Talk:Median language

message: Lots of sentences enclosed in quotation marks.  Without directly saying who is talking (rather than sticking a reference mark next to it), it looks very unencyclopedic, unprofessional, lazy and confused.  With all due respect.
71.241.95.179 (talk) 11:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Unattributed quotes?

message: Glad to see this page.  I am of the opinion that "Mede" is a better adjectival form than "Median", simply because Median has other unrelated meanings in English.  So I would rather see this moved to "Mede language".  However, I realize there are others out there who prefer "Median", for whatever reason (both are technically correct)...  Instead of moving it unilaterally, I thought I'd take an informal poll, how do other editors feel about it and why? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mede is a noun, not an adjective. You can pick "Medean" if you like something unambiguous. And do me a favour and for once check your facts before starting an argument. dab (𒁳) 07:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gee, thanks!  What a nice guy! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Thanks

message: According to the late Dr. Tafazzoli,  The fahlav^ya@t, being survivals of the Median dialects, have certain linguistic affinities with Parthian, although in their existing forms they have been much influenced by Persian..  This is related to what Henning has stated:(Dank der Nennung von Abar-sahr brauchen wir uns also bei der Bestimmung des manichäischen pahlawänig durch den immerhin misslichen Umstand nicht beirren zu lassen, dass gegen Ende der Regierungszeit der Arsakiden der Name ihrer Stammprovinz ('Parthien’) auch im einheimischen Sprachgebrauch auf die gesamten von ihnen direkt verwalteten Länder ausgedehnt wurde, und zwar besonders auf Medien. Das war Ibnu '1-Muqaffac im 8ten Jhdt. noch wohlbekannt, und so erklärte er  Pahlawi als die Sprache von Pahla (Fahlahl-Bahlah) im Sinne von Medien (Isfahän, Rai, Hamadän, Mäh-Nihäwand, ÄSarbäigän); hier ist das Eigentliche, d.h. Parthien selbst, ganz unter den Tisch gefallen. Besser entspricht dem Ursprünglichen eine leider fragmentarische manichäische Stelle, in der Isfahän, nach einer Lücke Nisäbür, schliess­lich als Zusammenfassung ‘das ganze Land Pahrawag’ genannt werden. Aus dem Gebrauch von Pahla(w) für Medien erklärt sich auch die persische Bezeichnung fahlawiyyät für Dialekt­gedichte, und zwar in erster Linie solche, die in den Dialekten des medi-schen Gebiets verfasst sind. W.B. Henning, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Iranistik (Leiden, 1958), pp.95).  Translation:  "Parthia" by the end of the Arsacid period had been extended to include all of Media(Pahlah of ibn Mofaqqa), and was still so used in the 8th century. The original meaning of "Parthia" had fallen from use. This fact (viz. the appellation of "Parthia" for Media) was still well known to Ibnu l-Muqaffa in the 8th century: he explained Pahlawi as the language of Pahla (Fahlahl-Bahlah) in the sense of Media (Isfahan, Ray, Hamadan, Mah-Nahavand, Azerbaijan). Here, the original sense, i.e. Parthia proper, has been is completely dropped.  The original meaning is still evident from a fragmentary Manichean text, which calls Isfahan "the entire land of Pahrawag". The later usage of Pahla(w)=Media goes to explain the Persian fahlawiyyät for "vernacular poetry".   I have included a small section.  --alidoostzadeh 19:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fahlaviyat 

message: Without providing any reason for doing so, Pejman47 reverted a previous edit summarized as "tersify to not stray too far from the topic, and try to clarify to avoid confusion with the subject of the article." I have reinstated that previous edit, and followed it up with with a  comment to his/her talk page. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert by Pejman47 

message: I would like to delete the source John Limbert. He is not a linguistic or expert. We can have better sources for these matters. Is deleting this source OK with the editors? Xashaiar (talk) 10:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted the section after rereading it and realising it is actually about Kurds and Kurdish, not about the Median language. Dougweller (talk) 19:54, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A source

message: I reverted an edit which claimed "the intro was better before". This edit removed the important piece of info that "Median is an Old Iranian language". Editors should not "remove" info. If the sentence is not clear editor should collaborate and find a better sentence. Thanks. Xashaiar (talk) 08:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: change in intro 

message: One of the few Median words given in the article is aspa (horse).  But another source (Arnold Rosenberg, The Hardest Natural Languages, Lingvisticae Investigationes, III:2, pp. 323-339, 1979) says  'the entire known fragment of the ancient Medean language comprise the single word σπακα meaning "horse".'   Even reading σπακα as spaka and imagining a common root -spa- with aspa, they are not obviously the same word, unless there is some assumed grammar which is not obvious from Old Persian. --Rumping (talk) 18:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, spaka means "dog" or "bitch", not "horse" ... Rosenberg is clearly confused. See Wiktionary. Too many people with no clue of linguistics muck around in Wikipedia's language-related articles ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:03, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horse 

message: I think the article here should reflect the, not uncommon, view that there may not have been a distinct Median language at all. The document on Harvard's webiste (reference 4) by Prods Oktor Skjærvø exemplifies the standard evidence given in support of the theory of a Median language. However, as historian Pierre Briant states :
...the theory of linguistic borrowings remains quite disputable... The problem is that we know virtually nothing of Median, for the plain and simple reason that we do not have a single inscription in that language. By reasoning that might be considered circular, Median has been reconstructed on the basis of Persian borrowings, themselves reconstructed... Some contend instead that the language of the Achaemenid inscriptions is a common language (koinē) used by the Medes as well as the Persians. According to this hypothesis, the theory of linguistic borrowings is considerably weakened, and it is not supported by the historical interpretations proposed by the Classical authors.
Currently the article rings too authoritatively on the firm existence of a Median language.
:Prods Oktor Skjærvø is a linguist specialising in Iranian languages. Pierre Briant is a historian. Skjærvø can speak on linguistic issues with authority because he understands them; Briant cannot. This is an important point to understand.
:But I'll try to explain – there are certain specific sound developments that can be found in Old Persian, and only in Old Persian among the Old Iranian languages, and not in Avestan for example (where the sounds – they happen to be all consonants or groups of consonants – develop differently). They are common in Old Persian, but rarely you find exceptions; and occasionally you find the common Old Persian and the exceptional development side by side, as in asa- vs. aspa- "horse". And it just so happens that the exceptional developments are all found in Avestan too, and regular there, and they're also the common and evidently regular developments in (almost) all Middle and Modern Iranian languages except those in the south, or originating in the south, in the Persis, that appear to descend from Old/Middle Persian. So how do you explain this? Well, the explanation that makes the best sense is that the words with the exceptional developments in Old Persian are borrowings from a different Iranian language. And historically and geographically, the language of the Medians (which judging from the spáka "dog" quoted by Herodotus has the "exceptional" developments too) simply makes the most sense. The logic here is sound, even if Median is (apart from this one word) not directly attested. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:59, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  There may not have been a "Median language" 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :Old Kurdish language. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 24#Old Kurdish language until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  signed, Rosguill talk 16:59, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Old Kurdish language" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]