Talk:Proto-Indo-European language/Archive 2

message: should we use ʷ, ʰ or w, h? In theory, they should be rendered identical, but they aren't. In my browser, the  version looks better. dab (ᛏ) 08:12, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose we really ought to be using  (the IPA template is necessary for the characters to appear correctly in all browsers), even though we have been using w, h up till now. --Angr/ 08:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Without IPA template I can see transparent squares only.--Nixer 08:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I am not so sure. this is related to the 'precomposed diacritics' issue. precomposed diacritics in Unicode is a compromise, strictly foreign to its basic philosophy. superscript h is still an h, with the additional property of floating in the air. Just like a-acute is still an a, with the additional property of having an acute. A workable solution is to accept precomposed diacritics of ISO 8859-1. It is cleaner to compose them, just like it is cleaner to use the sup-tag. Some browsers have problems rendering composed diacritics, especially in italics, but that is a technical problem that will go away in one or two browser generations, and we should not inform our decision by it. dab (ᛏ) 08:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure  are treated as separate characters like  and , which will also not be legible in all browsers without the IPA template. Even if the problem goes away in one or two browser generations, the problem exists now. Whatever we decide to do, the fact is that  (with the template) and w, h (with the sup tag) are legible in all browsers while unadorned ʷ, ʰ aren't and so shouldn't be used. --Angr/ 08:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: dab, My browser (IE 6) can not show these charasters, and the text becomes inreadable. Angr, your version is proper--Nixer 08:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: sure, sorry, this is not about the IPA template. The options are (a) IPA'd , (b) sup-ed w, h. The cleanest solution, incidentially, would be a  template, that would render PIE transcription centrally, and customizable via stylesheet. dab (ᛏ) 08:46, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I have created :Template:PIE for now. It is 'semantically' cleaner to use that, even if it's identical to IPA, since PIE notation is not IPA, strictly speaking. So I suggest we use that throughout. We can still choose between  and , of course. dab (ᛏ) 08:51, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, I just opened this page in IE (the browser that makes the templates necessary) and I see that  and  work fine. But I don't like that the PIE template automatically puts everything in italics. Most fonts with advanced Unicode characters don't have pretty italics, they just sort of slant the roman face in a very ugly and difficult-to-read way. I'd much rather use regular roman face than italics. --Angr/ 11:04, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: well, it's just that italics are quite important to make the words stand out qua word, imho making the text much easier to read. I thik this trumps font prettiness, which is a browser issue anyway; in any case, if we want PIE in italics, that should properly be handled by the template, not case by case. But I see your point.  is really also just a compromise, since the  looks ugly in most browsers. This should all properly be customizable via stylesheets, but I can't be bothered to fiddle with that just now. dab (ᛏ) 11:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: superscript

message: we seem to be making slow progress. This is like dealing with a four year old, frankly. Nixer seems to be unhappy with our spelling conventions. 
:Your spelling conventions are not too bad, except the fact they hide ethymological connection between modern languages and PIE and too hard for non-professionals. But the issue is that the text examples that do you bring here do not match the conventions that you are protecting here.--Nixer 09:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Re-read the prevous topic. --Nixer 09:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Nixer, the etymological connection between PIE and modern IE languages cannot be shown by any spelling conventions, so that is no argument. What is hard for nonprofessionals is to be confronted with several different spelling conventions at once. There is one spelling convention in use on this page, and that is the same one that users will find in the vast majority of works dealing with the reconstruction of PIE. If you don't want to confuse nonspecialists, stick to the accepted spelling conventions. There is no serious content dispute on this page, and I'm removing the "disputed" tag accordingly. --Angr/ 09:54, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nixer actually says the "spelling conventions are not too bad" (thank you! I am sure the past two generations of IE scholars will be very glad you approve!), but he objects to the texts given here. Hello? the texts were removed to sub articles. Your revert concerned your list of numerals. Nixer, what are you, a troll? You don't make any sense at all, even if one tries very hard to parse your English. Please stop wasting our time. dab (ᛏ) 10:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: dispute

