Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Norse mythology)/Archive 2

message: I've written the draft of a new proposal. I feel it's much clearer than the previous guideline. I also feel it takes some of the comments we've been hearing into account and tries to compromise and please as many people as possible. Please comment and modify as needed. Maybe Salleman could add his new ideas for the representation of alternative anglicizations. I'd like to see that.
If you're completely opposed to the proposal it's probably best that you don't modify it but write up your own counterproposal instead. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:25, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New proposal 

message: Please can you explian what this means in English?
:In articles dealing with Old Norse mythology the spelling of names should be that of standardized 13th century Old Icelandic as found in, for example, the Íslenzk fornrit edition of Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla.
We do not use name in English from the 13th century without updating them so why should an English encyclopaedia be using an C13th Icelandic name? If  people working on these articles have taken the spelling used in works like Ursula Dronke's translation of the Poetic Edda (the best English translation there is, no competition) and Richard North's recent book on Haustlöng (an excellent and very accessible work) and made some minor adaptations. The why not say that instead of the above? Philip Baird Shearer 19:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, good point. I'll try to clarify this better tomorrow. The point is that the sources of Norse mythology are written in 13th century Icelandic / Old Norse so we just mean that the original names should be used, as per WP:UE when no common English form exists. There's a certain standardized spelling for those which scholars have used consistently since the 19th century. We should certainly emphasize that this is something used in English works so the Íslenzk fornrit reference may not be the best one. Let me sleep on it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "There's a certain standardized spelling for those which scholars have used consistently since the 19th century." C. S. Lewis, a great scholar of languages and literature in the 20th century, said he "loved Balder before Christ" (spelling as in original). Did he misspell Balder? Jonathunder 00:29, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: He wasn't using the standardized Old Norse spelling, he was using an anglicized form. See Old Norse orthography. The idea here is that if the name of Baldr had survived from Proto-Germanic into Modern English it would probably have come out as Balder. That's why some romantically inclined writers preferred that form. Some still do, though it's hard to find a recent translation that uses it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

text: This is on purpose, since the Beowulf page is likely to be read by a wider audience than the Hroðgar page. I have been waiting for some feedback on this choice, since I am having my doubts.--Wiglaf 00:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The spelling of words was not standardised until dictionaries started to be used. I can show you hundreds of documents from the 17th century backwards where the names of people are spelt in more than one way. The most famous of which I suppose is Shakespeare's spelling of his own name. As a general rule one of the spellings, or a later popular spelling of a first and family name, are often used in modern texts instead of all the original spellings in a haphazard manner. For example Chick Bowen uses "The Faerie Queene" as an example, but the author of the tract Edmund Spencer's name was spelt several diffrent ways by contemporaries.  Edmund Spenser is just one spelling of his name. Edmond was a common spelling at the time. The family name today is usually spelt Spencer not Spenser (as in the Earl Spencer) and some texts use that spelling. See Annotated Census of Spenser Editions, 1569 - present No 13 for Edmond, and No 2.f and 7 for Spencer. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A good point, Philip. This is the case with Old Norse manuscripts too and the reason that scholars developed a standardized spelling to begin with. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 09:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: Why move the page to a more narrow name? Why shouldn't these guidelines just as well apply for historic persons in the same time and space? Fornadan (t) 21:41, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't mind that. But I think there are other considerations to be taken into account when dealing with historical people - for example there are certain conventions for the names of kings. And for e.g. Norwegian people the Modern Norwegian forms of their names can come into play. But if we achieve consensus on this it might set a helpful precedent for dealing with the wider area of Old Norse names in general. Originally I thought we'd have a better chance of gaining a consensus for the (previous) proposal and having a focused discussion on it if it was restricted in scope. In any case I'd be happy to discuss the wider issue at a page of your choice. Perhaps Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Old Norse) would be a good place. Old English can be discussed separately. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: I recommend it for background information relevant to this debate.
Found here: (link in centre of page)
P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 00:32, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Grammatical Treatise 

message: Everyone here is aware of the limitations of Google tests for determining common use but they have the advantage of being easily available and when their results are overwhelming they give us a good clue. If anyone is interested in a quantitative guideline I suggest the following procedure which can be completed in two minutes for a given name. 
I'm willing to  concede the existence of a common English name for subject X from Norse mythology if all of the following conditions are met:
# A search for 'X mythology' on Google yields more than 100,000 hits.
# No other spelling of the name yields more than 10% of that number of hits.
# Both the most recent version of Britannica and the most recent version of Encarta have the name under that spelling.
This will easily yield not only Thor, Odin and Loki but also Valhalla, valkyrie and even Asgard.
I think that's probably as much Norse mythology as the average English-speaking person knows.
Does anyone think this would be helpful? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A quantitative test 

message: I fully respect that CDThieme and No Account are entitled to their opinions and I'd like to point out the following. We've been discussing this proposal for more than a month now. Each step of the way I've been asking for input. You have offered nothing. When I propose that we consider the convention adapted you emerge and register your disapproval without offering any alternative or any material input. But if you absolutely insist that we vote on this then let's do that. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The objections

message: Okay, five votes so far. Let's bring this to a wider audience. I'm going to start by contacting everyone who has commented on this page and tell tham that a proposal is up for a vote. I'm also going to post notices on some high-profile Norse mythology articles and on the village pump. If I get to it I might also try some other notice boards and even people who've participated in some previous move votes. I'm going to try to make a neutral "ad" so to speak and also contact people who have disagreed with me in the past. But I obviously have a stake in this so if someone wants to help draw attention to this and ensure that I'm not conjuring up some secret army of people who vote in lockstep with me then that's great :) I'm especially talking to those of you who disagree with me - feel free to bring this to the attention of anyone you think might be interested. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:29, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Taking this to a broader audience