or controversial" These are not good enough reasons to keep material in Wikipedia. all claims must be citated and be able to be verified WP:V. Generally accepted by who? without citations it looks like original research. LibStar (talk) 02:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I've been in Linguistics for decades and I'm sure I've read statements such as those that you removed in standard introductory textbooks on Historical Linguistics, not to mention other encyclopedic sources such as probably the Britannica or the like. I realize that's vague, but I cannot be more precise now, as I don't have the time to go and research it. Furthermore, I assure you that there is a good number of Wikipedians out there who are knowledgeable on the subject and vet this page every day, who felt perfectly comfortable with the material you removed. It seems to me that, if you are not yourself knowledgeable on the subject, you should leave such drastic measures to those who are. And, by the way, if you were to apply the same high standard to the entire Wikipedia, you'd probably have to remove 90% of it. Pasquale (talk) 15:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

if this information is "standard" and easily found through textbooks or www.britannica.com then you should have no problems finding reliable sources for it. should take you no more than 15 minutes of searches. Regarding statements like "if you are not yourself knowledgeable on the subject, you should leave such drastic measures to those who are" please refer to: WP:OWN Wikipedia contributors are editors, not authors, and no one, no matter how skilled has the right to act as if they are the owner of a particular article LibStar (talk) 23:49, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, I couldn't disagree more. On your first comment, your notion that in 15 minutes one can make a trip to the library to look up the Britannica or dig up standard reference works on Historical Linguistics and then report back on the Wikipedia on every little unreferenced remark (as if one had nothing else to do) is absurd. On your second point, you are completely distorting the sense of WP:OWN. That wasn't my point at all. I wouldn't presume to go and remove large sections of an article on particle physics, whether or not there are unreferenced statements. I would leave additions and deletions of substance to people who know something about the subject. If you are implying that I am acting as if I am "the owner of a particular article", you couldn't be more off the mark. Dozens of people with extensive knowledge about the subject at hand have contributed to making this particular article one of the best, in my opinion, in the area of Historical Linguistics, and I don't even claim to be one of them. It seems to me that you are acting with the arrogance of an owner, since you have arbitrarily decided to remove substantial information, based on your own assessment of an appropriate time limit on the unreferenced tags, and apparently without any direct knowledge of that material. (By the way, if you are an expert on Finno-Ugric languages, I will gladly offer my apologies.) Pasquale (talk) 14:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

large unreferenced sections can be removed and is within Wikipedia practice. or else it creates a precedent that large chunks of seemingly nice sounding unreferenced text is ok in Wikipedia. you cannot speak for dozens of people, just because no one has touched it does not mean it's verifiably true. you're simply skirting around the issue and not bothering to provide any evidence of reliable sources. If you find them (since you consider yourself knowledgeable on linguistics) I will fully support reinclusion of the removed text. LibStar (talk) 03:22, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

List of tautological place names

Hey, I see you reverted my edits in this article. Don't really see why though, Saaremaa and Tallinn perfectly apply. And who refers to these places like that? Well, Estonians do, who else, right? "Saaremaa" literally means "island's land" or "island-land". And while we usually just say Saaremaa, we sometimes also say Saaremaa island, in Estonian of course, meaning "Island-land island". Tallinn originally comes from "Taani linn", meaning "Danish town". And since the word town is in its name already, sometimes also "Tallinna linn", "Tallinn town" is used, literaly meaning "Danish town's town"...So perhaps not reverting it again? thanks. H2ppyme (talk) 09:03, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

H2ppyme, the answer is simple. This is a list tautological place names from the point of view of the English language. Perhaps you might want to include "Tallinna linn" and "Saaremaa saare" (? - I'm just guessing here, you still haven't said just what this occasional Estonian tautological usage is) in the Estonian Wikipedia? The bottom line is that "Tallinn" and "Saaremaa" are not examples of tautological place names! Pasquale (talk) 14:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I kind of get what you mean, but in that case can we add "Saaremaa island"? It would be "Island-land island" then. In this way it is quite similar to other entries here. Isn't it a tautological name when an island has the word "island" in its name? also when Tallinn has the word "town" in it already? In this case it would be "Danish town town", but a town having a tautological name might not be very uncommon. Also one might ask, when is the "standard inscritpor" used. Do we ever use "Berlin city" or "Gothenburg town"? We might use them for islands, rivers etc. but maybe not for towns. In that case you can remove Tallinn from the list. --H2ppyme (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Yes, "Saaremaa island" is an appropriate entry. But "Tallinn town", "Berlin city" or "Gothenburg town" are not, since no one really says those. The bottom line is that this article should not be inflated with artificially constructed phrases. Pasquale (talk) 15:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

List of country name etymologies

Have you considered checking your edits? There is an option, before you save, of clicking the "show preview" box. That way, you can make sure you don't remove constructive edits along with those that you just don't like. I find it much more useful than simple/simplistic knee-jerk responses. Just a thought (please advise if you are unable to find your error and I will be happy to provide you with a full explanation). Best, Daicaregos (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Daicaregos (talk) 21:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(moved from Daicaregos (talk))

Dai, ydych chi'n siarad Cymraeg? I love that language. I studied it a long time ago, but unfortunately I've forgotten most of it. Let's see, what were you asking? If I have considered checking my edits? And you were informing me about the "Show preview" box? Ha-ha-ha! Very funny. Have you considered checking how long a user has been on Wikipedia and how many edits he's made before asking that question? So, here is some information for you: User:Daicaregos, First edit: Apr 21, 2008, Unique articles edited: 533. User:Pasquale, First edit: Jun 24, 2004, Unique articles edited: 1,461. As you can see, I've been on the Wikipedia for five and a half years. And, yes, I always use "Show preview" function.

However, I did screw up when I undid your edit, because, when I compared the two versions, all I could see was the removal of the Union Jack . Of course, your Edit summary said "Repair Wikilink, tidy", so I suspected there was something else I wasn't seeing, but, much as I stared, I could not see the link fix. (Needless to say, when I went back now, I saw it right away.)

Look, if I could vote for Welsh independence tomorrow, I would do it. I'm all for it. Ditto for all the other unrepresented nationalities. But what I can't stand is when people take their nationalistic battles to the Wikipedia. Is Wales one of the United Kingdom's constituent countries, whether one likes it or not? I noticed you did not remove that part, so I must conclude you agree. But you chose to remove the flagicon and referred to that particular edit as "tidy"! (Again, very funny, not to mention a little tricky.) Well that flagicon is also shown next to England and Scotland in the List of country name etymologies, so in order to "tidy" up the whole article you should remove it in all three places! But you didn't. Hence the inconsistency.

