We do not accept pseudoscientific etymologies on Wiktionary, only work that follows scholarly research. All your additions of this kind of material has been reverted, and this is your warning: if you continue to add it to entries, you will be blocked. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:38, 11 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

@CodeCat, -sche: As you have reverted WYY's edits in the past, please note this warning and carry it out if necessary. Thanks. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:39, 12 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

I am sorry that you felt the need to revert all my contributions; I can sympathise if you prefer to only receive such contributions from one who has obtained a linguistic degree, but I was under the impression that building up information was one of Wiktionary's policies. I was editing one after another and only read your reversions afterwards. I have compared a number of etymological dictionaries and am pleased to be able state that those etymologies (except for the unattested origins) that I have seen so far from this Wiktionary are more exhaustive and reliable than even those in the online etymological dictionary. However, with over 20 years of experience with this subject I can decipher which ones are most likely to be correct - the Oxford etymological dictionary, seconded by Skeat's in general; therefore I do not hazard a guess at any etymology, but consider the path of the word as well as Grimm's law. I cannot sufficiently emphasive that a linguist is more likely to be accurate than a scientist, if one of the most alarming statements that I have ever read on this subject is anything to go by, vis. the words: I, we, two, three and five being some of the oldest words in English, from a so-called scientist - normal intelligence condemns such a statement, when it is obvious that they are all from Anglo-Saxon and with the possible exception of 'we', of Indo-European origin! The older the words, the greater the changes that one would encounter - which of course is obvious. Novice etymologists in the past just compared the nearest words they could find, even in Welsh. They might see a connection between ISLE (Classical) and ISLAND (Germanic) where the 's' has slipped in, from 'isle'. Such novices - and I was one when about 20 - might also accept the nonsense of MAPEL deriving from the borrowed Spanish MEPLE. At least two words have been absorbed from early Pictish into Gaelic. The potential inaccuracy of pre-Celtic etymologies is about the square of that for the Celtic few! This, however is where my interest largely lies.

With regard to your request, I am not lawlessly editing any further etymologies, whether you threaten to block me or not; but, in answer to the page on 'Wattle', that is from A.S. WATEL or WATUL (hurdle) - Skeat - earlier derivations dubious. 'Sulk' is from A.S. SOLCEN (sulky, languid), past participle, from SEOLCAN in a-seolcan (be slothful, sluggish); cognate = German SELKEN (to drop, fall). Its connection with Spanish HOLGAR (be lazy) cannot be easily ascertained, therefore it is inadmissible, unless supported by those who can prove certain words to be of Iberian origin.

Regards, Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk) 20:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)AndrewReply

Werdna Yrneh Yarg[edit] The following message was for the above named: Werdna Yrneh Yarg.

This is becoming mildly annoying. Please stop continuously posting on my talkpage. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 14:46, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

• Given the warning on his talk page after a history of bad edits and ignoring basic etymological principles, I guess this is block-worthy, but I don't feel like looking through the edits and making a decision. @JohnC5, Chuck Entz, or any other admins, can you guys decide whether to block him? Thanks. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 13:51, 27 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

• So, I had been worrying about this for a while. This user seems earnestly to mean well, but his theories are wildly inaccurate and often difficult to understand. He also has a habit of making formatting errors over the course of long strings of edits to a page. It would sadden me, though, to have to block someone just because he's almost always wrong. I'd say it makes sense to do so, but I'm not sure I could bring myself to do it. —JohnC5 14:23, 27 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

• Alright. I warned him, I'll block him — but just a week. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:09, 27 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Collapse Dear (Mr. CodeCat),

Thank you for your message. It is not right for me to assume an evolutional root for present words from a pre-Babel language. It is a known fact that most of the dialects around Caucasus are entirely distinct. One of them has been stated to be the origin of the Basque grammar; but that is beside the point. No one can prove that many language heads did not start up at the time of the confusion of languages. I, personally like to cite a word that is attested for a stock root, rather than making up a conjectured one. I have had to research into pre-Aryan languages, such as Basque and Finnish, in order to decipher some of the words of unknown origin. To provide an example of an unintelligent conjecture that I made, regarding the origin of Basque for 5 as 'basti', and 'nilar' for 4; but that was just ignorance. The nearest to the stock root is Turkish BESH, (long E). The nasalised Indo-European root, PENKWE answers to most European forms, but Finnish VISI is ultimately allied with Basque BOST. An old Semitic word for 5 is MACH, and they all answer to a stock root, MESH in Hebrew CHAMESH, probably from its usage, in spite of all having distinct languages at the time. Another common Eurasian prefix is MAN, implying habitation in various contexts. This answers to Hebrew MAON (den, or habitation). I have had discussions on this subject with a friend who has a degree in ancient languages.

Reply More Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk)‎18:16, 11 August 2015 Collapse For starters, not Mr. CodeCat. Don't assume.

You'll have to clarify what you mean by "pre-Babel" language or "pre-Aryan", those are not terms I've ever come across before. But what you're doing now is basically pseudoscience. You can't just compare two random words in widely different languages and say that they're related. English is not related to Hebrew, Indo-European is not related to Finnish and not to Basque.

If your friend really has a degree in linguistics, and accepts all of this, then I honestly worry for their contributions to science.

Reply Parent More —CodeCat‎18:27, 11 August 2015 Collapse Thank you for your message. I fully realise that two similar words of similar meaning belonging to diverse language families cannot be merely connected without an older stock root from a parent language or analogous words retained in the minds of such speakers. My usage and style was NOT derived from my friend, otherwise I can sympathise with your last sentence. I learned most of my pre-research of ancient languages from 'the Loom of Language' by Bodmer. By pre-Aryan, I was referring to the older family stock of Finn-Ugrian that includes Magyar, parent of Hungarian and Finnish, that as you state, are outside of the Indo-European family. However there was a period when only one language was spoken, that I wrongly believed to be Akkadian as being the first Semetic language to disappear, as well as being antediluvian. Sumerian, as one of ancient languages, was restored and in use until about the time of Sanskrit that led to Prakrit. It must also be realised that the ancient languages of Britain belonged to different families: it must not be assumed that they were all Indo-European; because, for example, the two main verbs, to be and to possess, in Pictish are strongly connected with those in Basque that is constitutionally separate in its syntax, et cetera, from all the other language heads. Indo-European, for example is, Japhetic, whereas Iberian, or Punic and Hebrew are Semetic. In Cornwall we have the Iron Age Celtic derivative 'DIN...' for a fort, from Celtic 'DUN' whence our word DOWN (hill), possibly through Old Saxon though; whereas the other preposition 'KER' = Welsh 'CAER' is akin to Punic QERETH (town or city), from another stock entirely. It is these oldest words in English that have slipped through the multitude of conquests, that have been my focal point of attention. When writing out all the mediaeval and older words in the English dictionary commencing A and B, eight years ago, I was quite free to admit that only about 0.2% did I need to change. I used the Oxford Etymological Dictionary as my base source. This was a hobbly of mine since I was seventeen.

