Talk:Wōdanaz

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1 title
2 Asterisk link
3 =myth review
4 Merseburg Charms
5 F on the etymology

[edit] title

please move it back to Wodanaz. We don't want the asterisk in the title (it will confuse people too much), and the ō doesn't display right for some Microsoft users. dab (ᛏ) 19:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I approve of the change to *Wōdanaz (as we've discussed before) though I don't feel very strongly about it. Haukur 18:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

um, ok. I suppose this calls for more general discussion, we should try to put it down in MoS somewhere, because it follows that Dyeus, Hausos, Perkunos and friends should also be titled with an asterisk. This is just a pragmatic question of what is more user-friendly, and I don't feel too strongly about it either. dab (ᛏ) 19:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we should treat all reconstructed words the same. It's not a big deal either way, I just feel it's a bit more professional to have the asterisk. Haukur 19:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

This article may be too technical for a general audience.
Please help improve this article by providing more context and better explanations of technical details to make it more accessible, without removing technical details.

Using "ō" in place of "o" where appropriate is Wikipedia style. But what's with the asterisk? It's not explained anywhere in the article how to pronounce it, whether it indicates a reconstruction that may not be accurate, or what. This needs to be explained, or else have a prominent link in the intro paragraph (or else be removed entirely). I've added a {{technical}} template to the article for this reason. --Quuxplusone 17:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

as you can see above, nobody feels very strongly about the asterisk in the title, so I suppose you can move it to an asterisk-less form. However, to discuss the meaning of the asterisk everytime we quote a reconstructed form anywhere on Wikipedia would be horrible clutter, imho, but if you do feel strongly about that, I suggest you insert a footnote somewhere. dab (ᛏ) 18:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I would, if I could. But as you can see from my comments above, I don't know what the asterisk means — it's not explained anywhere in the article. If you can fix it, please do. --Quuxplusone 06:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

The asterisk is a standard way in linguistics to denote a hypothetical reconstructed word for which there is no direct evidence. We can't go talking about "Wodanaz" because we have no actual record of such a name ever having been used, but we do understand (or believe we understand) the way Germanic languages have evolved from Proto-Germanic, and "Wodanaz" is the logical ancestor of the various forms observed later in the Germanic languages. One can also talk about *kuningaz, the precursor to king, König, etc.

That said, I don't think the asterisk needs to be in the title. It's a technical detail best left to the article. --Saforrest 16:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I was bold and removed it. --Saforrest 16:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Aha, now I see the debate at Talk:Odin#attempted_restructuring. Well, I'm still content with having removed the asterisk. --Saforrest 16:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Asterisk link

As there's been some talk about bringing this matter to MoS, maybe I should mention one change I'd like to see, which is to link asterisks for the edification of those who aren't familiar with their use in historical linguistics. In the same way that (to pick a random example) Galileo positioning system says its cost "is estimated at €1.1 billion", this article could begin "*Wōđanaz or *Wōđinaz is the reconstructed name...". We might even start an article for the purpose: asterisk in historical linguistics. This way we can just link there every now and then, and we don't need to clutter up every article with a historical reconstruction with explanations. (Another possibility would be to use a template with a span markup: "*Wōđanaz is"...) Quartier Latin1968 15:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

good idea (I prefer the *). dab (ᛏ) 17:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Newsflash! I've talked to the good folks at {{*}}, and we can use their template to produce something like this: • . This gives us the roll-over option, links to asterisk, and forces unicode-friendly fonts. You just type {{*|Wōđanaz}} and voilà. Quartier Latin1968

17:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

that's not that great, since ideally you'd want a mouseover for the form itself, too, such as {{PIE}} ({{*}}{{PIE|Vatinos}})... dab (ᛏ) 17:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh; I didn't know about the {{PIE}} template. Shouldn't that template really include the asterisk anyway? It's not as though any PIE forms are directly attested. And leaving PIE aside, I don't think there should be separate templates for every possible proto-language, because that just reduplicates effort. We could add a new parameter to {{*}} toggling the span title if necessary. Would it seem more annoying to have to enter two templates à la {{*}}{{PGmc|Wōđanaz}} or one {{*|Wōđanaz|Proto-Germanic}}? Quartier Latin1968

20:43, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

no, the asterisk should be added manually. of course PIE is all reconstructed, but imagine a declination table for example: you'd not put an asterisk in each table cell, after all. I was intending to do a {{PGmc}} for some time: these are for language markup, much like {{lang}}, {{semxlit}}, {{ArabDIN}} and others. The problem of the asterisk is separate. You don't want it to give a "THIS IS RECONSTRUCTED" explanation every time, just the first time it appears in an article, so there should be a separate {{*}} for that. dab (ᛏ) 09:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Yup, you've convinced me. And after all we can always just use {{Unicode}} wherever there isn't already a proto-language template. I'll make the necessary change to {{*}} and we can start using it. I think I may take the liberty of copying this exchange over to template talk:* for future reference. Quartier Latin1968

15:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] =myth review

I like this article if it was just me I would give it an A, but I understand you need to do a nominaton process to go higher than a B so consider my grade a B+++. Goldenrowley 02:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I give articles As (and used to give them "GA" before they attached an entire bureaucracy to that) just because I think they qualify. If people object, they can still remove the tag and take it to some review. Wikipedia isn't built by waiting for the red tape to catch up with events :) dab (𒁳) 11:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

OKay B changed to A. Skip GA thing. Goldenrowley 03:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merseburg Charms

The English translation is slightly misleading. The original has "Sinhtgunt" attempting to heal the horse, but the translation gives the impression that her sister is also doing the same. Then the original has "Friia" attempting to heal the horse, but again the translation gives the impression her sister is also involved. The two translations on the "Merseburg Incantations" page seem nearer the original in this respect. Thanks. Could you please also have a look at the charm texts on "Woden" page.

[edit] F on the etymology

I see you've rated yourselves an A and maybe the article deserves it, relatively speaking, but not on the etymology and technical details. I see up there a notification that this article may be too technical for some readers. I suppose whoever put that in did not put it in the article because he did not dare. I would start in on the etymology but I do not dare. It is very hard psychologically to break in on a solid group working very hard and all the time patting each other on the back. No doubt there is a lot to be back-patted about. I'll leave that to you and concentrate on the problems. Here is my partial list.

What is with the barred d? I presume by that you mean the barred d mentioned under Proto-Germanic. By the way, that articles cites no sources, so we are taking its word for it. I don't see it in Pokorny and I don't see it in Watkins and more importantly I don't see it in the title. Maybe they didn't care to get that specialized or maybe Proto-Germanic is too early for the barred d. Watkins uses the dh in the AHD, which is online, you know, but he doesn't use it in his proto-Germanic words. Ah well, I just checked my basic Gothic book. There is one there, but maybe it's later than the proto-stage. How is the public supposed to know what this is all about unless you tell them? You need a note there. In some articles I've seen a small insertion on script explaining what this or that letter is. You need to make clear whose proto-Germanic that is and why you don't usually see the barred d. Can you do that? If not, the English d awaits.
"the reconstructed name". Which one is it? "the" name is one name. Unfortunately I cannot espouse either of those because according to Watkins in AHD it is *Wod-enaz. Another possibility, another note.
"Odin probably rose to prominance". Got a source?
OHG Wotan. The dictionaries have Wuotan.
"traditionally derived". Whose tradition? Apparently none in this country.
I'd put the obsolete etymology in a note, as the "inspired" one is pretty solid.
"it should be noted". Oh? Why? Too much detail. You don't need to prove the derivation. Reinventing the wheel. And the same with the paragraph after. We're not interested in vates but in Wodin. Be concise.
Pre-proto-Germanic? Give us a break. There's no evidence of a phase bewteen PIE and proto-Germanic and certainly not a Celtic one. That's a major thesis and would require some back-up.
The meid paragraph looks all right at first glance but not the next one. -ina for odin, -ana for wotan, but what happened to -ena for Woden? In any case the point of the entire argument escapes us totally here. What's he trying to say? He is rejecting the ablaut in favor of what? What's the point? Either make it clear or drop it as not worth worrying about in this general article.
Pre-proto-germanic again. Is that term used by your author? If it is you need to make quite clear that the use is his and his alone because I've never seen it outside of this article and you cannot just use it in a casual way because it implies a whole body of reconstruction that as far as I know does not exist. Is he saying that this is a Celtic loan into the so-called pre-proto-Germanic? If so you need all the more to point out this is a special theory because everyone else thinks it went from PIE to proto-Germanic.
That gets us around to the main point. Where's the PIE on this? It isn't unknown, you know, and it isn't controversial. On the main points. I see you have Pokorny's *watu- (more or less) for Latin vates (note 7). I'm looking at Pokorny's page 1113 online right now. For the root it says "uāt-1, besser uōt-". I understand that to mean he prefers wot to wat (long vowels). Watkins does a much better job on this. The root is *wet-, "to blow". The winds of inspiration blow in Odin. Read it yourself under *wet-. Beware, when he gets into the laryngeals, the text symbols are disordered a little online, so you might need the hard copy. The long o is the lengthened o-grade of the short e in the ablaut system your author didn't like very well, which happens to be a major characteristic of PIE. Moreover, Pokorny doesn't have the laryngeals so he can't give the eariler forms. Now, a variants (instead of o) do appear but they are not of course part of the ablaut system (which varies e, zero and o grades) and are more rare. They probably have other explanations. The Celtic seems to have the a and vates seems to come from the Celtic. But all that is irrelevant to Woden, who had the o and not the a. There's no Waden anywhere. As for your author's very peculiar theory that Woden was Celtic in origin (if that's what it is), all I can say is, very peculiar, very far-fetched, nothing credible really, grasping at straws, look-busy work for the administrators. No book no job (unlike us).

Sorry this is all I got time for. Dig into it, use your skills, go to your library, rewrite the next version at least 10 times.Dave 02:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)