message: Now I am tempted to put the "disputed" tag back up. I thought the whole idea of *kþ and *gð had been chucked out decades ago. --Angr/ 14:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ) you mean the "metathesis" explanation is not proper. It was really intended as a bait to spur you (and others) into giving more detail... the equations Hittite tk, Sanskrit kS, Greek khth stand, of course, but I agree that it should be explained differently. But we'd then probably need to get rid of the "þ allphone" altogether, no? dab (ᛏ) 14:51, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: well, yes, I mean metathesis in PIE minus Tocharian and Hittite, of course, the examples I give, after all, show that no metathesis took place in Hittite. What's the problem with KT staying KT? It's only TK that is at all affected. It's not like TK becomes KT first and Kþ in a second step. TK goes to Kþ directly (I thought you were objecting to 'metathesis' because of that). dab (ᛏ) 18:41, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Well there may or may not have been a PIE minus Hittite, but I certainly don't believe in a PIE minus Tocharian. There's no problem with KT staying KT at all. All I'm saying is that whatever the various languages decided to do with TK, they decided to do it after PIE was over. The only reason þ was ever postulated was because the Neo-Grammarians, not knowing Hittite and Tocharian, wanted something to cover the equation Greek kt = Sanskrit kS. It couldn't be PIE *kt, because that was already Greek kt = Sanskrit kt (or ST in the case of k´t, e.g. aSTau 'eight'). So they picked something that was dental like t but a fricative like S and landed on þ. Once Hittite and Tocharian were discovered, it turned out that kþ words had tk in PIE, so you had to get from *tk to Greek kt, Sanskirt kS, and whatever the other languages do. Greek has simple metathesis; Sanskrit has something funny that might or might not have involved metathesis; but no language requires the postulation of an allophone þ. The only allophonic variation reconstructable for PIE as far as I know is that /t/ has an affricate allophone [ts] before another /t/ (which probably only happened at a morpheme boundary, a root ending in t followed by a suffix beginning with t); this [tst] sequence became tt in Indo-Aryan, st in Greek, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic, ss in Italic and Celtic, and I don't remember what elsewhere. --Angr/ 19:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

text: that's how we work :) start hacking things together, and export them when they begin to take shape. In any case, I found a subsection with the content t, d, dh is a bit pathetic. If we do want subsections for each row of stops, they need to be systematically discussed, not just enumerated. dab (ᛏ) 05:56, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thorn stuff 

message: A number of articles on PIE vocabulary (eg Keu-3) were recently proposed for deletion in a  debate which is not concluded but is tending towards the articles being merged into a single article, Proto-Indo-European roots. Esperanto vocabulary is suggested as a possible parallel article to take some inspiration from. Rd232 18:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: we shouldn't have articles on individual roots. There can conceivably be articles about individual words, such as Dyeus. But there is no need to delete these, either. Just make them redirects. dab (ᛏ) 20:47, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: yes, but that would still leave Copyright issues. We couldn't just make up our own forms on wiktionary, we'd have to go by Pokorny. Ultimately, we'll just reproduce Pokorny, which will be a copyright violation (not that it isn't online, but that isn't wikimedia's problem). dab (ᛏ) 21:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds like a good idea to me. And I shouldn't think it would be all that close to Pokorny; for one thing it would have laryngeals. I would expect it to be as similar to Watkins as to Pokorny. --teb728 04:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

text: By the way, Dyeus - incorrect. Correct form is deivos.--Nixer 21:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: no it isn't. It's a different word. Dyeus is the chief god. deivos is an adjective meaning "celestial". Same root, different words. dab (ᛏ) 21:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh How about -? :-) --Nixer 22:11, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: what about it? It isn't about Dyeus, but about Verunos (or Lughus). Dyeus is a *specific* god; deivos just means "divine one", i.e. "god". Seeing your blasphemous attitude, I would advise you to stay indoors during thunderstorms over the next few weeks :p dab (ᛏ) 22:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, this is not an adjective, this is noun.--Nixer 23:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The translation of the tale name is "The king and the god", not "The king and the light one". By the way, "light one" (adjective) is leucos which is also exist in the text. How would you translate "vequet leucos deivos Verunos" ?--Nixer 23:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nixer, you know what? Wikipedia isn't "the Free University", and I'm not paid to tutor you. I suggest you go read some books. What do you want? You have been trolling these articles for months, and you only managed to make clear that your knowledge of the subject is superficial at best. dab (ᛏ) 11:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles on PIE vocabulary 