Kind Regards,

Reply Parent More Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk)‎19:23, 11 August 2015 Collapse Where are you getting the idea that at one point only one language was spoken? See w:Proto-Human language, where it's noted that this idea is seriously criticised and linguists consider it unscientific. Even smaller "macro-families" like Nostratic have not gained wide acceptance in linguistics, so Proto-Human is way out there. If we're going to discuss etymology on Wiktionary, you have to at least be aware of and speak in terms of current scientific consensus.

Reply Parent More —CodeCat‎19:28, 11 August 2015 Collapse Thank you, and also thanks for the two messages on editors' news. Kind Regards, Andrew

Reply Parent More Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk)‎19:43, 17 August 2015 Collapse Werdna, you may wish to read the article "How likely are chance resemblances between languages?" over on the Zompist blog. This addresses the pattern of correspondences you describe above.

You may also find "Proto-World and the Language Instinct" of interest. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:53, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Reply Parent More ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig‎19:53, 17 August 2015

Collapse ‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig Thank you so much for this information that I am perusing. I made sure that I perused the sites on Sound Changes, to refresh my mind on Grimm's law and other laws, before editing Talk pages on certain words. My aim is to be available towards perfecting Wiktionary etymologies of illusive words, to make sure that it is indisputably the most reliable reference. Certain Proto Indo-European roots have caused me concern, particularly that of DOWN, where the meaning changes abruptly and could well be criticised by professional etymologists. It is always safer to be able to cite a known language for the period of the unattested = * root, such as Hittite for an axe, under etymology for ADZE, that I always regarded as an Iberian word that remained through the conquests. Since the spelling changes considerably over the years, and there are a number of such words in Spanish, some of which were borrowed into Basque, two or three illusive words may have these remote connections. You may be interested that English BAD is cited in the Guiness Book of Records as the oldest English word; but I reject folk etymologies. All of what you have recommended for me will be essential if I am to edit words seriously. Kind Regards, Andrew

The "cl" in Welsh cludair would correspond to *hl in Germanic, I don't know much about the details of consonant changes in Celtic, but at least at the Proto-Celtic level one would expect something that starts with *gl. There's a reason w:Grimm's law is call a law: there are a few known ways that other processes interfere with it, such as w:Verner's law, and with unstressed monosyllabic function words (which may be a special case of Verner's law working across word boundaries), but unexplained exceptions are pretty rare. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:34, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Chuck Entz: Thank you for your edit on CLOUD. I have removed the worst part of mine. However, I had studied both Grimm's Law and Verner's Law before commencing any Talk Page edits. I can recognise etymological logic, or I would not attempt any etymologies. I was aware of the sound changes between Celtic and Germanic previously; but cringe at the assumption that A.S. HŌRE links with Welsh CARA (to love). Before editing any further Talk Pages I shall write out these laws and have them in front of me. My object with all this was to provide any alternatives that would lead to the most reliable etymologies in Wiktionary. I do not take chances. Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2015 (UTC)AndrewReply

Hi, Andrew. I don’t know exactly what you are doing that creates multiple signatures (two before and two after) every time you sign a comment. You should only have a single signature (user name, talk page if desired, time and date stamp) at the very end of each comment. To do that, just put ~~~~ (four tildes) at the end of your comment. When you save it, you should have only your username and time and date stamp, at the very end of your comment (like mine, which appears at the end of my comment). —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Dear Stephen G. Brown,

Thank you for this instruction; I shall delete the initial signings. The reason I signed at the beginning was in case another editor wished to add to the previous edit and this might have caused confusion. Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk) 07:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)AndrewReply

From now, all my edits on the Discussion pages of word will have a number assigned to each etymological connection I have made. Beneath my discussion entry may eventually be numbers in the respective order of the origins and/or cognates presented in the main entry page as to their relevance. However, have changed my decision over that for the moment - we do not want any confusion for readers. It is bad enough for them to realise that anyone can edit the Talk pages. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that every contribution I make is responsible, logical and not just scientific, but as accurate as possible. These numbers shall NOT be posted by the contributions on the main entry - that would be vandalism; the reader is supposed to be able to run through the etymologies there by eye and accept a logical path. The numerals are really out of seven; but they represent the range of acceptability/non-acceptability of the cognates and roots. [0] means 'Absolutely not; [1] means 'Exceedingly unlikely'; [2] means 'Very dubious'; [3] means 'Questionable'; [4] means 'Possible'; [5] means 'Probable'; [6] means 'Likely'; [7] means 'Most Likely' or *Unattested; [8] means 'Attested'; [9] means 'Obvious' - only used for close matches within the same language or dialect, at linkable periods. Numbers are now in square brackets, until a better idea is presented. Andrew H. Gray 16:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Andrew

When you write a number in double square brackets, like [[4]], you are linking to the page on the number 4. This seems irrelevant. Perhaps use normal (brackets). Equinox ◑ 17:07, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you - you caught me in time. Any better ideas? I should have realised what you have pointed out! It is absolutely vital that I change them ASAP, because I MUST avoid confusion for readers! If you want me to change to round (normal) brackets I shall; but my reason, otherwise, for using a single square bracket is to obviate confusion where rounded brackets might appear to contain footnote registration characters leading to a specific meaning. This is due to my style of normal rounded brackets as used for the meaning of an entry. My mouse 'died' last evening due not having changed its battery! So I was unable to continue corrected from [[]].