Frankly, I don't understand where you find the cheek to refer to my restoration of the previous status quo as "removing edits I just don't like" and as a "simple/simplistic knee-jerk response". Are you kidding me? That is ridiculous and disingenuous. Now, having said that, let me join you in saying Cymru am byth! Pasquale (talk) 22:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Pasquale, ydw. Dw'n siarad Cymraeg, diolch. I've moved your reply here for two reasons. 1. to keep it in one place. 2. to remove the union flag from my talk page (and you call my edits tricky and disingenuous). Glad you enjoyed my joke. I note your failure to WP:AGF for my edit and your accusation of nationalistic bias. Let me talk you through my process: I had seen that an editor (turns out to have been you) had consolidated the Cymru and Wales entries, but had made an error in the process (the one I corrected). I noticed the union flag had been added - which had not been on the Cymru entry previously - and that other (non-sovereign) countries (visible from W down) do not have the flags of the sovereign states that govern them. e.g:
Wake Island (territory of the United States of America)
Wallis and Futuna (territory of France)
Western Sahara (claimed by Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic)
I went to the beginning of the article to check that other (non-sovereign) countries do not have the flags of the sovereign states that govern them either. e.g.:
Åland (autonomous province of Finland):
American Samoa (territory of the United States of America):
Anguilla (overseas territory of the United Kingdom):
Aruba (territory of Netherlands)
Therefore, as far as I could tell (although I concede that I should have checked the entire article for British nationalist bias), additional, sovereign state flag icons were not used on the article, and the one on the Wales entry was therefore unnecessary, which is why I removed it - thus tidying the article. That is how I found "the cheek to refer to [your] restoration of the previous status quo as "removing edits [you] just don't like" and as a "simple/simplistic knee-jerk response"." Which seems justified. It remains to be seen how you deal with the apparent inconsistency in the article. Hwyl, Daicaregos (talk) 09:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Helo, Dai. First of all, my sincere apologies for soiling your talk page with the Union Jack. :-) I didn't mean to offend you. I actually just copied and pasted the flagicon template and, of course, it showed up as a Union Jack. Yes, I did consolidate the two entries for Cymru and Wales in the List of country name etymologies. It was the only such case of the same country being listed twice, once under its native name and once under its name in English (aside from Burma cross-referencing Myanmar). Totally redundant and repetitive, you will agree. I am sorry that I failed to WP:AGF. It did not occur to me that you would have checked for comparable cases only under W and A. Unfortunately, none of those is truly a comparable case. Territories and autonomous provinces are not quite the same thing as constituent countries. Furthermore, Wake Island and Wallis and Futuna only display the flags of their respective mother countries. For Western Sahara, the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is displayed, even though this independence movement only controls a rather insignificant 20% of the Western Sahara territory, all desert. (Sadly, back in the 70's, Morocco received from the Western powers the green light to occupy that former Spanish colony over the wishes of its indigenous population—see History of Western Sahara—and that was that. So, 80% of Western Sahara, including all the main centers, is now an integral part of Morocco, and that flag is, alas, purely nationalistic wishful thinking.) And so on and so forth. In any case, personally, I have no axe to grind, as I hope I made abundantly clear. Far from "removing edits I just don't like" with a "simple/simplistic knee-jerk response" (which remain unjustified and gratuitous accusations, despite your explanations), I would have no objection to removing that Union Jack, as long as it is also removed from England and Scotland, the only truly comparable cases. It's just a matter of consistency for me, as I try to keep my emotions (political or otherwise) away from the Wikipedia. Hwyl fawr am nawr! Pasquale (talk) 17:32, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Pasquale

Dbachmann is currently on a wikibreak; I'm hoping he'll return soon to continue his productive editing as usual. :) I'm sure he'll respond to your comment when he comes back, but just wanted to let you know that he's on wikibreak at the moment. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Vindelicans - Liburnians?

Hi Pasquale. You've added this relation to Vindelicia article, the same has been editted in Liburnians earlier, I haven't check by whom. This is the most probably very very fringe theory and result of misinterpretation, by Wilkes (?). Namely, Liburnia never spread to the north of Norricum, after the Roman conquest it spread to Norricum in the north -> to the north of Liburnia (from 3rd century AD it was western region of Dalmatia province) there was Norricum province. Zenanarh (talk) 11:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, it's true, I took that reference to "Servius' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid i. 243" from the article on Liburnians and added it to the Vindelicia article, since it specifically refers to the Vindelicians. Are you saying that Servius' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid does NOT say that the Vindelicians were related to the Liburnians? Anyway, I don't see what's "very very fringe" about it. It is widely assumed that, before being partly or wholly Celticized, Vindelicia and Noricum were probably inhabited by Ligurian tribes. That might explain the relationship with the Liburnians, when you consider that the Liburnians, the Carni, and other neighboring tribes, may have been Ligurian before adopting a Venetic-type language under the influence of the Veneti and Histri. Of course, this is all very speculative, so none of that is included in the articles. The only thing the article actually references is a statement in Servius' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid. Now, if that reference is incorrect, then that's another story, but I am assuming the reference is correct. Pasquale (talk) 19:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, maybe not very very fringe... just a little ;) I'm preparing material to expand "Liburnians", this info simply jumps out of context. You see, there are theories that Liburnian may have been of Etruscan-Asia Minor language layer, old-Mediterranean, because of name "Liburnum" found in Liguria and onomastic similarities to some regions of Asia Minor. But in the Bronze Age, proto-Liburnians (in the same place) are linked to the Dinarian pre-Indo-Europeans and influence of Pannonian Vučedol culture of West Croatian-Slovenian (Ljubljansko Barje) type (and this one had nothing to do with Ligurians, more likely Aryans - admirers of Orion). Adriatic-Pannonian migrations (Dorian was one of it) from 1200-1000 BC broke Bronze Age continuety in "Liburnia" partially and from that moment we can speak about the Liburnians. Concerning Venetic language related to the Liburnians, well, it's also largely exarragated by some scientists. This connection is based on a few personal names from the northern Liburnian periphery, one that became a part of Liburnia in the last stage of their history, probably not earlier than in 4th century BC, when Liburnian dominance in the Adriatic Sea alreday declined and their ethnic integration was already finished. The other names are related to Illyrians or only Liburnia itself. So this language stuff is more than speculative, these Histri-Veneti-like names the most probably belonged to Histri settled in the north of Liburnia. Liburnian ethnic essence may have been something else, espeacially because of Liburnian culture which was completely different to Venetic or Histrian.