message: The numbes without d letter - is an evident bullshit and certaily became in use far after the PIE times in certain germanic languages.--Nixer 12:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The forms quoted are from reputable English-language handbooks. Please stop arguing against the views of legitimate scholars. Wikipedia is not a place for original research or crank views. CRCulver 13:12, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nixer: WP:CITE, WP:NOR. If you have read these, you haven't understood them. Make your own webpage about your own theories and stop pestering Wikipedia, which is about reporting academic publications, it is not an academic publication itself. Get your views published in some reputable journal, and we would at least be able to mention them. dab (ᛏ) 14:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Which books do you consider reputable and which - not? If Starostin's publications for you are not reputable, than what is?--Nixer 14:32, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sarostin doesn't seem to be universally appreciated, and I find that his name rarely comes up in bibliographies nowadays. I'd recommend sticking to the authors of the standard English-language handbooks: Lehmann, Beekes, Sihler, and (if one must) Szemerenyi. CRCulver 02:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: This form without d letter is from proto-centum language.--Nixer 14:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Nixer, here's something else for you to read and understand before you start reverting again: Wikipedia:Blocking policy. --Angr/ 14:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: it would help if you actually quoted Starostin. Starostin was a serious linguist, even if he had a penchant for the speculative. You have misquoted him before, so you can be sure that we won't take your word for "Starostin said this or that". To begin with, I would even like a quote that he believed in a "Proto-Centum" langauge (I don't think it is impossible that he postulated this, even if phylogenetic Centum-Satem separation is certainly not a mainstream opinion, and I have yet to find a proponent; people are shruggingly agnostic about it at best, nobody to my knowledge is positive about a "Proto-Centum" language) dab (ᛏ) 15:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I have blocked him for 24 hours for gaming the system. Violating the spirit of 3RR is just as punishable as violating its letter. --User:Angr/talk 17:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not too happy with this Angr -- since you are clearly involved. I suggest you post your action on WP:AN/I for others to review, so people can unblock him if they disagree. dab (ᛏ) 17:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --User:Angr/talk 18:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The [d] sound of двадцать, тридцать, пятьдесят, шестьдесят, семьдесят as well as the Germanic [t] of twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, ninety is NOT inherited from Proto-Indo-European. These words are secondary formations within Slavic and Germanic; they are transparently re-built from the simple digits plus a form of the word for "ten", and as such they CANNOT be used in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. The word-internal  can only be presumed as likely in oldest PIE, but it cannot be reconstructed on the basis of words in existing IE languages. Nixer, please leave the list of numerals alone now. --User:Angr/talk 14:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, Albanian is one of the most recently attested and least conservative branches of Indo-European. The dentals in Albanian are certainly secondary, just as they are in Slavic and Germanic. More conservative branches (Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, Celtic, Armenian, Tocharian) do not show any trace of a  in the parts of the words that correspond to English -ty. Re-forming one's words for "twenty, thirty, forty", etc. along the lines of "two-tens, three-tens, four-tens" is trivial and can happen at any time. The fact that the Greek, Sanskrit, etc. words do not look like this proves they must be original. --User:Angr/talk 18:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: what are you even talking about? this isn't about teens, it's about tens (20, 30, 40 etc.). could you at least check out what the subject is? nobody disputes that that "ten" was dek'm-, that's not the bleeding point. Can we just go back to citing references rather than setting up strawmen please? dab (ᛏ) 21:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Forty-five minutes of waiting is not enough to assume I'm being silent. dab is right, we're talking about the decades: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. That's what you glossed the Albanian examples as. The Greek words in question are eikosi, triakonta, tessarakonta, etc., with a decidedly non-dental [k]. --User:Angr/talk 22:00, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: You are speaking about modern Greek, not ancient. Do you know the word dodecahedron, which is from ancient Greek? By the way, Armenian IS NOT conservative.--Nixer 22:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm not. I'm speaking about Ancient Greek. Dodecahedron comes from the Greek word for 12, not the word for 20, and is therefore irrelevant. --User:Angr/talk 22:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: My apologies, I meant eikosi, trianda, saranda, peninda, exinda, ebdominda, ogdonda, eneninda. Anyway, do you have any references that Albanian is conservative. That may be just your POV. And what about Latin: viginti, triginta, quadraginta, quinquaginta, sexaginta... There are dental consonants all over the place! Rex(talk) 22:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In Latin it's g. But here is Sanskrit: vinshati, trinshath, chatvaarinshath... n is dental consonant--Nixer 22:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: No, of course.--Nixer 22:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Wrong, darling - proof: in Armenian the same numbers are kessan, yeressoun, karassoun, hissoun, vatssoun, yottanassoun, outssoun, innissoun. Who can do the maths? I see dentals! Rex(talk) 22:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Compare Russian, Sanskrit and PIE: 