Andrew H. Gray 17:11, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Andrew

I think you will still confuse readers because who, looking at your comments on a talk page, will actually realise they have to come to your own personal talk page and look up this September section to find out what the numbers mean? Equinox ◑ 16:08, 18 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

That is a very valid point - I shall have to sort that out! Many thanks for pointing that out. Andrew H. Gray 20:35, 18 September 2015 (UTC)Andrew

@CodeCat, -sche: Do you need me to delete one of the two Old English lemmas for WATTLE? I shall do so if it causes confusion. If you had time to compare that on the relevant Talk Pages with the two or three Main Entries you may find a much fuller version of etymologies, since I have to keep the Main Entries accurate and succinct. I believe that you would agree to what others have proved that the safest and most reliable book dictionaries for origins is the Oxford Dictionaries in around 22 volumes. Before them, Skeat was regarded by avid scholars as the most accurate. However, some of his 'roots' were questionable. WATTLE is assumed to be connected with WAD - one of the 'cool' etymologies, but it really comes from a Proto-Indo-European root *WEI, or *WĒ, (to entwine), or from the root of Old English WIODU = Irish & Gaelic FIODH, and its early Germanic cognates - rather than with a bandage! The fabricated *WADLAZ was alleged to be the link; but that is mere assumption. I have seen too many assumptions that certain words have Proto-Germanic roots, without any real evidence. Andrew H. Gray 21:55, 15 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Old Irish lexeme (“meaning”)

Old English lexeme (“meaning”)

Middle English lexeme (“meaning”)

Irish lexeme (“meaning”)

Ancient Greek lexeme (“meaning”),

Proto-Indo-European *lexeme (“meaning”)

Andrew (talk)

Please do not delete anything in this section. Thank you in anticipation. Andrew (talk)

Thank you for your contribution. Any Germanic cognates with this word are welcome. Perhaps you might have time to scrutinise my rules on my user page, that may bear upon the need for a search for the most recent cognates. Normally, I believe that there is not much point presenting an unattested root, unless other cognates that derive from this root are manifest. Should Germanic cognates be found for NEAP, then no one should criticise these and the unattested Germanic root that you have seen, being transferred to the Entry Etymology 2. I have to state that on the whole the Oxford Etymological dictionary is safer than Websters, who are not always right. I am still only an amateur etymologist, but have had considerable experience in dictionary comparisons. I notice that in the first syllable of most of the unattested PIE roots that the vowel 'Ā', or even 'A' is avoided; this makes me sceptical. Obviously all the vowels would have been used in ancient languages, but have been taught that initially roots were most likely to have the 'Ā' as initial vowel. I now realise that the Greek Ōmega or rather, Ēta is formed from the Attic 'A', but not older than the Sanskrit. I have very recently fabricated a few Proto-Indo-European roots, that I should never have done without considering the Slavonic word that is likely to be the closest to the root. It also amazes me that no one has so far presented the Celtic cognates for brass. Andrew H. Gray 18:29, 15 September 2015 (UTC)Andrew

There's been considerable debate over the years about whether "a" can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European at all. At the very least, it's very rare. Almost all the vowels are an alternation between no vowel, e and o. Germanic strong verbs show the same alternation, once you adjust for sound changes: sing (PIE *e), sang (PIE *o) and sung (PIE no vowel). What looks like "a" and other such vowels in the daughter languages is mostly syllabic consonants like *l,*r,*n,*w,*y and the laryngeals. As for omega and eta: they're not really older. It's just that the Indo-Iranian languages have changed both *e and *o to a, so they don't reflect the original vowels anymore. Greek eta is actually what happens to most long "a"s in just the Attic dialect, which makes it more recent than the development of the dialects. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:17, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Chuck Entz Thank you so much for this; your information answers my questions and fully confirms what I have heard - only presents far more detail of it, that is essential for me to bear in mind. I also should have borne in mind that Hebrew (that is conjectured to have come from Canaanite -itself likely to be an ancient form of Hebrew!) has only HĒ, WAU and ĪODh as letters for vowels - nothing for 'A'. I am intrigued by the references to Semitic about 3,500 BCE: Semitic is from Shem, over 1,000 years later! Andrew H. Gray 07:21, 16 September 2015 (UTC)Andrew

Hi. Since you create huge numbers of talk pages, I would really like you to learn how to create a wiki signature. It won't kill you to look up the instructions. Please try. Equinox ◑ 00:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Equinox ◑ 13:58, 14 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Mr. Andrew Gray, you may find that your comments are actually addressed if you bring them up in the Tea Room or the Etymology Scriptorium. Links to them are here and here respectively. Tharthan (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Werdna Yrneh Yarg Hello Andrew, I've been following your user page for a while now. I believe I am right in saying that you wish to demonstrate the Celtic words that appear in English. It seems that, in the above statement, you are claiming there are words in English inherited from Celtic as opposed to borrowed from Celtic. This is not the case. English is a Germanic language, and any non-Germanic word (and some Germanic ones, for that matter) must have been borrowed into the language at some point. —JohnC5 17:31, 25 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

@JohnC5 Thank you for your message. It conveys what I always supposed at one time. Recent scientific finds have disproved that, however: I was only advised as to this properly last night, by my ex English post-graduate English lecturer; that except in the East of England, the Angles and Saxons found it relatively easy to settle with the natives due to their tongue being already a from of Germanic akin to Brythonic. So just because a lexeme can be traced to a Germanic root does not in every case mean that that root was not already in Britain! I go by Barber's Story of Language', where it clearly states that the number of Celtic words borrowed into English are like 'a drop in the ocean'. Practically every European language has its small group of older words that have been assimilated into its vocabulary. Both Cornish and Welsh are both Brythonic, as you know; but a number of words have been assimilated into Welsh from the Silures - the Iberian race that remained after the conquests. If I ask: "Are you an etymologist" (that I would not have the audacity to do), I would be speaking in Germanic (except obviously for the lexeme, 'etymologist'); but if I were to ask: "Do you do a number of edits?", I am no longer using a Germanic idiom, but a Celtic one. The dilution of old Germanic grammar, where Old English once had not only 'neuter' but duals in some of the nouns and adjectives, surely demonstrates in itself the influence of the non-educated element that possibly predominated in the British race and carried forward elements of their own vocubulary. All of this, you would be surely more aware of than I; but my user page is not simply to defend any Celtic element in the English vocabulary, but to be a simple restricted treatise of etymology as a whole. Kind Regards, Andrew H. Gray 13:40, 26 January 2016 (UTC)Andrew