I just want to organize data, honestly I don't know what to do with Servius and Virgil. Maybe I'll provisionally replace it to the talk page until it's settled how to include it in the article. Thank you for your comment. Zenanarh (talk) 07:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

About Liburnian language remains. Well, it's so scarce that... We have ~ 20 personal and family names and some numbers of toponyms. Nothing else. This language is completely unknown. Toponyms have shown to be unuseful for linguistic definitions. And names are grouped in 3 groups: 1st in the south of Liburnia related to other Illyrians, 2nd in the north related to Veneti and Histri (complex structure) and 3rd group common in all Liburnia, all from 1st century AD (in Latinized form!) when Liburnia was already incorporated to the Roman Empire. Those related to Veneti are just a few, maybe 2 or 3, found in the northern Liburnia (eastern Istrian coast, islands Krk and Cres) which the most possibly was even not Liburnia until 4th century BC, but rather Histrian or maybe even Iapodian territory. The narrowest ethnical Liburnia was between Krka (Titius) and Zrmanja (Tedanius) - to the south and these Liburni gradually became leaders of an tribal union later known by their name - Liburni. So the point is that those Veneti-like names are probably not Liburnian at all. This is not my original research. This is sometning known already for decencies, but for some weird reason, completely ignored by some western scientists like Wilkes, who by the way is not some authority on the Illyrian stuff, rather superficial rewriter. Yoshamia (aka Lovrić) used by Wilkes as a refference is not considered as reliable author in Croatian scientific circles. His examination was concentrated to Chakavian Croatian archaisms from island of Krk (his island) and he "found" all kind of even 12.000 yrs old words there. I mean not some representative case of scientific methodology was used by him. My mother language is also Chakavian Croatian (which saved around 3.000 words from extinct Dalmatian language), only the other island, so I know what is all about there. I would have nothing against that every second word I speak was spoken by the old Basques 12.000 yrs ago or by the Old-Iranians 7.000 yrs ago or by the Etruscans etc... But it's simply not serious presented that way. All this noise about Venetic Liburni is actually based on 2 or 3 personal names from originally non-Liburnian territory! In the same time typical Liburnian names and those related to Iapodes, Dalmatae and other Illyrians (from the narrowest Liburnia) are completely ignored! How come?

I have suggestion, please wait until I edit ethnogenesis, culture and language, so we can see is there any place there for the Ligurians. OK? Material I have is written by those authors who spent almost all of their proffesional life in examination of the Liburnian culture, like Suić, Batović, Zaninović... Servius' words of Liburnia in the north are laughable. Honestly. There was no any kind of Liburnia in Norricum ever. This must be some kind of misinterpretation. Can we find original text to see what is all about? Zenanarh (talk) 07:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There are many cases in which archeology shows a continuity of settlement, but the historical record shows a language change. It looks like you are even reaching back into the Bronza Age, the second millennium B.C., looking for evidence on the Liburnians of 1,500 years later! During those 1,500 years, the language spoken in historical Liburnia may have changed several times. As a trained historical linguist, I guarantee you the archeological evidence is almost meaningless. I agree, basically. But I'm not speaking about pottery, agriculture tools or ancient coins. I'm speaking about burial tradition which is very important for a group ethnogenesis in this region. There are 3 main regions in the Western Balkans: 1. inhumation, 2. incineration and 3. both inhumation/incineration. These regions were perfectly aligned to ethnical distribution in all other cases. Inhumation - in region of former Damatia province of Illyricum - Liburni, Dalmatae, Iapodes (in the most part), and proper Illyrians (inhumation under tumuli). Incineration - Veneti, Histri, Pannonian Celts, Pannonians, Thracians, Thraco-Illyrians, Macedonians. Mixed region - between previous 2 - Veneto-Illyrians in Slovenia, southern Pannonians in northern Bosnia. And Liburnian inhumation was inherited from the Copper Age in the same place. Of course it says nothing about Liburnian language which was Indo-European with probably a lot from Pre-Indo-European, but speaks a lot about completely different ethnogenetical procceses between Veneti and Histri from one and Liburni from the other side. And that's what all of scientists always accentuate.

Don't get me wrong I'm not some anti-Veneto-Liburn. I just want quality article and Venetic link is a little bit extravagant and far too exarrageted recently, in comparison to existing evidences. I would like to present all thinkings about it in the article and not only one - maybe the weakest one. Zenanarh (talk) 09:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, MC & HNY! I've made a little research and found out that problem comes from only one Servius' sentence which is misinterpretation of Virgil's story about Antenor. I'm actually shocked how some western authors are fooled by Servius, keeping in mind that Virgil's story is easy to understand, concerning geographical terms used. Take a look here [7], "In Antiquity" section. Citation: Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius, a commentator of the 4th century CE based his work on the commentary of Donatus. Servius' commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references, however many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. I can understand why. Link Liburni-Vindelici should be removed from all articles because it has nothing to do with reality and science. If you're interested I can explain. Zenanarh (talk) 14:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Satt 2 and Georgia

Satt 2 (talk · contribs) has continued the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour this morning, with abusive edit summaries, disruptiveness and edit warring, and deceptiveness in subsequent Wikiquette report. This pattern of behaviour cannot go on. It needs to be brought to the attention of regular editors of Georgia (country) and Europe articles. ^Izzedine 15:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Ancient sources

Ancient sources? Let's start with sources. Liburnian culture and life of this ethnos is outlined from the 11th century BC to the 1st century BC in precisely determined region. We have a plenty of sources from this period, starting as early as the 8th century BC, like Hecateus (6th century BC), Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax (4th century BC), Theopompus (4th century BC), Scymnus (4th century BC), Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BC), Callimachus (3rd century BC), Diodorus Siculus(1st century BC), Strabo (1st BC / 1st AD), Livy (1st BC / 1st AD), Pliny the Elder (1st century AD), Ptolemy (2nd century AD), Dionus, Appian (2nd century AD), Florus (2nd century AD), Eutropius (4th century AD), and many others, they were all geographers/historians who provided important and authentic, direct data about Liburni – most of mentioned in the times when Liburnian ethnos did exist, which helps a lot when it comes to multidisciplinary interpretation. All these records put together into a mosaic form perfect and logical picture, completely mirrored in the archaeology, without any special controversy. In plenty of geographic, ethnographic, cultural and historical insights, there is no any info possibly relative and comparable to meaning of Servius' comment. I've used specialized Liburni related scientific literacy to edit Liburnians and Liburnia, all of it based on these ancient writings as well as on modern science, archaeology etc...

And Servius? In the 4th century AD, when there was no more Classical Liburnia and no more the ancient Liburnians as separate and independent ethnos, Servius wrote only one short note without any additional explanation: Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni – "Rhetians and Vindelicians are the Liburnians" or "Rhetian Vindelicians are the Liburnians". And not one word more. This isolated miniature simply cannot be used as a puzzle in a mosaic formed by the sources mentioned above - it is incompatible, by all means. However it doesn’t mean that Servius got all wrong, there is a way or 2 how to understand his note, but surely not the way we have here in a few articles.

Servius didn't write about Liburni, he interpreted Virgil's poem in the 4th century AD, when Liburni were already largely acculturated, being for 4 centuries subject to a strong process of Romanization, although many forms of their culture were saved, this wasn't anymore the same Liburnian identity, as well as all other identities have changed globally within territory of the Roman Empire.

Geographical name "Liburnia" in that moment (4th cent AD) was administratively extended from Classical Liburnia to Iapodia – but wasn't in any meaning ethnical expansion, it was only an administrative region subject to jurisdictional conventus in ex-Liburnian Scardona as a part of bigger Dalmatia province. But this was all in the Western Balkans, within Dalmatia. And Raetia and Vindelicia were in Switzerland and Germany!? It is considerably another part of the continent!

"The Liburnians had been considerably… said to have arrived." based on Servius' note Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni cannot be understood in the same 4th century AD. It can't be attached to Virgil's 1st century BC. In all Iron Age (and Liburni were initiators and one of the main bearers of the Iron Age culture in Adriatic Sea region – their I.A. started already in the 9th century BC) there is no way to locate Liburnia all the way to Vindelicia. It is like locate Ancient Greece in Russia or Viking Kingdoms in Greece.

If it goes for the Bronze Age or its late period - with the Trojan War and Antenor, once again we can't see such connection in any other scientific aspect for that period, it is almost SF sphere. It means that Servius has informed about something like 2.500-1.500 years before his 4th century AD! Without any explanation? Just Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni? He has used Iron Age ethnonyms for previous Bronze Age settlers whose cultures disappeared? In the same time there is no way to drag direct ethno-cultural lines between these territories!

If it is connected to influences of Liburnian Adriatic koine from the 9th to 5th century BC (1.200-800 years before Servius) on population of the northern "Venetic" coast of Adriatic, then "The Liburnians had been considerably… said to have arived." must be reformulated into another meaning, because existence of Liburnian trade colonies at the other Adriatic coasts and their absolute domination in the Adriatic Sea may have resulted with allocated groups of the Liburnians, who could have moved and settled regions like Raetia or Vindelicia, but not with funny idea of Liburnia or Liburnians extended over a half of European continent in any moment in history. Zenanarh (talk) 08:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope you have already noticed by now that you don’t defend Servius’ comment, you defend one unreliable modern interpretation of it given by only a few authors, who have never been directly involved in examination of Liburni, and what is most important you directly defend some wikipedian’s construction based on it:

"The Liburnians had been considerably extended to the north, for Noricum had been previously inhabited by Liburnian tribes; for the Vindelicians were Liburnians.[5] Virgil's words[5] seem distinctly to term the Veneti Liburnians, for the "innermost realm of the Liburnians" must have been the goal at which Antenor is said to have arrived..."

Google shows that en.wikipedia is a source for this statement and it’s possible that it is minimally rearranged Wilkes’ sentence. Link Liburni-Vindelici based on Servius' comment can be found also sporadically in literacy about the Liburnians by those authors who have supported an idea of the Liburnians as the Venetic language speakers.

Wilkes ("Illyrians") has selectively used one, more "archaic" and mostly abandoned position (Alfoldy based) and introduced "Venetic Liburni", he has cited Servius too, but his book covers almost all settlers of the Western Balkans and the Liburnians are not specially in his focus (it is interesting that in the same time he also uses some 80-90 years old and abandoned theories about the Celts, Hallstatt Culture and Illyrians!) This citation and related ethnical parralel is used also by some western authors who don't write about the Liburnians directly, it's mostly unessential note in their works.

In directly Liburni related literacy, noone pays attention to Servius' comment, because of its obvious irrelevance on the matter. Servius linked Liburni to geographically alocated settlers of the Alps by whom they never had any relation, his statement Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni is precedence among historical notes related to Liburni. And BTW it gives some information about Raeti and Vindelici, not about Liburni. We know about this ancient people thanks to dozens of the other ancient writers and Liburnian culture with its links are precisely detected by archaeology. So what Servius has suggested is his mistake or it should be understood differently than some minor number of authors and now wikipedia interpret. Zenanarh (talk) 08:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's comment on Servius' comment on Virgil's AEneid

I'll try to explain why Servius' suggestion is ignored by specialized literacy and how a part of Virgil's Aeneid is even better understandable without "incriminated" modern interpretation based on Servius’ comment. Servius lived and wrote in the 4th cantury AD. This was written by Virgil in the 1st century BC, by this source [8]:

(Æneis, lib. i., 242 ff.):
„Antenor potuit, mediis elapsus Achivis,
Illyricos penetrare sinus atque intima tutus
Regna Liburnorum, et fontem superare Timavi;
Unde per ora novem vasto eum murmere montis
It mare proruptum, et pelago premit arva sonanti.
Hic tamen ille urbem Patavi sedesque locavit
Teucrorum.“

"Antenor having escaped from amidst the Greeks, could with safety penetrate the Illyrian Gulf and the inmost realms of Liburnia, and overpass the springs of Timavus, whence, through nine mouths, with loud echoing from the mountain, it bursts away, a sea impetuous, and sweeps the fields with a roaring deluge. Yet there he built the city of Padua and established a Trojan settlement."

Then another translation and comment:

Antenor, when he had escaped the Achivians, succeeded in penetrating Illyricos sinus, the very heart of Illyria, Virgil also says that Antenor extended his journeys to the Liburnian kingdoms (regna Liburnorum). From Servius' commentary on this passage, the middle age knew that the Liburnian kingdoms were Raetia and Vindelicia (Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni).
Rhetia and Vindelicia separate Pannonia from the Rhine.

Wow, it is deep in the continent. How? When? Here in this page you can see 2 different English translations of 2nd and 3rd line. Virgil has named regions in direction of Antenor's escape:

Illyricos penetrare sinus atque intima tutus

Regna Liburnorum, et fontem superare Timavi;

• If Illyricos penetrare sinus atque intima tutus Regna Liburnorum is "penetrate the Illyrian Gulf and the inmost realms of Liburnia" then Illyrian Gulf is the Adriatic Sea where Liburnians truly did rule and all their territory was there, by the sea and largely in the islands, in the northern, "inner" (intima tutus) half of Adriatic at the eastern coast (but having control over more than 1.000 islands of all size along the eastern Adriatic coast), and they had their "economical diasporas" in trade colonies in Picenum across the sea and Apulia in the south of Italy, and probably by the mouth of Po before Etruscan expansion into the basin of Po in the 6th century BC. So atque intima tutus Regna Liburnorum / "and the inmost Liburnian realms" -> Liburnia truly was the inmost region of Illyrian Adriatic Sea – Illyrian Gulf, looking from Greece, in directon of Antenor's journey! Or Kvarner (northern Liburnia) truly was the inmost region (northern municipalities) of Liburnia – a confederation of 14 cities.

