Talk:Matthias Bel

message: Oh dear oh dear oh dear.... let's keep this very simple. In his own words, Bel described himself as follows:
 "Lingua Slavus, natione Hungarus, eruditione Germanus", 
that is: "in terms of language a Slovakian, in terms of political identity an inhabitant of the regnum hungaricum and in terms of learning a German"
... nothing Magyar-Hungarian there, is there? No Hungarian-magyar national conscience there whatsoever....Don't even try...natione hungaricus in the 18th century does not mean "ethnically-nationally a Magyar". Have a look at "Nationalism: Rethinking the paradigm in the European context" by Andrew Bell-Fiallkoff and Andrei S.Markovits, especially around page 29....(http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=uciaspubs/research)
It's a bit sad, these desperate attempts to hijack people by hook or by crook ("shared ethnicity!", mother a hungarian gentlewoman!yes, he's certainly somehow somewhere hungarian-magyar...Hungarian national conscience...!!!") when they left nice and absolutely clear instructions as to how they saw themselves...ah well, it's only wikipedia....
I have to say, the breathtaking incapability of these English wikipedia aticles about Hungary to understand the difference between the Latin "hungaricus" in its pre-19th century meaning and the English "Hungarian" in it's 21st century meaning is turning into something of an all-wikipedia embarassment.....sad...really, really sad....
--Atlanticvalues (talk) 17:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's not consider this sentence a declaration of his ethnicity (Slavic? Czech?). Squash Racket 17:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, according to sources he had shared ethnicity (Slovak and Hungarian parents), shared identity (he spoke Hungarian and Slovak, even German and Latin), he contributed to both the Hungarian and the Slovak culture. Claiming either that he was Slovak or that he was Hungarian would be misleading. Squash Racket 18:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are absolutely right! --Koppany 19:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bel in his own words.... 

message: Move to Matthias Bel. Parsecboy (talk) 20:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really, generally we have different subset of rules for the uses of letters such as é. Many people did not have é on their keyboards or typewriters so they simply stripped the correct letters and replaced them with e. In Wikipedia it's costs nothing to have the correct letter, it was always a big debate here, not so simple as checking the usage at one place. Hobartimus (talk) 08:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That is true, but his last name is spelled Bel/Bél in various languages (as per the article), so it's difficult to tell which is "the correct one". Moreover, English as such doesn't use accents at all (with the exception of ï and ë in older spelling), so it seems unlikely that the English version of his name would be Bél. In addition to that I wasn't really able to find English sources for Bél - I found some for Bel, though.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterRet (talk • contribs) 10:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

text: I'm not against the "Matthias Bel" version. Seems to be more common in English than "Matthias Bél". We will present both versions in the lead anyway. Squash Racket (talk) 18:25, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Reverted the controversial move by Wizzard for the original Matthias Bél for the time being. Hobartimus (talk) 10:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: This sentence may be technically correct (it comes with a reference) but is nevertheless misleading. According to the German article, he translated Johann Arndt and some songs by Johann Anastasius Freylingshausen into Czech, as well as the New Testament.
Back in the 18th century there can hardly have been a concept of seperate Czech and Slovak languages, just as Serb and Croat were usually seen as variants of the same language up  to the breakup of Yugoslavia. So Bel saw Slovak probably just as the variant of Czech spoken in Hungary.—Graf Bobby (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference meant "a language book in Slovak". If that's easy to misunderstand, it may be corrected. He translated books into Czech/Slovak, but didn't edit a book dealing specifically with the language. Squash Racket (talk) 10:44, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Matthias Bél is incorrect in any language. The first title of the article was Matej Bel and this is what is correct. Or, Matthias Bel, but not Bél or anything else. --Wizzard (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "He never edited a Slovak language book though" 