P.S. I have transferred your message from the exhaustive Talk Pages of Leasnam to mine to save room on his page. Andrew H. Gray 13:40, 26 January 2016 (UTC)Andrew

So, I have a few comments, and I by no means wish to offend: Brythonic would never have been similar or mutually understandable to Germanic speaking groups like the Angles or Saxons.
“Do you wish to do a number of edits?” is perfectly normal Germanic sentence structure. I have no idea where you got the idea that it is Celtic.
Old English grammar did not “disintegrate” by any means. Languages change over time, and the ignorance of the population does not cause any form of degradation. This also presumes that Proto-Germanic grammar is somehow more formal and complex. Languages tend to substitute one form of complexity for another over time.
I am still very confused as to the point you are trying to make and its purpose. Fortunately, you are very friendly and seem to be acting in good faith. —JohnC5 04:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@ Dear JohnC5 Thank you so much for your reply: to start with, I need to apologise for misquoting 'C. L. Barber, on "the Story of Language" - not "History", as I put - and had to correct this in my previous paragraph! Also, what I put about a form of Germanic already existing, I now see was quite misleading. What I should have stated was that recently science has unveiled that when the Germanic tribes moved around Europe they also settled in England, thereby facilitating the settling of conquering Saxons and Angles, (in that order), to understand the language. I will delete the term "disintigration" in accord with your reply. Also, I freely admit that I had real difficulty in believing any similarity between Brythonic (that is of the Celtic branch as you know) and Proto-Germanic. 

The point of comparing the Germanic and Celtic idioms, to which you made reference, was to show that due to Celtic being thrifty with its verbs, the repetition of 'do' with a verb, is not found in any other Germanic language that I am aware of, and therefore is of earlier grammatical structure. The Germanic grammatical idiom is "edit you?" - surely not; "Do you edit". In the following sentences you will notice that I have used this bizarre idiom at least twice, when I mean: "it means not" and I believe not", respectively! By 'assmimilation' into Old English, I meant 'absorbed', so if that is what you meant by 'borrowing', your term is quite suitable and is reflected by other authors. It just does not mean that those few lexemes were not in existence when the Germanic languages pervaded parts of Britain - they could have been borrowed from what existed beforehand. I do not believe that there is any proof that the previous vocabulary was totally wiped out: 'tungolcraft' for astronomy, is an example of this. "-craft" is obviously Germanic; but where does one find a similar lexeme to "tungol" (star)? One can only summise its formation as possibly being related to 'don' (to carry, bear) and gol-ow (light), < Proto-Celtic *wlugos. This, among a number of others have become completely lost to English now; but that in itself, with others, like DOWN, DUN, BROCK and COOMB, et cetera, have had no valid proof as to their non-existence before the Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Vikings conquered England. Another familiar lexeme is that of PEAT < Anglo-Latin PETA, already in use at the time of the Germanic invasions. I trust that this clarifies the facts; although, for myself, I have had to learn as much as I can, since a little knowledge of etymologies is like a little knowledge of electricity! Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 09:53, 28 January 2016 (UTC)Andrew

:Just to stick my oar in: it isn't at all clear that do-support is a Celtic construction and not a Germanic one. German does use tun as an auxiliary verb, though in much more restricted circumstances than English (see the example sentences at de:tun#Hilfsverb as well as senses 6, 7, and 8 and the second usage note at tun), and do-support in languages like Welsh, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic only arose after those languages came in contact with English (and the construction is virtually unknown in Irish). So it's far from proven that English got it from the Celtic languages rather than the other way around. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:54, 2 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Aɴɢʀ (talk)Thank you; that does clarify the situation as to the auxiliary verb "do". Andrew H. Gray 11:19, 3 February 2016 (UTC)AndrewReply

Do-support actually started in Southwestern Middle English, see w:Brittonicisms in English#Transition to Middle English, which does point towards Celtic (specifically Cornish) influence on English rather than vice versa, with regard to this feature – the difference between English and German is that in German tun is, as noted, used only in very restricted ways as an auxiliary (and even those are avoided in more formal registers), while in English it has become generalised in negative sentences and questions (and in positive sentences when the emphasis on the verb), which is cross-linguistically far more unusual.

However, this is not pertinent on the present issue. English is a linear descendent from Proto-Germanic, while Brythonic languages descend equally linearly from Proto-Celtic; English (as Germanic in general) is sharply distinct and dissimilar from Brythonic in the medieval period, and there is no way to confuse these language families. However, they do have a common ancient, prehistorical origin; they only have evolved in completely different directions.

Prior to Grimm's law, which radically changed the pronunciation (though not the grammar), the ancestor of Proto-Germanic must have resembled Proto-Celtic a great deal, both being typical ancient Indo-European languages like Latin and Ancient Greek. (The ancient Celtic and Germanic peoples seem to have had even more in common than their languages, in fact.)

There's nothing special about Celtic languages, as such. From the point of view of Low Saxon (pretty much the most "average" Germanic language), English, German, Danish and Icelandic are all fairly weird, only much more closely related than English is to Welsh or Irish, thus Welsh and Irish appear highly foreign and unfamiliar to an Anglophone – not least because while many Latin/Romance word roots are at least vaguely familiar to an Anglophone, Welsh and Irish word roots will be far less so, and thus may sound "mystical", while French, Italian or Spanish are much more intelligible and mundane and thus not as fascinating on the surface. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

If the main entry version is accurate and a Proto-Germanic root did exist[6], what follows is entirely logical[8]. If, however, it did not exist[4], then all forms in Old English and other Germanic languages - due to their substantial variation in meaning - were borrowed in from a pre-historic form[7], carried through as akin to the Spanish stem ACHA-[7], also with a parallel in Welsh[5]. Only then could such lexemes be ultimately akin to Greek ACHOS[3] or ΑΓΟΣ = 'AGOS'[5], possibly ultimately from the √ of עכור (achor, “trouble, disturb”); via Phœnician[6], whence the other roots[3], including that of ΑΓΧΩ 'angcho', to which all the presented cognates point semantically. Andrew H. Gray 09:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC) Andrew (talk)