Liburnia never, during the Iron Age, spread to the north from Kvarner to Histrian or further to the north to Venetian territory. It could only have had littoral trade colonies in the Venetic Adriatic coast before the 6th century BC. It never spread to the north of Velebit mountain until the Late Antique and 3rd century AD when name Liburnia officially extended to the territory of Iapodia because of reorganization in Dalmatian province of the Roman Empire and that was situation in Servius' 4th century AD, but it was still far from being extended to the north-west into the Noricum etc. Also in none known moment in history before, this scenario was possible, Liburnia never had any direct cultural relation with so distant Alpine and CE regions. If Servius knew about some Liburnian group migration to Raetia and Vindelicia, it's something different, but not Liburnian territorial expansion to the Central Europe. "Inmost realms" is obviously Liburnian ethnical territory in the north of Liburnia, city municipalities in the Kvarner Gulf, where Iapodes were also present in periods. So no way it was 500-1.000 kms to the north-west in Rhetia and Vindelicia in the Alps or plains to the west of Alps. Especially because of next part of a line:

et fontem superare Timavi - and overpass the springs of Timavus; logically since further to the nort-west from Liburnia there is Histria and then Venetia, and river Timavus empties into the Adriatic between Aquileia and Treveste, it’s very north of Adriatic Sea in ancient Venetia. From here Antenor was able to seek for noisy waters in the continent or Italy or wherever original Virgil’s story points to.

• If Illyricos penetrare sinus atque intima tutus in another translation means "penetrating the Illyrian Gulf (and) the very heart of Illyria" (hmm…) then the Illyrian Gulf is a part of the eastern Adriatic coast in the south - bordered by modern Montenegrin and north Albanian coasts, or maybe even the Gulf of Kotor. This is really "the very heart of Illyria", since Illyria in the 1st century BC or before was the Illyrian state established in tribal union led by Ardiaei tribe from the 3rd century BC, with whom the Greeks and Romans had many conflicts, still in Virgil's time, or same territory settled by Ilirie proprie (Proper Illyrians) in any period before. Then Antenor went for Regna Liburnorum, which is Liburnia given in plural because of its regional organization (confederation of city-municipalities, dekapolis, tetradekapolis) and then further to the north-west across Timavus in the north of Adriatic, as story go... If "very heart of Illyria" is deeply inside the Illyrian territory, then Antenor to come to Timavus had to pass over northern Liburnia. Naval route to the north of Adriatic went by the outer Liburnian islands and coast of Istria, while earth route went over Tarsatica, the most northern Liburnian city and over northern Histria to Aquileia in Venetia, next to river Timavus. This last possibility is probably right one: Antenor used Adriatic (sinus) to penetrate deeply into the Illyrian territory, he had to cross northern Liburnia to get near to Timavus.

Liburnia in the age of the Roman conquest

In both cases Virgil’s story is completely understandable and logical by geography. In both cases we can easily follow Antenor’s journey from Greece: Illyria or Illyrian Gulf -> Liburnia or northern Liburnia -> Venetia with Timavus river -> and so ... On the other side it is completely illogical and non-understandable by interpretation of a few authors. Why would Antenor go from Illyria (no matter if southern Adriatic Illyria or all Illyricum) to Raetia and Vindelicia (in the Alps and in Central Europe!!!), then return to the north of Adriatic to cross Timavus (in Venetia!) then return to the Alps and to the Rhine (in CE again!) or somewhere else? Why would Raetia and Vindelicia be the inmost realms of Liburnia (Servius didn’t say so!) and these archeologically, geographically, historically, culturally different and distinct territories, divided by a number of other regions were never directly connected – all this weird reconstruction of Servius' comment is childish. Here we can't see some revolutionary insight into Liburnian history, we can only see that Servius had serious problem with interpretation of geography in this part of his comments on Virgil's poem Aeneid. Which is sad, some modern authors also haven't recognized this. Or we have a case of a few modern authors who have even bigger problems with geography in interpretation of Virgil’s poem, using Servius’ note. At linked page, based on 2nd translation, you can see how an author apologizes for Timavus not being where it should be?! So modern comment is even more worse. I mean funny.

At the map to the right, ancient Illyria is to the east of Delmatia, you can see the western parts of it at the map. Liburnia is there in its ethnical borders and "the innermost realms of Liburnia" can be only its northern municipalities, like Tarsatica, Lauriana, Flanona,... Land road used from prehistory (until nowadays!), to get to Venetia was there - between Tarsatica and Aquileia. River Timavus is there, you can see it, it's a river next to Venetic city Aquileia.

I repeat, even if Servius knew about some ethnic relation Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni, then it goes more likely for some kind of Liburnian immigration and not territorial unity or cultural development. If it goes for the same linguistic branch, then why Servius haven't said so; who and what are we actually supposed to lean on here?! Servius or modern interpretation of a few authors? And we have situation here that this isolated and by science mostly ignored sentence (treated as unreliable) upgraded with distorted modern interpretation of a few pencils missing basic knowledge of Antique geography, builds essential sections of a few articles?! Despite of obvious inaccuracy?

We shouldn't encourage this mistake at the pages; this is more controversial speculation than some accepted view or theory. And it is mentioned only by a part of peripheral or semi-involved literacy and not by specialized for Liburnian culture and history. I guess the ancient geographers and historians have shown to be more relevant sources than an isolated comment in the Late Antique, about a classical poem. Excuse me for long post, I couldn't make it shorter.