message: As the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary was Latin until 1867 , using Hungarian names for cities etc. before this date is anachronistic. Since the Latin name that was used at the time can scarcely be found, we should list all the places with their modern names.Wladthemlat (talk) 16:38, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We often meet with this improper claim mostly by anti-Hungarian trolls about the so-called "official language latin", etc., because they are even frustrated if they see an original Hungarian placename on a territory today belong to other countries. Let's make it clear, as more of us did in many pages: according to Wikipedia consensus and agreement contemporary names can be used at the first place, and the present-day placenames should be indicated also. Latin was for centuries the official "language" of administration, but it does not mean people really used it to call placenames, cities, etc. We never meet any claim where in i.e. historical German/Romanian areas the original German or Romanian placenames should be ignored, because the administration was Latin or Slavic, anyway the Latin names are mostly the transliteration or the phonetic transcription of the original placenames. The relevance between the modern official language in the new age and the language of administration the medieval age should be distinguished since they measure and evaluation are not the same. Anyway, in under some circumstances like a king from a different house, like an union or alliance, or vassal status can cause interesting situations in a country's life where the country's nation, ethnicity, name, ruler or administration is not the same at the time, to say nothing of any special or individual circumstances. Just read my answer for the same claim in the Anton Bernolák's discussion page for special details. All in all, Hungarian placenames on the territories belonged to Hungary at the time contemporarily can be used, since they were original names used by the majority, and the Latin derived from them without any mass usage and also these names were known by outsiders. Here only one addition is needed since it is the English Wikipedia, those non-Hungarian placenames can be used on the first place that for any reason historically were used in in the contemporary English lanugague/sources, as i.e. the German version like Pressburg. So I will add the necessary Hungarian placenames, but for now only on the second place as a special politeness.(KIENGIR (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hungarian names for places before 1867 

message: About this problem , I believe that User:CoolKoon is right about this edit because in the year of 1735 (in this historical context) the official name of that state should be used, in this case Hungarian name Pozsony for Bratislava. The usual "formula" is in this case "Hungarian (today: Slovakian). I believe if we examine other articles we can find examples that proper name is used as an official of that time in history. Adrian (talk) 11:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not think that User:CoolKoon is right about this edit. Pozsony - official name used since 1808 (along with Posonium, Posony, Preßburg, Pressporek) "should be used" and why not form Pozsony / Bratislava or Pressporek, older name than Pozsony? The "formula" is wrong, because it was not Hungarian city, but multiethnic city. "Kingdom of Hungary" was never homogeneous Hungarian political structure and this debate ended in 1920. Now we live(most people) in the 21st century...--Omen1229 (talk) 12:48, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with your last sentence (we live in the 21st century) and with the idea you are stating, but we are talking about history here and following the historical time-line. Take for an example any other historical article, ex: Sándor Petőfi - take a look at the infobox, how are the place names arranged. In practice, here on wikipedia we use official names of places from that period of time. I don`t have any special knowledge about this(so I don`t know which language names was official then), and as you say from 1808 this name was used, but was was the official name in the year 1735 for Bratislava? Adrian (talk) 13:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In 1735 Latin was the official language. Fakirbakir (talk) 14:03, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then according to this source the Latin name of Bratislava is Posonium, Wratisslaburgium - I don`t know which one of this 2 should be used.Adrian (talk) 14:10, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

text:  This source  states Latin name Posonium, I guess we should use this name for this period of time. Adrian (talk) 14:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In 1735, the administrative language was Latin, which is not the same as the modern concept of official language. The Hungarian name is much older than the 19th century (it was written as Poson earlier). Nevertheless, all these are not that relevant, since the German Pressburg is quite widely used in English sources and according to Elonka's naming conventions, which directly mentions Pressburg, this should be used. That guideline states: "For places that have another widely accepted (historic) name in English (e.g. Pressburg for Bratislava before 1919): use that name, and mention the modern name and relevant alternative names at the first occurrence.". The relevant alternative names that we should mention, along with the current modern name, are probably both Pozsony and Pressporek, since Matthias Bel wrote about himself that "by language a Slav, by nation a Hungarian, by erudition a German", so all name variants seem relevant. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 12:28, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok. I did`t know about this consensus. Thank you. Greetings.Adrian (talk) 13:59, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No worries and thanks for coming here as a potential mediator; such a neutral, good faith approach is always appreciated. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 10:24, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Except that Elonka's experiment (to reach consensus) has failed, as can be clearly seen from the experiment's talk page. It was clearly stated by Elonka herself, that her experiment was not aimed at reaching majority-vote based decision, but to achieve consesus. The part of experiment's major protagonists (such as User::Tankred) claimed the consesus not reached. That means we can not talk of guideline in any sense of the word. In other words, naming disputes remain unresolved. Rachotilko (talk) 13:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maybe I can help? + Pozsony 