I don't follow. Semitic and Indo-European are not widely accepted to be related at all, and the other connections proposed are inconsistent with known sound laws. See Appendix:Proto-Germanic/akaną#Etymology 1. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:34, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

There is not only a pre-historic Spanish stem, but also a remote kinship with a Welsh lexeme. The so-called Germanic cognates (and they certainly are cognates in the Germanic dialects), may not even have a Proto-Germanic root or even a P.I.E. root. The roots of Hebrew are actually older than even P.I.E. Iberian is not Japhetic, but Semitic and therefore it is only in the event that the Welsh and Spanish lexemes are remotely akin to ACAN (to ache) that the Hebrew lexeme is remotely applicable. Andrew H. Gray 15:22, 29 February 2016 (UTC)Andrew

Sorry, this is all complete gobbledygook. I have studied Indo-European historical linguistics, you have obviously not. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:21, 1 March 2016 (UTC) Celtic[edit]

@Florian Blasche. Thank you so much for your message - my due apologies for not having replied beforehand! What you mention about Cornish is quite enlightening, because the new Cornish dictionary states that Old Cornish BREST < A.S. BRÆS, that to me is nonsense. They certainly are both derivatives of the same root, albeit pre-historic - please see my discussion on brass. I also need to clarify my nonsensical reply to your previous comments on the ache discussion page. It may be disputable scientifically, but I believe in facts that have a real foundation. Prior to around 2230 BCE, the whole world only spoke one language after 2344 BCE; and there is very slender evidence that it was primitive Hebrew - named after 'Eber', father of 'Peleg' in whose days language was divided. That there were a number of antediluvian languages is indisputable, including Sumerian, and possibly others that were resurrected. This does not mean that Hebrew was the parent language of the Aryan or Indian branch of P.I.E. as Bodmer put it in the "Loom of Language" volume, or connected with Indo-European at all, but just that certain lexemes, or at least, syllables were carried through accidentally. Otherwise, it was after this period that most of the language heads were formed, testified somewhat by the splinter groups of languages left in the Caucasus chain. I am not a Jew - and even if I was I would not be biased by any ancestral connection when it comes to ascertaining important facts; but there is something simpler and more pure about Hebrew construction than that of most other languages I have ever seen, hence my unproved belief that it or ancient Aramaic was the first verbal language between God and men - that is from Adam onwards - as their names are all meaningful, as also the rivers (except the Euphrates), in that Hebrew language. Andrew H. Gray 15:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)Andrew

Erm, you believe in biblical literalist chronology and the Adamic language? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes, it becomes necessary to look beyond science. Andrew (talk)

You are a fucktard. (I will call immunity as Wiktionary has no official NPA policy, luckily.) So you find it necessary to take world history from a badly-written ancient foreign forged failed stupid comic book that doesn't even know the shape and size of the earth or of the New World? There has never been any single Adam or Eve, nor fewer than 10,000 ancestors, 70,000 years ago after the Toba supereruption, when there were at the fewest two races on either side of the Great Rift Valley. Excerpt of my refutation of a Serbian language revisionist YouTuber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70EqcsOFk8&lc=z23qu5kpalj3wlbbv04t1aokg4zqdm5g0pb44wc3b1grbk0h00410

http://google.com/search?q=ethnic+haplogroups: click on Europe and Near East to debunk your fantastic nonsense. Serbians are Balkan (I), Slav (R1a), and Mediterranean (E1b1b); Ashkenazim are Arab (J) and Mediterranean (E1b1b); Sephardim are Celt/Italic (R1b), Arab (J), and Mediterranean (E1b1b); Mizrahim are Arab (J), Celt/Italic (R1b), and Caucasian (G).

...

I (Balkans), 35,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_I-M170 > I1 (Nords), 4,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_I-M253.

H (Mediterraneans), 25,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_H_(mtDNA).

R1a (Slavs, Balts, Aryans, P Celts), 25,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1a.

R1b (Q Celts, Italics), 10,000 to 4,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b.

R1a×I (Slavs × Balkans × P Celts = Germanics), < 25,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_in_populations_of_Europe.

Haplogroup I came from IJ (Cro-Magnon), 45,000 years ago.

My relevant Quora comments:

https://www.quora.com/My-Bible-teacher-said-that-God-accelerated-the-formation-of-the-Earth-to-make-it-look-like-4-5-billion-years-old-How-can-I-refute-that-claim/answer/Aislin-Mathews/comment/37219477

Whereas one verse says that the god isn’t a man that he should lige, he did lige in the garden, that he’d wipe out the Canaanites, that Egypt should be desolate, and in every endtimes prediction and most nonfake predictions. Besides, the NT says the god sends delusion to unbelievers. Your figurative unit and scriptural reliability claims are disproven by me at https://www.quora.com/My-Bible-teacher-said-that-God-accelerated-the-formation-of-the-Earth-to-make-it-look-like-4-5-billion-years-old-How-can-I-refute-him/answer/Pieter-Heystek/comment/36784525.

There is sheerly no proof that man has not been on Earth for more than 6,000 years. My rebuttal to a young earth creationist professor on this page who says the flood made the earth, fossils, etc.: https://www.quora.com/My-Bible-teacher-said-that-God-accelerated-the-formation-of-the-Earth-to-make-it-look-like-4-5-billion-years-old-How-can-I-refute-him/answer/Bryan-Bissell/comment/36811218 and https://www.quora.com/My-Bible-teacher-said-that-God-accelerated-the-formation-of-the-Earth-to-make-it-look-like-4-5-billion-years-old-How-can-I-refute-him/answer/Bryan-Bissell/comment/36807442.

Pando is over 100,000 years eld.