If you want to relate Vindelicians to Liburnians, because Servius said so, then do so. Reformulate sentence, report about Servius’ suggestion, don’t use distorted and non-accepted statement from a minor part of modern literacy, these impossible and fantastic "innermost realms of Liburnians" deeply in the European continent or another nonsense - "Liburnia to the north of Norricum". Zenanarh (talk) 09:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

So, Pasquale, you're not interested? Have you ever read Padua article? Zenanarh (talk) 14:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Zenanarh, I am sorry I had not replied yet to your article-length contributions to my talk page. I am not sure I understand what you are driving at, and why you are so obsessed with this point. I did not "defend" the statement from Servius' commentary to Virgil's Aeneid, nor did I put it there in the first place, I simply objected to your removing it, and I still do. Servius' statement is interesting precisely because it is not in Virgil's text. I don't know why you spend so much energy trying to debunk it, as if you were engaging in a debate with the guy. You can't do that, the guy has been dead for 1500 years! So, relax. In my opinion, the statement could simply mean that, according to Servius, the Vindelici used or had used the ethnonym Liburni to refer to themselves. And why should this not be possible? The name of the Italian city of Livorno most probably comes from *Liburnum, then there is at least one other Livorno in Piemonte, so the name seems to have been pretty common in antiquity. That is why, as you know, it has been theorized that the Liburni may have been linguistically connected to the ancient Ligurians. Of course, this is just speculation, but while we're speculating, consider the following: a tribe allied with the Liburni, called Siculi, is reported to have established a settlement together with the Liburni in the coastal Marche region. Now, Siculi is also an ethnonym connected with the Ligurians (the Sicanians probably spoke a Ligurian language). And the same was probably true of the Vindelici. That is why the connection is of interest. This is only a linguistic hypothesis. It has nothing to do with the correct interpretation of Virgil's passage, the legend of Antenor, the foundation of Padua, and all that other stuff. I am sorry, but I am perplexed by your throwing together mythology and history here. As I repeat, I don't know what your contention is, if there is one. I just see one long rant here. Pasquale (talk) 20:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I have known about the legend of the founding of Padua since I was in high school, and that was several decades ago. Pasquale (talk) 19:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I'll reply tommorrow, I'm too busy now. So only a few words about my position. I've noticed some imbalances in the articles related to prehistoric and Antique peoples who were settled in what is my homeland now. This is probably result of unequal availability of all existing sources in the English speaking world, so some authors are more present in literacy than the others, and I have a feeling that some very important autors and theories are completely absent in English literacy, unfortunately. I've come to your page not only because your change in Vindelici article - first I've checked your contributions and noticed that you are a scholar, which I've recognized as a guarantee that we can have quality dicussion. So I'm trying to find someone here who can help. I'm not POV pusher, nor I'm obssesed and I don't want edit wars etc., I would rather leave wikipedia for good. In order to balance this Liburnian issue I'll start discussion in Liburnian language article and I hope you can give your hand. Zenanarh (talk) 12:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Pasquale I have a feeling that you haven’t read my “length-contributions” at all. I didn’t say that you "defend" the statement from Servius' commentary to Virgil's Aeneid, in contrary, I spared a half of your talk page (sorry) to explain you that you “defend” one ridiculous POV of our modern time, which is not even referenced adequately, nor it can be, since there are no reliable or direct sources for such construction. We can speculate what Servius meant by his note and find 100 possibilities and meanings, but an encyclopedia is not a place for that, nor serious history can be written that way. Also I wasn’t engaged in debate with the guy who died 1500 yrs ago, I was debating with you, and you still seem to be pretty alive person ;) If you survive these length-contributions of mine ;)

My main idea is still simple and same: Liburnia as a territory, Liburnian culture and the Liburnians as recognized ethnos never spread north-western from Liburnia, especially not to the north of Noricum, or to the Alps or far to the Central Europe, which is formulated by a little bit clumsy statement. There is no any source and no any serious scientist to claim that. Noone can say that 1 short unexplained sentence is reliable source, which deserves so much attention, especially in an encyclopedia. If you insist, we can report what Servius noted, in the Vindelicians article, but without these impossible "Liburnian" territorial extensions. There is a chance that the Raeti and Vindelici were the Tyrrhenian language speakers (links -> Anatolia, Levant, Near East,...)! This is possible link to Liburni, and not Ligurian language (ancient)! The Ligures and Ligurian language were completely geographically dislocated and uninvolved in the Liburnian ethnogenesis or ethnogenesis of any historical group in the Western Balkans. They might have had some contribution in the Veneti people – PIE ethnogenetical component of Veneti has been frequently linked to the Proto-Gauls (here possible Ligures-Veneti link), but Liburnian PIE component were the Dinarians (previously shown by anthropological features of the Dinaric Race, recently better explained by Haplogroup I2 (Y-DNA) – "Dinaric"). The "Dinarians" is modern group name for the autochtonuous PIE settlers in the Dinaric Alps, completely accepted and used by the scientists here, but as always, it needs some time to be accepted by the schools in the west. However it is not linguistic conception, it is anthropologic and to some degree ethnic. In the 20th century these people were more frequently defined as the Pelasgians in the literature, and today some scientists still speak about Pelasgian linguistic remains, not only in the south of the Balkans, but in all Balkans too.

Your explanation which links Vindelici to Liburni, via Siculi and Ligures is interesting, but poor and wrong, for too many reasons.

• Ethnonym Liburni: it is linked first to the city of Libbur in Syria, before the arrival of the Assyrians. Such position of proto-Liburnians - ethnonym bearers accords to the archeo-anthropological researches: thanks to craniometrical examinations of the Liburnian anthropological material found in their tumuli in Classical Liburnia, we know that the Liburni developed during 2nd millennium BC in symbiosis of the autochthonous Dinaric race people and the Mediterranean race Levantines, in the narrowest region of Liburnia at the eastern Adriatic coast. And we know about global migrations from the Levant to the Central Mediterranean coasts from the 4th to the 2nd millennium BC (arrival of the Thyrrenian, Lemnian and other eastern Mediterranean IE languages). In Liburnian ethnical development, the Dinarians were quantitatively dominant, and Liburnian ethnogenesis was finished in the Late Bronze Age. By ethnogenesis, the Ligurians were completely different people, not having any connection to the anthropologic Dinarians, culturally, physically, materially, geographically, historically.

Venetic people linking to the Pre-Indo-Europeans goes to direction of the Proto-Gauls in the west, to whom the Ligures link too. It is different PIE group. For speculated Veneti-Liburni language link, maybe we can relate older IE Asian Minor influences on this part of Mediterranean, and contribution to distinct groups, but then we are speaking about Etruscans, Hittites, etc too. Proposed Anatolian Enetoi component of Veneti, Levantine Proto-Liburni, Proto-Etruscans from Lemnos, and many other cases are saying about the older I-E linguistic inflows from the east of the Mediterranean, but links between these older languages are almost completely unknown as well as quality/quantity/nature of their possible integrations with different PIE speeches into forms spoken by Etruscans, Veneti, Liburni, and the others, as you surely know very well. What we have here are different PIE components (Proto-Gauls -> Veneti / Dinarians -> Liburni) and different IE components (Anatolian Enetoi -> Veneti / Levantine Liburni -> Liburni). Possible relation would result from IE components, not from PIE; Enetoi from Anatolia, Liburni from Levant.