dvadsat - vinshai - dvidcmt,
tridsat - trinshath - tridcmt
(old Russian) chetverdsat - chatvaarinshath - quetverdcmt--Nixer 22:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Similarities - this is further proof that those fairy tales about *wīḱm̥t-, *trīḱomt-, kʷetwr̥̄ḱomt- etc should be binned. Rex(talk) 22:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're looking at the wrong place in the word. Consider the entry for "thirty": "; originally perhaps ". The question is whether the  before the  can be safely reconstructed for the proto-language. None of the conservative languages indicates that it can; it just seems likely to have been there at some early point on the basis of the words' meanings. The dentals in trimśat, triakonta, etc. are from the  after the , which is uncontroversial. The nasal consonant of the Sanskrit forms cannot come from  and so is also irrelevant for the current discussion. Armenian /s/ is dental, but it comes from , not , so for purposes of reconstruction it counts as an originally nondental consonant. --User:Angr/talk 22:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Russian numerals can be derived from PIE ones with trivial rules: in Satem languages m became a, c became s or ts (Russian ц), so all the Russian numerals simply deriving with regular phonetic rules.--Nixer 22:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Albanian numbers are derived from PIE, I thought Franz Bopp was clear enough on that point. These strawman arguments have got to stop. The article as it currently is is misleading. Rex(talk) 23:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Then how do you explain the Lithuanian: dešimt, dvidešimt, trisdešimt, keturiasdešimt, penkiasdešimt, šešiasdešimt, septyniasdešimt, aštuoniasdešimt, devyniasdešimt? Coincidence? Rex(talk) 22:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I already said above: "Re-forming one's words for 'twenty, thirty, forty', etc. along the lines of 'two-tens, three-tens, four-tens' is trivial and can happen at any time." Shall I say it again? Words meaning "twenty, thirty, forty" etc. are especially prone to being tossed out and re-formed when they stop being transparent. It happened in Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Albanian. These languages show a reflex of PIE  before the reflex (if any) of  not because a cluster  is actually reconstructable for PIE, but merely because they re-formed the words on the basis of their words for "ten". The Lithuanian, Russian, Germanic, and Albanian numbers for 20, 30, 40 etc. are not the direct descendants of the PIE words for 20, 30, 40, etc. --User:Angr/talk 23:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So, your point is: in Russian it should be двацать, not двадцать, трицать, not тридцать (dvatsat, not dvadsat, tritsat, not tridsat) etc. Then try to pronounce it differently - you hardly will sucseed.--Nixer 23:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I think that the evidence that the t in twenty etc is derived from the PIE word for the same number is overwhelming. I can't understand what is so objectionable about that. Rex(talk) 23:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What you or I or Nixer or dab thinks is irrelevant. This is an encyclopedia, we report on what the published sources say. The published sources say the reconstructed forms are *, *, *, etc., which presumably (but not provably) come from even older forms *, *, *, etc. I have cited two sources who agree on this fact. No published source I can find thinks that the t of the Germanic forms or the d of the Slavic forms goes back to Proto-Indo-European. We must stick to what the published sources say. Removing valid, sourced information from pages is vandalism, so don't do it again, either of you. --User:Angr/talk 06:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: yes guys. It's nice you have an interest in PIE reconstruction, but this is a serious article, and not like theism or something where anybody can insert 'some think', 'others believe', 'yet others fancy' etc. This is a discipline with more than a century of serious research. You cannot think you  can brainstorm on a wikipedia talkpage for 20 minutes and think you have contributed anything of note to Indo-European linguistics. Go to your library. Find an introduction to IE linguistics. Check the reconstructions given there. If they are different from what we have here, come back, cite author, title and page, and the form given. Then we'll have something to talk about. Angr was very kind to give you some basic advice. If you have any more questions, come to WP:RD/L. Thanks. dab (ᛏ) 07:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop inserting the bullshit here! 

