Talk:Kaskians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ancient Near East Portal
This article falls within the scope of the ancient Near East WikiProject. Please participate by editing this article, and help us improve articles to good article standards, or visit the project page.

what language did Kaska people speak? were they anyhow related to other indigenous inhabitants of the Eastern shores of the Black Sea area like mushks, colkhs? and is there a link b/n kaskas & kavkas (Caucasus) ?

t.u. (anon.)

They are only attested by their enemies the Hittites. As they were non-literatev and there is no indication through toponymy, their own language is completely unknown. --Wetman (talk) 22:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Standard reference?

Is E. von Shuler, Die Kaškäer: ein Beitrag zur Ethnographie des Alten Kleinasien (Berlin: de Gruyter) 1965 still the standard. I hasten to add that I haven't read it myself, but the article needs to point to some standard presentation of the topic. --Wetman (talk) 22:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A suggestion

Kaska is so generally the name of the "Kaskians" [sic] of Wikipedia that the following arrangement might be preferred:

Might there be drawbacks to such a change? Please respond here at Talk:Kaskians. --Wetman (talk) 23:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Are there no drawbacks then?--Wetman (talk) 22:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
In terms of wikistyle, the only way to accomplish that is to approve the name change, and I continue to oppose it (see next xection). You say "so generally the name of" - but generally to whom? Certainly not to lingiusts, or Athapaskan-field linguists anyway, as also the Kaska people who are alive, not thousands of years dead. I'd say somewhere there's gonna be a Wiki guidelines about living people vs dead peoples and what's the "more general usage". "Kaska Dean" does mean "Kaska people" anyway (name format for indigneous peoples in this region various, though, some with "people", some without; left off in some cases because redundnat, e.g. Skwxwu7mesh and Secwepemc where -mesh and -emc mean "people". Kaska anyway is a modern endngered language, a living peoplek, and known generally in lniguistics and anthropology and BC/indiegneous peoples' pollitic and culture. I'm rooting for them, but if you can prove there's more hits or whatever on the anti-hittite Kaskians, go ahead; but don't rejigger page titles without consensus, and I'd say we need an outside party; Kaska language is another article, Kaska Dena First Nation (or whatever their badn-government name is) and so on are other articles.Skookum1 (talk) 01:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kaska

The Kaska are a living people, not an ancient/extinct one, that's one reason the Kaska article is primarily theirs; also "it was there first" and Wiki naming conventions operate on that principle. Kaska as a people and a modern (if endangered) language is very widely known in linguistics, and also of course to the Kaska Dena themselves. Also "Kaskian" is an English formation or who knows whta they called themselves; "Kaska" is how the Kaska Dena name their language and themselves, it's not an English variant, it's Kaska language. So it has a priori that way, as a proper name in its original language, as well as a pre-existing title/article.Skookum1 (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Kaska can be a straight disambig, though, with teh Kaska Dena entries grouped accordingly; but I wouldn't agree with you at all that Kaska is the most common/priority usage; especially again since they're a dead people and also since it's a Hittite name, not even in Kaskian.Skookum1 (talk) 23:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] weaving / ref

The one short comment on their ethnography is "supported" by ^ Concise Britannica, s.v. "Kaska" . But this link appears to be dead. Can some-one get another source (e.g., EB paper copy)?