• Liburnum in Liguria is also interesting. There are 2 possibilities:

1) an earlier transfer of the name from Levant to Liguria, which, however, cannot be directly connected to the known Liburnian ethnos because it would fall into their early pre- or proto-era. Unlike your attempt to use it for Liburni-Ligurians linguistic relation (something that I’ve never heard of), some scientists use it to relate Liburnian name the older IE idioms in the Mediterranean, where Etruscan language would belong too. If Ligurian language belonged to the same wider Old Mediterranean linguistic layer (enrichment of PIE with IE vocalization coming from the Asia Minor), then I understand your linking much better, but you still make huge mistake if you immediately drive the same ethnic and linguistic affinity.

2) later spread of the Liburnian name during the Iron Age; the Liburnians were notorious seafarers, their thallassocracy dominated in the Adriatic Sea from the 9th to the 5th century BC (Liburnian koine), but they navigated and traded across all Central and Eastern Mediterranean, it’s nothing strange if their ethnonym is traced in toponyms found sporadically in wider Med. area. *Liburnum could be an evidence of an individual settlement in Liguria or Etruria, but then it’s logical to conclude that these Liburnian colonists were assimilated, while their toponym survived (Livorno). Livorno is not the only one, there is a number of similar toponyms that can be associated with the Liburni at the other Mediterranean shores, in the North Africa, for example, from where Liburni imported coins (they didn’t produce their own), but noone has ever suggested that Liburni and these North Africans could be the same ethnos or familiar one.

"A tribe allied with the Liburni, called Siculi, is reported to have established a settlement together with the Liburni in the coastal Marche region". Pasquale, as you know, there was all bunch of different peoples who settled Italy from the eastern Adriatic coast at the end of the Bronze Age. The Messapii over Otranto to Messapia, Iapodes (Iapydes, Iapyges) from Kvarner Gulf to Apulia - Iapyges, Liburni from the narrowest Classical Liburnia to Picenum and Appulia, Daunii to Daunia, Siculi from ancient Dalmatia (precisely Kaštela Bay, near Tragurium) across southern Picenum (Numana a Siculis condita, Plin. Nat. hist., III, 111) to Sicily,... You surely know that these movements were domino effect caused by great Pannonian migrations toward Adriatic and south of the Balkan Peninsula (which included Doric migration too), around 1200 and 1100 BC. But there is no any logic to draw ethnical links between these migrants across the Adriatic, just because they contributed to global migrations of the same historical age. When Pliny the Elder (N.H. III, 14, 112) says: Iungetur hic sexta regio Umbriam complexa, agrumque Gallicum circa Ariminum. Ab Ancona Gallica ora incipit, Togatae Galliae cognomine. Siculi et Liburni plurima eius tractus tenuere, in primis Palmensum, Praetutianum, Adrianumque agrum, Emri eos expulere, hos Etruria, hanc Galli. – he actually gives historical order in which ethnic groups appeared in Picenum and around. So it’s not some alliance of Siculi and Liburni there, based on their identical ethnic features. Admixture of different peoples there (newcomers + indigenes) produced a separate Picenum Culture. And Pliny informed about the Etruscan expansion which caused the Gallic invasion and Umbrian invasion into Picenum and departure of the Liburnians from their trade colonies in the Picenian Adriatic coast, but also (virtual or real) Siculian departure from there. Observe what this source says (The English Historical Review, Vol. 16,No. 63 (Jul., 1901), pp. 532-534) about supposition of the Ligurian origin of the Siculi. There is no any reason even to suppose something like that. The Sicanians in Sicilia could have been related to Siculi, by name, but it doesn’t mean that languages were the same. Effects of Pan-Adriatic migrations are direct evidence. The Messapii, Iapyges, Daunii,... once settled at the Italic Adriatic coasts, despite of some onomastic similarities and material evidences, weren’t the speakers of the same languages as their ancestral relatives – "Illyrians" in what had used to be their homeland once before. Liburnians had their littoral trade colonies at the coast of Picenum, but Picentes spoke different language, as well as their culture was different. I don’t understand how can you find the Ligurians across a half of Mediterranean and Europe? If you were right it would mean that Ligurian language was spoken in the Balkans during the Bronze Age?! It would mean that it was one of the Paleo-Balkan languages!? What should we do with the Pelasgian-related linguistic remains found across all the Balkans in that case? They were the Ligurians too? If the Sicanians probably spoke a Ligurian language, as you say, then obviously Siculi brought their ethnic name to Sicily and adopted Ligurian language spoken by the Sicilian indigenes there.

I'm sorry, I've conquered your talk page once again. But please, take this positively, I’m not trying to teach you, noone knows everything. 2 of us know more than 1 of us. ;) Zenanarh (talk) 10:23, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

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Hi, would you be so kind as to give us support!

Hello/Buona sera, I hope you're doing fine and I sincerely apologize for this intrusion. Geez, I'm really amazed by the languages you know! I'm Claudi Balaguer, a member of a Catalan association "Amical de la Viquipèdia" which is trying to get some recognition as a Catalan Chapter but this hasn't been approved up to that moment because the dominant vision of the Chapter is not linguistic but statal and there's no Catalan state. I've seen in your profile that you're a learned person and a top linguist, so I think you care about languages and even more minorized or endangered languages. So maybe I am not bothering you and you will help us... We would appreciate your support, visible if you stick this on your first page: Wikimedia CAT. Supporting us will be like giving equal opportunity to minorized languages, cultures and local or regional entities in the future! Thanks again, wishing you a great summer, kind regards! Capsot (talk) 18:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Illyrians

I reverted you here because there was a oncsensus about this on Illyrians. The user who had written it had synthed the sources but you can check the source yourself to verify it. If you still disagree there's RfC, 3O and many other ways to resolve any objections you may have without reverting again.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 10:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of KLAS Enterprises, LLC

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Lutescan Language

Help please. There is doubt again over the Lutescan Language. Some one stole my password from my old account (Jordi25) and is creating pages pretending he is me, like this one: Claire Khaw. It makes people doubt the Lutescan Language page. I ask you because I remember that you are expert in this area and defend the Lutescan Language page. Also I cannot get my old account back because he has changed the password :-( (I hope you agree I have improved my English since last time too!) REALJordi25 (talk) 00:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Pasquale. You have new messages at Redtigerxyz's talk page.
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WikiProject Romania

Hi! From your edits, it looks like you might be interested in contributing to WikiProject Romania. It is a project aimed at organizing and improving the quality and accuracy of articles related to Romania. Thanks and best regards!

--Codrin.B (talk) 06:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Totonac languages

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Stub tags

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Brixen

Hi, we need to be consistent at Wikipedia, not calling a place by one name in some articles and by another name in other articles. I say Bressanone myself, but English Wikipedia uses Brixen and then we say Brixen in all articles.Jeppiz (talk) 21:34, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Your argument is flawed, as you are not taking into account the different historical context. For example, when talking about Mark Antony, you would say that he besieged Mutina (not Modena) in 44 BC, even though the Wikipedia article about that city is called Modena. There are zillions of such examples. I would agree that, in all contemporary contexts, it should be the way you suggest, but this is 1925, and that's history. Pasquale (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

But it doesn't seem like you're willing to listen to any arguments. Pasquale (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL

Please read WP:CIVIL, your behavior needs to improve. Despite your edit warring I try to explain politely to you how Wikipedia works, your reply is to be rude and accuse me of not listening to arguments. That is not the right way to interact with others on Wikipedia. It's entirely possible to have different opinions without being rude.Jeppiz (talk) 16:08, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

You have it completely the other way around, young man! It is YOUR behavior that needs to improve. YOU engaged in edit warring, not I. As you may have noticed, I let you have it your way, not because you are right, but because you are too arrogant to listen to other people's arguments, and I do not wish to engage in edit warring with you. Pasquale (talk) 17:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know why you assume I'm young or I'm a man, I could be 96 year old woman for all you know. If you think everybody who does not agree with you are arrogant, fine. For the record, it's entirely possible to listen to someone's argument without necessarily agreeing with it.Jeppiz (talk) 15:01, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I've lived long enough to recognize a cocky young man a thousand miles away. Of course, you are not a 96-year-old woman, young man! I gave you one example, and I could have given you a thousand, but it would have made no difference because you are not prepared to listen, period. You can have it your way. Fortunately, there are lots of biographies of Alberto Moravia out there, and they are not being edited by you. So, have fun with the Wikipedia, while they let you! :-) Pasquale (talk) 19:11, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

You really need to read WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA.Jeppiz (talk) 21:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect, Jeppiz, I've been on the Wikipedia a lot longer than you, and I am quite familiar with WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. You obviously like to preach to others, including those who are by far your seniors, but you should learn to practice what you preach. Pasquale (talk) 14:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Jeppiz, here's a good one for you. As a 96-year-old, you might remember Gabriele D'Annunzio's 1919 coup de main at Fiume; see the Wikipedia articles Gabriele D'Annunzio#Fiume and Italian Regency of Carnaro#Impresa di Fiume. Well, surely these articles should not refer to Fiume but to Rijeka, which is "the established name on Wikipedia as per English usage", right? How can we possibly tolerate this inconsistency? As the self-designated enforcer, I think you should fix it. I am asking as civilly as I can. Pasquale (talk) 15:10, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Translation/identification question

I am interested in this short, sweet 1838 book -- Il legato di un vecchio ai giovani della sua patria

I am especially interested in understanding this passage on page 28:

Il selvaggio Nomado ex lege arrestato nelle spelonche dallo spavento, e dall'ammirazione con l'imponente spettacolo delle meteore, per la prima volta rivolse sopra se stesso lo sguardo della debole ragione, conobbe un potere fuori di lui più colossale della sua erculea brutalità, e per la prima volta concepì un culto.

La robusta immaginazione gli fe ravvisare gli effetti come causa, quindi deificando i fenomeni naturali divenne un Pandeista, un istitutore della Mitologia, un sacerdote, un Augure.

Da ciò, che Vico addita nei suoi sommi principi si conferma l'utilità del mio primo avvertimento, cioè lo studio di se stesso.

Un sentimento spontaneo nel selvaggio produsse il primo passo all'incivilimento; ma quali vantaggi non sa ottenere un giovane incivilito nel rivolgere verso di se i suoi pensieri per discernere e bilanciare i dettami del cuore, e della propria condatta?

Can you tell me what this means in English? Would this be good for this project? I can not quite figure out if identity of authorship is preserved here. Blessings!! Pandeist (talk) 06:32, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

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v:Calculus I

Could you please edit:

• https://fr.wikiversity.org/wiki/Calcul_infinit%C3%A9simal

My French is about fr-1. I used Google Tranlate to create the page and somebody a French Wikipedia says that the translation is not good. Please help. Please also tell others about the English page, such as high school and college students and faculty. Thanks in advance.--2602:304:CDC1:90:64C5:4976:D62C:FF33 (talk) 11:55, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

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I was aware of that. I think it’s fine the way it is. Pasquale (talk) 11:58, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

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Posting linguistics tangents in lede

Please get up to speed with the edit history via the talk page of Squaw, rather than revert-warring. Your linguistics addition does not belong in the lede, and it's probably WP:COATRACK to even add it to the article at all. This is not an article about colonial Massachusetts, and colonial linguists are not the experts on the term.

Resolve this on the talk page before editing further. Simply reverting other editors is not good form. It can be seen as a form of WP:EDITWARRING and can lead to a suspension of editing privileges. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:29, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect, User:CorbieVreccan, I don’t believe you actually even read my most recent edit. If you had, you would not have called it revert-warring, as it deals with a completely different aspect than my previous edit, which had already been reverted. I did not revert anything. Contrary to what you imply, I fully accepted the first reversion, even though I considered it ill-advised, precisely because I never engage in edit-warring, and am completely uninterested in it. (For confirmation, you are welcome to review my tens of thousands of edits over nearly two decades as a Wikipedian.) As it stands, this article is seriously flawed and contains multiple errors of fact. But, look, if the consensus is that linguists should be excluded from contributing to this article, despite its exquisitely linguistic nature, I will refrain from looking at this article again, let alone editing it. I stand by my last two edits, and submit that any language historian would agree that they were very relevant and germane to the subject. But, maybe, there is a consensus that any factual information that appears to go against the basic thesis espoused in this article should be excluded. If so, that stance is both ignorant and unscientific. Pasquale (talk) 02:57, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

FYI, User:CorbieVreccan, User:Crescent77, whom I don’t know at all, thanked me after my first edit, with the following comment: "added important information". This poor fella must be another foolish linguist who, like me, doesn’t realize that this article has nothing whatsoever to do with language! Ultimately you should know that it is linguists that write the history of words, not Wikipedia dictators. Pasquale (talk) 03:10, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

With over 8,000 edits you should know to show good faith and not make personal attacks

Among other things it makes you look as you are refusing to edit collaboratively. Doug Weller talk 12:25, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Doug Weller. That’s precisely my point! But you are talking to the wrong editor, my friend. Pasquale (talk) 13:10, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

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