message: We all agree that in the PIE there was form with d sound. I even can agree that form without d sound could existed in fast casual speech. I even can agree that German (and only German) forms were rebuilt. Though existance of these forms in later PIE still controversial. So we should remove the contraversal information from the article until the full consensus--Nixer 10:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Beekes 1995, 212–16; Sihler 1995, 402–24
Nobody is trying to censor minority opinions here. We are actually begging you to come forward with such views, so we can quote them and be done. You cannot slap "disputed" tags on articles just on a whim. Cite your sources. Once you do so, and still are turned down, then you will be in a position to add warning tags. Until you have not cited a single reference for whatever is your view, I will regard further reverts as plain vandalism. dab (ᛏ) 15:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been following this discussion with fascinated bewilderment, but now it has reached the point of sheer silliness.  Angr and Dab are right: it's time you two dropped this.  You are coming over as amateurish, and if your only basis is what seems subjectively most plausible to you, then you would  be better to call it a day.  --Doric Loon 15:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Perhaps you haven't noticed, but there is an edit war going on. In such circumstances, the factual accuracy and/or neutrality of the article is disputed. As far as I can see, the placement of the tag is necessary in such circumstances. However, I removed it, because I have been in an edit war over a tag in the past and I know that users don't like it when the article is in their version. That's why I removed it. Rex(talk) 15:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's called reflection. Check the edit history, after having had second thoughts over placing the tag as it would appear silly given that the article is copied from those books and the content of the books is not disputed. That's why I removed the tag at 15:19, but you failed to notice and placed your bad tempered message here at 15:20 (check the edit history). Rex(talk) 15:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Petty sarcasm benefits no one. I think I have already told you, that Wikipedia:Trolling involves bad faith and is a deliberate attempt to disrupt. That is not what has been going on here. Disputes should be resolved by compromise - clinging to your position (ring a bell, dab?) may constitute trolling. As far as I can see, Nixer is the only one who has even attempted to reach a compromise by altering his position. You have stubbornly clung to yours. WHat does that tell you? Rex(talk) 15:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I stubbornly cling to WP policy, which says that as long as you don't cite sources, you don't have a case, and are only wasting people's time. Why would a sane person do that in good faith? Nixer need only have opened Beekes, and asked us to mention that he reconstructs -dk- for early PIE, voila, no objections. Alternatively, you can pester people, without citing a single author, until somebody gets frustrated enough to do your job for you. Works every time, but it's not what I call 'good faith'. The -dk- forms were in the article all the time. Nixer wants the information gone that the -d- is a conjecture that cannot directly be reconstructed. Why he wants that information gone, nobody knows. Why you decided to support him in that I can only guess at, maybe because you decided you wanted to get my goat, over at AN/I? This may not be the case, but I honestly see no other reason why you would get involved in such a silly revert war. dab (ᛏ) 21:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm surprised you actually see it that way. If you check which articles I have edited you will see that a substantial number of them are language related. I have an interest in this area and at first sight, with what I know (however limited it is), Nixer seems to make more sense. Of course I have a long history of imagining links and cognates, such as saying that the English word "milk" is somehow linked to the Greek word "Αμέλγω" and the English word "door" to the Greek "θύρα". However, I find it odd that you think that I wanted to get your goat (sic). Don't you remember on Talk:Arvanitic language (another language related article), where you were one of the selective few who exhibited some signs of sanity and recommended that Greek propaganda be dropped in favour of neutral wording in line with every single source we had. Rex(talk) 21:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: PS I have recently cleaned up the Albanian language article, and I would like your opinion on certain issues. People have been saying that they don't like the Indo-European cognate table, the Tosk-Geg table, and here are the odd ones: I have an Albanian grammar book here and it says that there are six cases in Albanian: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative and in certain words a Vocative. People have been saying that as Genitive is the Dative with a preposition, then they are the same case (see Balkan linguistic union) and that is why the Genitive was dropped from the table - what do you think. Also, People have been suggesting that Albanian doesn't have palatal plosives, but they are something else (postalveolar affricates) (q and gj). What is your opinion? Rex(talk) 21:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No controversial information 