Most of the OT was written postExile as creative writing; no independent contemporary records exist of its events; Israel didn't exist until about 1000 BCE. Its Tower of Babel was taken from Etemenanci, built 500 years later. j·hveh was likely fabricated by J·hu between these dates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehu. There's never been any worldwide flood in the time of man; the biblical story was a ripped off version of the Sumer-Shurrupag flood which as big floods go happen every some centuries. The oldest civilizations began after the Younger Dryas when Lake Agassiz broke: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-oldest-city-in-the-world/answer/Autymn-Castleton. Of course no flood could ever reach a few miles deep; that'd flatten every feature on earth; rather there were localized erosions at temperate latitudes by former glaciers and a gradual sea level rise. Lysdexia (talk) 15:17, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

I need not answer your comments, because they self-condemning to any rational mind. What you are trying to disprove will never be changed by man. I just feel sorry for you, although I regard your comments as vandalism! Andrew H. Gray 18:05, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk

Greetings, a little tip: the English Wiktionary has the practice that users sign their posts in discussions. That is done by placing --~~~~ markup at the end of a message. The markup gets automatically replaced with actual signature by the wiki software when you preview or save the page. If you don't like your default signature, there is even a way to customize it. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:52, 27 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

User:Werdna Yrneh Yarg Andrew H. Gray 21:05, 11 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Have you still not learned to sign your posts properly? Why is there always a huge spew of multiple "Andrews" stuck on the end of everything you write? It's not rocket science. Equinox ◑ 20:07, 11 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your encouraging appreciation of my attempt. I was anticipating another revert! However, my edits are limited to etymologies, normally on Talk pages, where I am able to present an unbiased number code, to show the reader the degree of accuracy/inaccuracy of the contributions relative to the lexeme itself, or to the qualifying antecedent clause. My edits on the main entries are likely to be very sparce, but there are a few Old English words that do not have an etymology yet presented, for example SULK, that shall be my next edit. Thank you also for correcting my wrong code to NON from ANG. I will endeavour to learn from such mistakes! I was too late for BRASS, where the obvious Celtic cognates are missing; so had to include them on its Talk page. My first acceptable main entry edit was of RUDDY; I could have linked it with the Old English strong verb, RĒODAN (to become red); but there is an element of potential controversy as to whether RUDU (redness) actually relates to that verb, or whether it is akin to a Celtic dialectual form, akin to the root RŪTH in Greek ERŪTHROS (red), et cetera. Anyway, I realise that etymologies need to be succinct and prècised on the main page entry, because of the general lack of interest in that subject.

Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 21:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

I’m glad you are still interested in contributing to Wiktionary, even if it is mostly in the little-seen talk pages.

The succinctness of etymologies is not due to lack of interest; in fact, a common complaint is that we have so much etymological information that it distracts viewers from the definitions. It is actually due to our fear (justified, IMO) of avoiding bullshit. As you’ll know if you’ve dabbled in etymology for a while, the field is chock full of crackpots and nutters who are more interested in coming up with interesting or “cool” origins of words than truthful ones. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

The ultimate of all the examples with which I happened to be familiar, from your last sentence, is Welsh Cymry from COMRADE! A 'runner up' is picture from pre-Celtic Pictish root PIC (to paint)! I am afraid that I would have to sympathise with your description of what the etymology field contains in at least those two instances! Andrew H. Gray 18:09, 26 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

Here is my personal favourite. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 18:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

My reason for not signing after the links codes is simply because of the application of them being completely unbiased. Any etymologist has the right, (or my permission, anyway) to change the coded numbers in my text if they are sure that any amendment is correct. Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 10:10, 29 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

@Werdna Yrneh Yarg, all comments to discussion pages must be signed, no matter how biased or unbiased. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 13:16, 29 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Do you have a source for this word ? I do not find it in any Old Saxon lexicon Leasnam (talk) 15:52, 7 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Dear Leasnam: Your question is the type of response that fully carries my confidence, because, as you know, all edits on entry pages should really be satisfactorily sourced. I am sorry that the source for this word was not from Professor Skeat as I assumed but from the New Gresham English Dictionary around the 1910's. I ought to have added the source in square brackets afterwards. The reason that I undid your message was simply that by removing the cognate or comparison the confirmation of a Germanic root is weakened; which in any case is counter proof to what I feel to be correct on its discussion page - that is that they all derive earlier from Celtic *TROM (heavy) = Welsh TRWM, et cetera, but this cannot be proved! I also hate appearing to have a stick-in-the-mud attitude, but am honestly concerned that the trend of some etymologies is from being scientific towards an art, instead of being scientific towards the truth! Please keep any messages to me on my Talk Page so as not to clog up yours. The only way to arrive at reliable etymologies that conform to Wiktionary standards on the Entry pages is to adhere to all the Rules on my User Page, that is what I have had to learn! Kind Regards.Andrew H. Gray 09:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk

My point is that I cannot verify if this existed. I do see some Middle Low German words, especially derivatives using a root *trimm-, but these look like borrowings from English, as the usually outcome of this root in OS/GML would be *trum-/*trom-. If Old Saxon trimm (“firm”) didn't exist, it should be removed. Leasnam (talk) 13:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Leasnam I would agree completely with the expected morphology of the Old Saxon form, as that which Gresham picked up would not be derived directly from your proposed P.G. root. I therefore also believe that it may be borrowed and if so, its comparison does not add to the etymology and, as with a number of other edits, their proposed re-constructed P.G. form is just an unfounded assumption. Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 14:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)AndrewReply

@Victar Thank you. Nor could I find that river name in Spain; I reckon that Kenneth Cameron misspelt the name on page 33 of 'English Place Names' and it should have been "Tambre". One's interest has been centred in the illusive etymologies. Nor can it be actually proved that the cognates of dim are in fact Germanic. One's own hypothesis here is that they are not even from Celtic but have all infilterated through from the origin of the Iberian names you have presented! Most of the Old English words are certainly Germanic, but there are far too many assumptions as to Germanic roots. Take for example: anneal; the first syllable is obviously Germanic, but the assumptions that the Danish and Swedish forms of the latter syllable are Germanic are quite unfounded; and there is no connection with the presented P.I.E. root whence German eiten to kindle, et cetera. To return to the point though, there is no relation whatever between "Thames" and Welsh dwn and Old Irish donn, from Proto-Celtic *dusnos (“dark, brown”); I just posed that to demonstrate what the semantically similar Celtic forms are, by way of contrast. I suppose as to Tamar, they were conjecturing 'mar' as a possible source for mawr "great", et cetera. The Welsh Tafwys seems too ancient to be borrowed from Latin; but if Welsh tywyll is akin, then it really seems to confirm one's hypothesis as to its stock root. Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 08:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Andrew (talk)

Welsh Tafwys isn't attested in any form in either Middle Welsh or Old Welsh. My guess is the original Welsh form was displaced. Also, any Cornish Tañvis, Tañves form is utterly lacking.