message: OK folks, I see that you translate Matej Bels famous description of himself as being "de lingua Slavus" as "by language a Slav". That is wrong. In the 18th century, there was no unified Slavic language anymore of which Matej Bel could have been a speaker. When writing about themselves in Latin in the 16th, 17th, 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, Slovakians always used the expression "Slavus". Even the first generally recognized grammar books of the Slovakian language published by Anton Bernolak at the end of the 18th century used in their Latin titles the expression Slavica, f. ex: 
Slowár Slowenskí, Česko-Laťinsko-Ňemecko-Uherskí, seu Lexicon Slavicum Latino-Germanico-Ungaricum auctore Antonio Bernolák [Slowakisches Tschechisch-lateinisch-deutsch-ungarisches Wörterbuch, seu …] I–VI, Ofen (heute Budapest), 1825–27
You see: the expression "Slowar slovenski" is translated as "lexicon Slavicum" and "slovenski" until this day of course means "Slovakian" and not "Slavic" (that would have been "slovAnski").
Other examples of Bernolaks books codifying the Slovakian language:
Dissertatio-critica de literis Slavorum (Bratislava 1787)
Gramatica Slavica (Bratislava 1790), sie ist im Schloss Topoľčianky aufbewahrt.[2]
Etymológia vocum slavicarum (Trnava 1791)
All these books are not works about a (non existing) unified slavic language but codifications of the Western Slovakian dialect as a written language and still they use in their Latin titles the expression "Slavorum", "Slavica", "slavicarum".
Another example would be Juraj / George Thurzo, palatin of the regnum hungaricum at the beginning of the 17th century: he used in his Latin correspondence the expression "nostra natio slavica" and translated it himself as "nasa slovenska nacija" that is "our Slovakian nation". So you see: when speaking about Slovakians in Latin, Slovakians used the expression "Slavus" or "Slavicus".
I cannot help but notice that the German wikipedia calls a spade a spade and Matej Bel "ein slowakischer Historiker, lutherischer Theologe, Pädagoge und Geschichtsschreiber".
So just do yourselves a favour and call Matej Bel what he called himself: "de lingua Slavus" in this context absolutely clearly means: "by language a Slovakian".
The English wikipedia pages about "Hungarian" history are generally known to be a bit of a magyar joke.No one ever quotes wikipedia articles in serious grown-up academic discussions but still: get a grip on those internet-magyars manufacturing mysterious Hungarians who in reality thought of themselves as Slovak / Slovakians, will you?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Powerplay1000 (talk • contribs) 13:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The main question is: do you have some reliable and verifiable sources which translate the sentence "lingua Slavus, natione Hungarus, eruditione Germanus" as "by language a Slovak[ian] ..."? German Wikipedia, of course, does not count as a reliable source. You may also want to read about original research. Note that there are reliable and verifiable sources for the current English translation, for example: . Bye, KœrteFa {ταλκ} 06:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still crap...sorry.... / Bel called himself "by languge a Slovakian" 

message: What you are doing looks like WP:SYN.
This is also an Irish name Bél - see Eógan Bél, by your reasoning we should mention this too.  79.117.141.87 (talk) 20:15, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the Hungarian meaning is more important than the Irish one. Fakirbakir (talk) 21:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't base our articles on personal opinions. We could discuss the inclusion your statement as long as a possible Hungarian origin suggested by the name would be affirmed by a reliable author, but in this case it is just original research, I hope you can agree with that 79.117.214.211 (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bél 

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