message: I do not consider rolling back Nixer's stuff revert warring so much as tedious cleaning, but others seem eager enough to jump in and block me for it, so here's a pointer to  where Nixer is doing his inscrutable work at the moment. dab (ᛏ) 22:02, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever. There's nothing encyclopedic that can be said about that topic anyway, so let the cranks have their crank playground. --User:Angr/talk 22:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose you have a point. I still liked having a responsible article about an irresponsible topic :)  feel free to ignore the topic, of course dab (ᛏ) 22:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Proto-World language]]

message: what shall we do with Ker-5 and friends? They could all be redirected to List of common Indo-European roots, which is not too bad (but why "common"? -- it could be moved to Proto-Indo-European roots, the article there badly needs merging too. But we need to establish how to go about this dictionary material. Is it ok for Wikipedia to be a PIE dictionary, too? What about copyright issues, can we just dump Pokorny and be done? dab (ᛏ) 12:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ack. As far as I'm concerned, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, including a dictionary of hypothetical roots. Transwiki them to Wiktionary if they'll have them. Obviously we can't just dump Pokorny there, not only for copyright reasons, but because Pokorny was already forty years out of date when it was published, and is even worse now. At most, all we should have here in Wikipedia is Proto-Indo-European roots, which should not be a list but rather a discussion of what IE roots look like (full grade, zero grade, o-grade, extended grade; the fact that *tek-, *teg-, *dek-, *degh-, and *dheg- are all possible root shapes but **tegh-, **dhek-, and **deg- aren't; the fact that the two consonants can't have the same place of articulation; the fact that CeRT verb roots can take a nasal infix but CeT roots can't, etc., etc.). --Angr (t·c) 13:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, I just re-discovered Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indo-European root word articles, where it was decided they should be merged to Proto-Indo-European roots, but no one's done it yet. I myself was one of the ones who voted for that solution. The people from Wiktionary said they didn't want them, since they're hypothetical roots, not attested words. I also like your suggestion at Talk:List of common Indo-European roots#Focus? that they could be put at Wikibooks. --Angr (t·c) 13:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: well, I agree. But can we just delete ker-1 through to ker-5 (and all the other k-roots in :Category:Indo-European linguistics) then? Imho they should have been speedied, it is stupid to have an article entitled "ker-5", it appears these were blindly copied out of Pokorny; obviously, this root is not known as "ker-5", the five is just a random ordinal it got in Pokorny or some other dictionary. Shall we delete away, or embark on a multiple AfD for them all? dab (ᛏ) 13:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already been a multiple AfD for them all: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indo-European root word articles, and the result was that they should all be merged into Proto-Indo-European roots. It's just no one's done it yet. --Angr (t·c) 14:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: that's fine, I'll do it some time. But it seems exceedingly pointless to have a redirect called "ker-5" left hanging around. dab (ᛏ) 14:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, take it to WP:RFD then. --Angr (t·c) 15:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "root" articles

message: There is now an "Indo-European" menu item in the edit tools box, making it possible to quickly and easily add the following characters: ḱ ǵ ʰ ʷ h1 h2 h3 m̥ n̥ l̥ r̥ ē ō þ ð ƕ. (I know the last one is used for Gothic, not PIE, but it seemed silly to have a separate menu item for Gothic consisting solely of þ ƕ, so I stuck it here.) --the preceding comment is by  Angr 01:17, 14 January 2006.
(Added  --teb728 03:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where? I don't see any "Indo-European" menu item. --teb728 04:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the whole idea of having menu items in the edit tools box got undone a few days after I posted the above message. It was a great idea, one most other Wikipedias as well as Wiktionary have, but it was confusing and frightening people here. Angr (t • c) 09:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Confusing people? What people? Who are these wingnuts? How can it be confusing? There are plenty of far more confusing things on Wikipedia than this. Ugh. Somebody's taken the Think out of GroupThink again. --Glengordon01 19:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indo-European menu item in edit tools box 

message: The idea of having root articles does not need to be dead.  Have a look at the proposals at User:Doric Loon/PIE Roots project page and see what you think.  --Doric Loon 16:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Root articles revived

message: In that table listing nominal suffixes, the right side refers to "Ramat 1998", but there is no such reference in the References section.  Can someone who has that book add a reference? Wtrmute 01:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Attribution

message: Are there any geminated consonants in the Proto-Indo-European language? --84.61.54.143 17:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Geminates aren't usually reconstructed for the protolanguage, no. There does seem to have been a degemination process active: the second person singular of *h1es- "to be" ought morphologically to have been *h1essi, but reconstruction from attested languages gives *h1esi instead. Angr (talk) 18:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geminates in PIE