I think the Proto-Celtic *temos (“dark”) etymology, or some form of it, is probably correct. We find a parallel in -{{cog|cel-pro|*dubros||dark} also taking on the meaning "water, river", yielding Middle Welsh dwfr, dwr (“water”) and Old Irish dobur (“water, river”), Middle Irish dobur (“black, unclean”). --Victar (talk) 09:18, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

It is actually Proto-Indo-European *dʰub-rós (“dark”) for that meaning whence Proto-Celtic *dubros (“water”), I believe you will find; hence the origin of Dover. We cannot take everything as reliable etymologically that we read; and some of the most modern etymological dictionaries produced wilder paths than the well known Oxford Etymological Dictionary multi-volume books, or Century dictionary of which I have seen very little. The Proto-Celtic *temos (“dark”) etymology needs to be regarded separately from Proto-Celtic *dubros (“dark”) as being two separate roots. I have seen at least two river names in Switzerland of pre-historic origin, or that of Uralian. River names are usually where - if at all - the most likely remnants of the earliest languages in a country are found, hence one's conjecture as to the Iberian origin of this river name. Andrew H. Gray 19:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Andrew (talk)

I have now started to go through some edits of yours, and in correcting them noticed this edit in which you made up an etymon, changing it from one that is attested to one that is not. Despite your previous warnings, you clearly have not learned to stop adding unsourced information to etymologies, and I have blocked you for this for a week. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Have you still not learned to sign your posts properly? Why is there always a huge spew of multiple "Andrews" stuck on the end of everything you write? It's not rocket science. Equinox ◑ 20:07, 11 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

diff: Editing archived comments should be avoided. It comes across as record falsification, which, given the assumption of good faith, was obviously unintentional. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:00, 22 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Dan Polansky Yes; I understand your point, even though it was my own paragraph and I wanted to retract my reaction to the annoying tampering with a recent edit then. It was absolutely vital that he reverted my edit in cog, which although mine was inadvertent, it was inexcusably careless, given the stringent guidelines on (my) user page. On another issue, I am very well aware now of the problems encountered whilst correcting inaccuracies in etymologies; since the nearest or most accurate source is usually imported for them as per Wikimedia rules; that is why I added "possibly" as to the questionable P.G. root of sulk and then added a derivative to support it; else I would have removed that root and kept the rest. I do not attempt to fabricate roots, but I have Aspergers and enhanced perception as to what is right and what is not correct in subjects of my interest. Most of the online etymology is inaccurate and Leasnam's is much better here! Andrew H. Gray 06:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC) Andrew

You cannot make changes to your post in a talk page archive in a way that does not make it obvious later editing took place. Editing in September a post from 17 July 2017 and keeping the same signature "17 July 2017" is inappropriate. What could be more tolerable is posting an amendment below the post, to that talk page archive, but even that is questionable given the archive says the following: "This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions." That fact that it was your post you were editing is immaterial. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

(outdent) You have what? "enhanced perception as to what is right and what is not correct in subjects of my interest". That's pretty darn cool; I kan has enhanzed perzeption too? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:14, 22 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello I am a big big fan of yours, and I only briefly have come into contact with your linguistic hobbyist designations and plans and work.... idk what to call it... hmm

My tumblr url is www.africanlanguagesareprettydank.tumblr.com

You can send an "ask" by adding /ask to the url, making it www.africanlanguagesareprettydank.tumblr.com/ask, and i can thusly receive any info from yourself that way..

I'll risk posting my email on here, because I don't have trust issues with posting some degree of public information. Please send me an email so that we could actually communicate!!!

email: dafeeduck28@gmail.com

If you want to get to know me first, you can look through my tumblr account or its archives, (africanlanguagesareprettydank.tumblr.com/archive), but it's mostly just pictures. I am very interested in your theoretics. 67.80.89.65 22:34, 24 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Pronunciation appeared out of what you call "normal order" because the pronunciation is the same for all the Etymology sections in the entry. Otherwise one would have to duplicate the Pronunciation section for each Etymology section. I'm going to undo your change for now, but we can continue discussion here or elsewhere if you disagree. DCDuring (talk) 18:31, 28 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

No, that is perfectly logical and am ashamed that I did not notice it; so sorry for the inconvenience caused! Andrew H. Gray 18:34, 28 July 2018 (UTC)Andrew

Shame is a bit of an extreme reaction. A simple facepalm should suffice. I do my daily dose of them in private.

It may be that we don't have good reason to believe that the pronunciations are the same for all four etymologies in this case. My best source that includes all four etymologies, “lob”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC., has the same pronunciation for each. The OED would be more definitive, if they address pronunciation for this case. DCDuring (talk) 18:41, 28 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you; but there was no excuse for my carelessness: I have reverted my similar edit for kindle for the same reason. Andrew H. Gray 18:45, 28 July 2018 (UTC)Andrew talk

You have been warned about problematic edits to etymologies, and heeded that warning for a while, but seem to have resumed. Pursuant to the problems with that edit described by User:Chuck Entz in his rollback, I am blocking you for one week. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hi Andrew,

Came to your page because of your comments on my talk page, and had a couple questions about

4. "Cognate" is used to present related lexemes that are found in the same language branch during approximately the same period. Only use "akin" in the instances of lexemes or words that are compared in a distinct Indo-European branch such as Greek, Latin or of Celtic, to Germanic, for example.

5. If cognates are found in Old French, that is likely to be their origin, except for borrowing from more modern French; but in all cases check with a reliable dictionary, such as Oxford Etymological Dictionary, Skeat's, Merriam Webster's (on the earlier part of the section) and Gresham's New English Dictionary.

I don't understand (4). Descendants of p-IE words in different IE families are just as much cognate as descendants of p-Germanic words in different Germanic languages. The only difference is the amount of time that's elapsed. The distinction is arbitrary.

(5) and the WP-en article 'cognate' support what I always thought 'cognate' meant. (The OED doesn't go into enough detail.) However, a historical linguist once insisted to me that relationship through borrowing is not cognation, that in order for two words to be considered cognate, they must have independent lineages from the proto-language that is ancestral to the two languages they're found in today. So e.g. 'dish' and 'Tisch' are not cognates because they don't trace back to p-Germanic. (If p-Germanic had borrowed the word, and the forms then split as the languages did, then they would be cognate.) I suppose that's so that 'cognates' have gone through all the sound changes that their languages have and so can be used to reconstruct the proto-language. That always struck me as unintuitive, as a word breaking sound laws can demonstrate that it's a loan, and what do you call its relationship to the word in the language it came from? I wonder if there may be disagreements on Wikt as to whether related words are 'cognate' based on differing definitions of that word.

(Please ping me if you respond.)

kwami (talk) 21:11, 11 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Low German isn't the norm at Wiktionary. We have German Low German and Dutch Low Saxon as the default with plain Low German reserved for some odd cases where it isn't possible to pigeonhole usage into one or the other. Yes, there are a few editors who are vehemently opposed to this, but that's the decision that was reached, and that's how most of our "Low German" entries are organized. You can't just unilaterally change that by editing a single entry. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:57, 20 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary.org is unrelated to Academia.edu. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:49, 29 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

When you sign up for an account with Academia.org in order to view an article, you also sign up to receive emails from them. They make their money by getting people to pay to see their paywalled articles, so they're constantly sending out emails to let members know about any articles their algorithms suggest they might be interested in. I've never published anything, but there are a Hungarian botanist and a Canadian soil scientist (no relation) who share my surname. That means I've gotten a lot of emails saying my name was mentioned in some article. If you don't want to receive those emails, you would probably have to cancel your Academia.edu account. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:42, 29 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Werdna Yrneh Yarg: Re: The assumption that "wudu was borrowed into Old English..."; The u instead of i can be easily explained as an irregular rounding. It's not the only English word witnessed doing this — woman is another well-attested case of this. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 18:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Mellohi The analogy that you presented cannot necessarily apply to Old English. Such changes are more recent.

In attempting to find a satisfactory etymology for adze, where a post-Middle English form is 'nad', I should like to connect it with Welsh 'naddu' (to whittle, etc.) in the same manner that 'naedre' split to 'an adder'; but that is totally inadmissible and far more off-beam than your analogy, because there is little or no evidence of such changes in Old English - n.'adosa' and v.'adosan' are the oldest recorded forms and show that the fabricated P.G. reconstruction is ignorance - by one in whose native language no such form exists. If genuine, the 'wudu' form is a direct derivative from the substrate form 'uudu' cognate with Irish Pictish 'uudu'. If not genuine, then according to the etymology of fiodh the Celtic root is identical with the Germanic which is merely a substrate Celtic form that was equally applicable in its homeland as over in Britain. It is no good just taking etymologies at face value without looking for the earliest forms and applying etymological logic! Many thanks. Andrew (talk)

Good day, I just wanted to give my gratitude for your thanks on kibe and gyve, because it felt like I was wasting time tidying entries no one really would notice/care about. I was cursed/blessed to find this field incredibly fascinating. I wish that there was a modern dictionary solely dedicated to words on the "fringes" (is there?), like dialect terms and long-lost, mysterious portals to the middle ages, or even earlier (the very few English words that might be pre-Indo-European still elude me). It's all both grounding yet exciting, almost "liminal" as kids say these days. Sigehelmus (talk) 11:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for bothering to reply. Perhaps you might like to read the following two sections posted to see the problems encountered with these ancient substrates like: COB (retained and influenced by similar Germanic morphology; Old English ADOSA (adze) and not to be derived from Spanish AZOLAR (to adze) < Basque ZELAITU (to level off, flatten); ILK (forget the main page assumption), LAD cognate with Old Welsh LLAWDD, WHEY (retained only by Germanic influences); Old English AELED (fire), cognate with Celtic dialect forms for 'fireplace'; POUR (if Welsh BWRW (to throw as of 'rain' et cetera) is a substrate with Old Spanish cognates; BAD; and TOAD, unless perhaps also BRASS are the only remotely possible English words I can think of at the moment that might be from Pre-Celtic substrates . It is not for me to criticise etymological dictionaries, but please be aware of Kroonen's bias toward Germanic roots that are indeed mostly true but NOT all! Perhaps you have read my critical section on etymologies that spoil Wiktionary, in view of future improvement. Andrew H. Gray 18:41, 23 January 2024 (UTC) Andrew H. Gray 18:41, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I saw this phrase: "6. Do not be tempted to pioneer etymologies on the Entry pages; and follow the rules of etymology instructions in (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)." What could that mean? If had followed that advice, Category:English terms derived from Hanyu Pinyin (now generated by adding them to the category in their etymology sections) would have never been created. But luckily, I pioneered this area, starting off with manually adding "pinyin" in the etymologies, putting together the scraps of academic sources saying that certain words were Pinyin-derived, and recognizing differences between the results of earlier romanization schemes and modern romanization schemes- using gazetteers, etc. No, no: I will be more than tempted to pioneer etymologies- I will actually pioneer etymologyies on the entry pages. Sucessfully. And if you disagree, then defend your position on any given entry or entry's talk page or beer parlor, etc. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

One of the rules of Wiktionary etymologies is that they need to be sourced from a reliable source. The rules presented of the user page that you read were intended at least as much for oneself as for anyone else. Where the Oxford multi-volume dictionary excels is that they trace the lexemes back to their earliest records and therefore their etymologies are logical, which is essential in order to carry the confidence of people with an IQ of more than 120. However, it is better to pioneer an etymology if the history is obvious as with the simile for 'gorse', relating to 'fire' for which it was use in Medieval and latter times, especially in Cornwall. The accuracy of the etymological paths and their timelines are essential for reliable etymologies. Andrew H. Gray 18:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC) Andrew H. Gray 18:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC)