Talk:Iberian language

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[Untitled]

here is another thing i'm going to have to do research on. Gringo300 16:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Translation

I've continued the translation that somebody else began. I'm not translating literally in some cases for sever reasons:

It sounds better to me my way (the distinction isn't clear vs. the distinction is unclear).
The Spanish is NPOV (or otherwise seems un-wiki-wise. "Debo" (should)is a pretty good indication of this.
The literal Spanish phrasing doesn't make sense in English.

Otherwise I'm trying to say mostly true to the original. I've re-organized a bit, but that's about all. I have more to say, but I'm gonna go. I'll continue translating soon I hope. --Quintucket 05:47, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sardinia

Removed a line from the intro, which needs a source (paraphrase): "the substrate of the Sardinian language has been identified as an Iberian language or close to the Iberian language."---Alexander 007 12:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Areas of Marginal Interest

I've realized that I've been translating some sections that are of marginal interest even to me, and I'm fascinated by linguistics. Is there any reason anybody can see for me to continue along this path? I'm fairly certain a lot of what I've so far left untranslated will get cropped by later editors if I translate it anywhen.

The Spanish and Galician Wikipedias have far less editing than the English does. I'm just going to work on the more relevant stuff for now, and leave the minor linguistic notes (which make up about half the content of the article) for later if at all.

I suppose though that the notes themselves are interesting, it's more the examples, which are irrelevant and confusing. And those just involve copying-pasting large sections and then changing o/u, y/e, como, que, and así to their English equivalents. The example texts for example, are an excellent example of this. They don't have Spanish equivalents, and hence would be of little interest to the average reader. And some interpretations, while fascinating to the linguist in me would again be of little interest to the average reader. Though I'd advise against cutting that one entirely, I might prune it down a bit if others suggest it.

Basically, I don't want to go through pointless effort.--Quintucket 00:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I took a quick look at the new material, and I didn't see anything I would crop yet. It is all pretty much interesting and worthwhile so far. Alexander 007 00:30, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Damn. Now that I know somebody's reading it I feel like I should hurry up and finish rather than skip about between projects. Nevertheless, Tartessian language is in a similar situation to where this one was. At this point I have a good chunk of Iberian done so I'm gonna go work on translating that for a bit. I'm sure I'll come back to this fairly soon unless somebody else gets there first. --Quintucket 01:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Phonology

"The m rarely appears in the initial position. Velaza proposes that it could be a variant of /n/, backed by the example of iumstir/iunstir. José A. Correa advances the possibility that it may be a geminated or strong nasal. Rodríguez Ramos notes the idea that it could be a variant of /n/ in cases that it nasalizes the preceding vowel."

I wonder if anybody realized how likely assimilation is -> /m/ before an alveolar consonant > /n/ is very very common...

Sibilants

It is worth noting that Basque also has two silibants: /s/ as apical alveolar and /z/ as laminal alveolar, which could correspond to [ś] and [s].

Aren't x, ts, tz and tx sibilants? How many sibilants did Medieval Castilian have? --Error 23:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many, too, but that's too modern to be relevant here. I'm not sure if all of those in Basque are also that old.

I also cut off this part:

<ś> would be an alveolar or apical fricative while <s> would correspond to a fricative.

which just seemed patently confusing. --Tropylium (talk) 09:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've revised the es:wiki (original version) and it looks like a translation mistake. Instead of a "." there should be ":" so:

"This theory coincides with the observation made by Correa that follows the adaptions made of Gallic names in Iberian texts: [ś] would be an alveolar or apical fricative while [s] would correspond to a fricative."

The phrase explains Correa's observation. But maybe the whole oration should be reworded.

By the way. About the question of Medieval Castillian sibilants. As a matter of fact original Castillian phonology has a large Basque influence. --Dilvish 10 words (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the translation of Iberian inscriptions by Alonso García and Arnaiz-Villena

I have removed the section "Some remarks on the offending comments" and "removal of the offending comments" as they have been focused on personal attacks totally unrelated with the Iberian language, its content was utterly unproper, and the whole section was used only as a platform for launching personal attacks. I have tried to kept only the not ofending data , which is the following paragraph paragraph by an anonymous user:

"This is only a caveat for innocent readers that should look up other abundant literature on Iberian language,including M. Ruhlen´s and J.Bengston´s work on Dene-Caucasian,which includes Basque and Caucasian languages . V. Sarkisian works on Armenian and Basque language (he is the President of the Language Academy at Armenia) and many other studies should also be consulted."

on which user Javir1 wrote (I quote):" The previous authors should be cited, for sure, but in a different way. Javirl 15:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)" (I apologize for changing your edition, Javir1, but the whole question was out of control and so it is better to delete the offending content)[reply]

I am also keeping some quotes of the unproper content just for the sake of understanding that these offending comments included a vindication of Alonso and Arnaiz-Villena translations of the Iberian Inscriptions against the silence keeped on their searches, and to be able to answer. These quotes are the following:

"Spanish A-G. is accused without a minimal integrity " edited by an anonymous user

Antonio Arnaiz-Villena is indeed bluntly and personally attaked by Ramos only for maintaining quite different views on this topic" edited (although unsigned) by user Virginal6

These is an interesting question, one that is advisable to settle with reliable data of reputed researchers. Some time ago a similar vindication (a question in the talk page on the virtues of Alonso and Arnaiz Iberian translations) was also rejected in the Spanish Wikipedia and this rejection prevented further problems.

Fortunately we do have reviews which are reliable sources (no webpages, nor anonymous, nor fora, nor self-published books) which severly critizise Alonso and Arnaiz researches concluding that have no scientific value:

First point, professor Javier De Hoz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) reputed authority on Palaeohispanic languages (see his curriculum) rejected Alonso and Arnaiz books in his review "Viaje a ninguna parte a través del Mediterráneo. Las lenguas que no hablaron ni iberos, ni etruscos, ni cretenses" Revista de Libros, nº 28 · Abril, 1999 and concluded that " it is an unmitigated disaster which at first should not be reviewed" ("es un desastre sin paliativos que en principio no debería ser reseñado"), that "it is a Human Sciences work without the slightest value and against not only the scientific methodology but also against the basic common sense" ("un trabajo de ciencias humanas carente del más mínimo valor y a contrapelo no ya de la metodología científica más elemental sino del simple sentido común") and that the fact that some of their books has been published with public funding is a "crime" for which the responsible should account ("es algo peor que una estupidez, es un crimen del que debe existir un responsable al que se debiera pedir cuentas").

Second point, professor Joseba Lakarra (Universidad del País Vasco) reputed authority on History of the Basque language and reconstruction of Proto-Basque also rejects completely the works of Alonso and Arnaiz-Villena forcefully debunking their evidence (massive use of Basque words that are Romance and Latin loanwords, invention of inexistent "Basque" words, change of the meaning of existent Basque to suit the evidence "verging on clumsy falsification"). His review can be read in his paper "El vascuence en Europa" in V.M. Amado y De Pablo, S. (eds) "Los vascos y Europa", Gasteiz 2001, 75-121; and very shortened in the footnote number 29 of his paper "Protovasco, munda y otros: reconstrucción interna y tipología holística diacrónica" Ohienart 21 2006, 229-322.

Third point. Maybe it should be remembered that the linguistic work of Alonso and Arnaiz-Villena deals not only with Iberian language, but that they also have published translation of Etruscan, Hurrian, Hittite, Minoan, Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Ugaritic and other languages. They have concluded that all these language belongs to a unic family, the [Usko-Mediterranean languages] and that every previuos work on these fields is wrong (from Champollion included onwards), and that all these languges should be translated via Modern Basque (Alonso and Arnaiz have critizise the experts of these languages as dogmatic and mind closed).

Fourth point. As for the alleged works on Iberian language of Ruhlen, Bengston and Sarkisian, tha anonyumous editor was asked (more than two years ago) to afford any reference to these alleged silenced and censored researches. None has been found, and if you look to the bibliographies of two recent doctoral dissertations whose content has been openly published in Inet (Moncunill 2006 and Orduña 2006, both linked in the further reading section) I am much afraid that there cannot be found any reference to the alleged researches of these authors.

Finally, althoug the highly reputed Basque language researcher Larry Trask published his chapter on the crackpot stuff in his book History of Basque (mainly in chapter Six,a preview is avaiable in Google Books) before the publication of Alonso and Arnaiz decipherments he put forward his opinion in inet groups: "It's a pity we don't have an award in linguistics for the most lunatic book of the year, since Sr. Alonso's forthcoming volume looks like being a strong contender this year", " I'm afraid Alonso's book appears to be just one more comic book in the long tradition of comical works on Basque." [1].

I hope that admnistrators won't let more personal attacks in this page.

--Dumu Eduba (talk) 17:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading fact

I appreciate the article focused on Iberian Languages, as being from Portugal. However, I've noticed a misleading mistake in the chart on the right side of the article. It states that Iberian Languages (as the languages from the Iberian Peninsula and spoken there as well) are distributed in the mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, spoken in Spain and France. This creates the impression that France belongs to the Iberian Peninsula whihch wrong, the only lands that form the Iberian Peninsula are: Portugal, Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar. Once again, France does not belong to the Iberian Peninsula. It might have influence of the Iberian Languages, since French is also spoken in Andorra, and is very similar to the dominant official languages (in the Peninsula Iberica) Portuguese and Spanish. I'd like the author to revise this article with the purpose to prevent resulting misleadings. My thanks, --70.52.150.215 03:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to merge Prehistoric Spain with Prehistoric Portugal & move to Prehistoric Iberia

Currently, the text of Prehistoric Spain seems really to be about prehistoric Iberia. Similarly, the text of Prehistoric Portugal seems really to be about the same thing. This would be perfectly understandable seeing as there was no Spain and no Portugal in prehistoric times. I have argued therefore that it would be best to have these articles merged under a title which indicates the geographical region rather than the modern states. I have proposed the articles be merged and moved to Prehistoric Iberia. Please come and discuss my proposal. J i m p 09:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Jim. If the merge goes through, what shall we do with Pre-Roman Portugal? You see, Prehistoric Spain encompasses a period that the "Portuguese" articles differentiated into Prehistoric Portugal and Pre-Roman Portugal. Should we merge them all? The Ogre 13:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This an error which in Iberian language not exist /p/

This an error which in Iberian language not exist /p/.

In really not exist epigraphical evidences of /b/. No exist none letter for B from Greek origin nor Phoenician, only P.

Kind Regrads, --Georgeos Díaz-Montexano (talk) 10:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About the phonemes B and P in Iberian languages

User Dilvish 10 words to remove a previous edition (diffs) said:

Undoing edition that contradicts bibliographical references (invents a p phoneme, deletes b) without any reference; and lacks logics...

Dear Mr. Dilvish

You say that my correction has no logic, and I invented a phoneme P, while delete or remove a phoneme in B. I am very grateful for their interest and intentions. I am sure that you act in good faith, guided by the literature he read. However, I took many years of my life studying the ancient writings of Iberia, and it is very easy to demonstrate that the writing system used by iberians, actually there is no point that can be compared with a Greek Beta, or Phoenician Beth .

In all systems used by the Iberians scriptures, they never used the letter Beta from Greeks and Etruscans alphabets nor the letter Beth from Phoenicians alphabets. They always used the letter or sign, that all alphabets Greeks, Etruscans, or Phoenicians used to play the phoneme P. And this is an indisputable and scientific evidence, of that they did not have the sound of phoneme B, or having a phoneme whose sound was intermediate between a B and a P, but closer to phoneme P. It is simple common sense...

If they really had the sound of phoneme B, and did not have a sound for the phoneme P (as many scholars still believe erroneously), then the logical thing they had chosen the letter that the Greeks or the Etruscans or the Phoenicians had for the phoneme B. You only should review the writing system of ancient Iberians, and yourself can see that there is no equal sign to the Greek Beta, nor any letter or sign similar to the Phoenician Beth.

The writing system found in Espanca, Portugal, as we see in place that would occupy the phoneme B, they used a letter similar to the Greek Pi. This shows that they did not have a sound equal to phoneme reproducing the Greek Beta, because then they would have used the same sign of the Greek Beta, and not the sign of phoneme Pi, but the fact that they are chosen sign that the Greeks, Etruscans and Pheonicians used to play the phoneme P or Ph, in a second position, corresponding to phoneme B, shows that the ancient Tartessians then, like the Iberians, had a sound that was intermediate between the phoneme B and P phoneme, but closer to the sound of phoneme P.

This theory that I defend, and was discovered earlier by great philologists and linguists of the past, but at present nobody wants to remember, for example, the famous French linguist and philologist, Edouard Philipon, who also was a great expert and connoisseur of the ancient writings and the ancient toponimy, and philology, of the ancient civilizations of Iberia.

I understand that you are going to insist that I show that this is not the same that is officially extended (even though it exposed the evidence with great common sense, logic and scientific rigor). Okay, here you are right. ie, what I exposed is not the same that we read in most major books on Iberian languages. I guess you know it is very difficult to get scientists or experts acknowledge a serious error of interpretation, but as Wikipedia must always be impartial and neutral, then I propose to you a more fair and more neutral, and also respects the policy of Wikipedia, ie, maintaining the official version, and then make a brief paragraph, where I explain this same that I have explained to you, and of course citing the exact source of the work of Edouard Philipon.

The people have a right to know the facts, and reflect on the truth and what is credible, that is a possible misinterpretation, or observation. Always with the guarantees of a neutral and impartial vision.

The people have a right to know that, in really, in the writing system used by the Iberians, from the standpoint of Epigraphy, there is no sign that can compare with any sign used by the Greeks, Phoenicians and Etruscans for the phoneme B, and that in really there is only one letter or sign which is identical to the Greek Pi used by Greeks and Etruscans, and that is the same today that experts read as if it were a sign only for the phoneme B, and a few as a sign for the phoneme B and also for the phoneme P.

Kind Regards, --Georgeos Díaz-Montexano (talk) 15:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Mr. Díaz-Montexano:

Things are not so simple.

First and foremost: Wikipedia has very clear rules on what references should be used. I can quote papers of Schuchardt, Michelena, De Hoz, Quintanilla, Rodríguez or Correa on Iberian language Phonology, they all state the /b/ phoneme, but cast serious doubts or simple rejects the existence of /p/.

Second. Iberian is not a copy of Greek or Phoenician scripts, and Espanca is not an Iberian inscription. I don't see which logics lies in supposing that to be a /b/ phoneme there must be a letter copied from the Greek B. Iberian has letters akin to Greek qoph, phi, khi or hupsilon and no one proposed that phonemes for Iberian. Iberian does not have a letter akin to Greek O (the only one equivalent is KU) but nobody doubts that Iberian do had an /o/ phoneme.

Third: linguistics researchers (as Maddieson) have stated that among the known languages that if a language has /g/ and /d/ also has /b/; but that it's is very usual for a language to have /t/ /d/ /g/ /b/ but no /p/.

Fourth: alphabetical script used by Iberian speaking people show the use of B, but not of P; alphabetical script used by no Iberian speaking people show the use of B, and only rarely use P and they do in linguistics context in which among languages use to appear devoicing.

Fifth: Iberian script show two kinds of signs for syllabic signs of D/T and G/K (showing the existence of two pairs of phonemes /d/ /t/ and /g/ /k/), but this does not happen with the syllabic B signs (so there is only place for /b/).

IMHO, any of this points refutes your propposal, and I guess you may have missunderstood Philippon.

It has no relevance, but, as a matter of fact, we do can find parallels between shapes of Greek beta and Iberian signs: the Beta of the Cyclades, of Corinth, of Crete and Megara (just the shape of BI that is PI in standard Greek), of some towns of Sicily, etc.

If you still have doubts, you may ask some Wikipedia's Administrator on the right way to write this article. I don't find any logics in the syllogism that if Iberian has no signs akin to Greek and Phoenician B, there is no /b/ phoneme in Iberian. There are direct and clear linguistic data that show that there was a /b/ phoneme and no /p/, and these override very dubious circumstantial evidence.

--Dilvish 10 words (talk) 13:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vowels

Iberian has five vowels, the same as in Spanish or Basque - strikes me as an unhappy wording. 5 vowel systems such as this are the most common in the world's languages and phrasing it like this seems like an attempt to tie Iberian to Spanish/Basque. How about "has the 5 vowel system encountered in many languages, including some modern languages spoken on the Iberian peninsula"? Akerbeltz (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think what editor means sound is the SAME in both languages for the FIVE VOWELS--Virginal6 (talk) 16:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Identical Pronunciation (Basque, Spanish)

Five vowels phonetics is the same in Basque,Spanish and Iberian (and perhaps Canary Islands Guanche) [2]--Virginal6 (talk) 16:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)--Virginal6 (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I take is this is related to my above comment? Yes, I know that the vowel systems are the same. But the thing is, this is a very common system, for example Athna, Ainu, Tagalog and Malagasy all have the same system. How can I put this - yes, it's notable that they have the same system but it shouldn't be precluded by the phrasing that that is a priori proof of anything. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS And, as far as I can tell, there is no way of telling whether the system was actually /a e i o u/. That's what the spelling suggests but it's not so easy to be certain we're not dealing with, for example, /ɑ ɛ i ɔ u/ which would suddenly look very different. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the way it stands now, the wording is a bit unfortunate. As Akerbeltz said, nothing follows from the fact that the languages in question have similar 5-vowel systems. For example, it is clear that Italian is a direct, straightforward descendant of Latin, but while Latin had a 5-vowel system, Italian has now one with seven. And while Hawaiian and Zulu both share a 5-vowel system, they are certainly unrelated. As far as I know, 5-vowel systems are significantly more common than elementary 3-vowel systems (e.g. in Quechua) or the 4-vowel system found, for example, in Aztec. I suggest we remove the apposition as it now stands (especially as it splits off an already present appositive given in the list of vowels). If we do want to include it, it ought to come first in the sentence, e.g. as: "Like Spanish, Basque or many other languages, Iberian has..." Would that be okay? Trigaranus (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Before we change anything - I'm not an expert on Iberian by any stretch of the imagination - do we actually know (as in, any reliable sources) if Iberian just had a 5 vowel system or actually /a e i o u/? It would kind of affect the way we rephrase; ie does it have a 5 vowel system (as a huge number of languages) or a 5 vowel /a e i o u/ system as many (but not quite as many) languages? Akerbeltz (talk) 19:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is remarkable,that ,for example, closeby Catalan language has more than 5 vowels;even these ones are pronounced in a different way than Spanish-Basque 5 vowels.We do not have to go far away to see Basque-Spanish pronunciation or more vowel numbers.Also, please compare pronunciation with French and English.This is more useful than comparing with Pacific languages. Please,Trigaranus,I would ask you not to edit what I write,unless it is clearly wrong.Particularly after inducing deletion of a page ("Iberian-Guanche Inscriptions")without a single objective reason.--Virginal6 (talk) 22:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)----Virginal6 (talk) 23:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Virginal, the main question I asked remain: is there ANY evidence that tells us the Iberian vowels were actually /a e i o u/? It is somewhat reminiscent of the debate on Old Japanese vowels which we know existed but are commonly written as o1 and o2 etc because we're not sure as to their exact phonetic value.

However, I do realise that several eminent vasconists such as Mitxelena have suggested that the number of shared surface similarities between Basque and Iberian may point to a Sprachbund. Unless there's some clear data on the vowels, perhaps we could state that Iberian has 5 vowels which it (apparently) shares with other modern languages such as Basque and Spanish. Although 5 vowel systems are extemely common all over the world, it has been suggested that this may be evidence of a Sprachbund amongst the ancient languages of the Iberian peninsula. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Akerbeltz,the late Larry Trask summarizes Basque-Iberian resemblances given by Mitxelena and othershere.He states that /a e i o u/ is one of the common Iberian and Basque language similarities.As you know,he was convinced that Basque had no relatives,including Iberian.Apparently,both Mitxelena and Tovar were convinced about the Iberian letters sound as stated by Gomez-Moreno.--Virginal6 (talk) 01:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think Akerbeltz' suggestion works quite well. The problem with vowel systems is that they are extremely prone to change, with a tendency for merger and splitting. As soon as you look at languages through time, you will see that vowel phonemes change, multiply and fuse, even between regional dialects. Looking at modern Basque and ancient Iberian and finding 5 vowel phonemes each (with Iberian vowels beyond the reach of certain identification — e.g. if /u/ stands for [u] or for [ɯ] is something we simply do not know) is not much of a hint in any direction.
And, Virginal, as far as changing the article's wording is concerned, I did not know that you had edited that part. Still, you should know that one does not need any form of permission from an editor to change an article on WP, and is free to modify anything as long as it is not a change for the worse. There is not even any need to discuss modifications on the talk page if they are not that far-reaching. In the case of the sentence in question, the syntactic flow is in its present form rather clumsily interrupted by the inserted comparative apposition; and the sentence would be much improved if that part was moved. Trigaranus (talk) 01:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No need to throw Trask at me, I can quote entire passages from the book. He does not state anywhere that the phonemes of Iberian are /a e i o u/. He only states that there are 5 and that their are normally transcribed as a e i o u. Akerbeltz (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I've made some time (don't ask how) and looked through the individual pages on the Iberian alphabet. All state that there are 5 vowels but none specify their phonetic value. That's an important difference. Also, it would seem that the letters used in the Greek derived script had a variety of reconstructed readings in the Ancient Greek alphabet. Α seems to have covered long and short [a], Η was [ɛː] (Greek Ε which was [e] does not seem to have been part of the Greco-Iberian alphabet), Ι was long and short [i], o was [o] and Υ was [y] [yː] and earlier [ʉ] [ʉː]. It looks to me that writing the vowels of Iberian a e i o u is a simple matter of convention and that you might as well write them a ɛ i o y but in order to keep things simple, the easily type-able letters a e i o u are used. IF we were to infer that there is a one to one correspondence between the Greek phonemes and the Greco-Iberian phonemes, you'd end up with /a aː ɛ ɛː i iː o y yː (or [ʉ] [ʉː]). Which suddenly doesn NOT look like Basque or Spanish /a e i o u/ anymore. Akerbeltz (talk) 17:08, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly agree on this.I have answered you in your page "Basque Language".I guess a British-born would say THROW TO and not THROW AT ME.I did not want to throw anything to you I thought you were half British and could not have this book —Preceding unsigned comment added by Virginal6 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC) --Virginal6 (talk) 22:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Umm the Basque language page isn't my page and since this is the relevant page, let's keep it here (by the way, I haven't deleted anything about the Veleia stuff). "Throwing Trask at me" is just an expression, it doesn't literally mean you were trying to hit me with the book ;) But yes, I know the book well, I have been involved in Basque studies for a long time. I'm glad we can agree on this point though, so I'll go ahead and amend the wording slightly so it's not misleading. Cheers. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Basque

Akerbeltz, you can probably analyze the proposed limited Basque connections better than me. BTW, Iberian is not a language isolate. It simply isn't well attested enough to classify. kwami (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers ;) I looked at it - it can stand as it is at the moment in terms of the references to Basque. The link is bollox but it states on the page that it's disputed and that's good enough I guess. As far as isolate goes - difficult one to argue. I guess I'd personally call it unclassified. Akerbeltz (talk) 01:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also moved the old Vasconic languages and rewrote the article as a mainstream topic. Not the most common name in the world, but not terribly uncommon either. kwami (talk) 02:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well done, I'd say. Trigaranus (talk) 09:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Akerbeltz, you have created a mess in the Personal Names section trying to "compensate" my stuff. Reference to phonemes should go on the correspondent section. Your mention of the -TAR suffix is quite idiot, but it's still worth mentioning if it was Trask's original (I'll check this out). What does an "ethnonym suffix" as being part of a compound personal name, specially on those occasions where it's found as first member: TAR-BELES/HAR-BELES?

I'm going also to correct my material in order to meet Wikipedia's standard. Talskubilos (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phonemes

This page throws up as many headaches as the Greece page... is there any basis in the literature for accepting the conventional transcription values of Iberian (g d b k t etc) as phonemes? In Greek they probably were voiced/unvoiced/whatever, but in my experience of writing system borrowing, that's no guarantee whatsoever. For example, b d g in Pinyin do not represent [b d g] but rather [ p t k ]. Is there enough infor to accept those as actual phonemes in Iberian and declare them to be voiced/unvoiced? If there were sister languages one could use internal reconstruction but Iberian doesn't have any... Thoughts? Akerbeltz (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Mitxelena's proto-Basque is a cousin of Iberian. It's a reasonable supposition to assume Iberian had a fortis/lenis contrast like proto-Basque. The important difference between both systems was the absence of /h/ in Iberian. It seems that many plosives either in word-initial of after a liquid become /h/ or zero in proto-Basque, while other Vasco-Caucasian languages (including Iberian), kept them. Talskubilos (talk) 22:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, with the Pinyin the difference is rather about fortis/lenis, and voice does not come into play (as in my mother tongue). I doubt there is any way for modern linguistics to determine the exact phonological value of Iberian graphemes. We must be content accepting that, evidently, they were identified with the corresponding sounds from the Latin / Greek / Punic systems, wouldn't you say? Trigaranus (talk) 21:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is my intepretation too, but that means we cannot make statements about what exactly the phonetic quality of the difference was. So we ought to change:

The <n> is a normal alveolar /n/ to: <n> represents a nasal
Plosives: there are five plosives.

	unvoiced	voiced
velar	/k/	/ɡ/
dental	/t/	/d/
labial		/b/

To: -> There are five stops, conventionally transcribed as k g t d b. Or something like that. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that throw away too much of the baby along with the water? As far as I know, we do have a small corpus of bilingually attested items that give us relatively clear hints to the region of articulation, while leaving a measure of uncertainty concerning the articulative details. Apart from the nasals, which seem to be a bit of a tricky issue, most of the identifications are fairly straightforward: phonemically speaking, we can be confident that we have labial, coronal, dorsal places of articulation for the stops, and that in coronal and dorsal plosives, we can identify two contrasting pairs (probably fortis-lenis, perhaps voiced-unvoiced, aspirated-unaspirated?), which we -- as did the Romans -- would most probably take to roughly correspond to our differences between k-g and t-d.
It's a fairly safe bet to identify them as labial, dental and velar (palatals as a separate series are unlikely unless in contrast to velars); as for "voiced-unvoiced", that distinction generally tends to receive much more attention than the (usually) accompanying, or even more decisive distinction fortis-lenis. If it was really voiced vs. unvoiced is beyond me, but I'd be equally ready to mark a distinction in my language as <d> vs. <t> even though there is hardly any voiced consonant in it. It would be interesting to know to what extent we find graphemic aporia in Latin or Greek renderings of Iberian names. If it was anywhere close to the problems caused in transcribing Germanic /θ/ or the tau Gallicum, then we would have to sit down and seriously reconsider the present reconstruction.
Until then, I think we have to be content to differentiate between the phonemic value and the phonetic interpretation of the graphemes. The phonemes are rather unproblematic and quite clearly defined through contrast to one another and by identification with Latin/Greek graphemes; which is likely all there can be said about that. The phonetic realisation of the phonemes in different environments (both phonetically, i.e. as allophones, and dialectally) will not have been any more consistent than in modern written vs. spoken languages, allowing for significant variation. Trigaranus (talk) 22:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At least for the plosives, that is. ;-) Trigaranus (talk) 22:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talskubilos, you may disagree but fortunately that's not the point of wikipedia. No-one not on substance abuse has to date proven in a scientific manner that Proto-Basque is related to anything. At the most, you can argue for some Iberian Sprachbund or a few loans that may have passed in either direction. Wikipedia isn't about what's a reasonable assumptions either. And sorry, but Vasco-Caucasian is as accepted amongst linguists as the laying of hands is amongst medical practitioners.

Akerbeltz, I've advanced a bit of my own research, which it's still in progress and it hasn't been published. The Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis is a serious one, and it has major implications for the understanding of the linguistic prehistory of Europe. In my view, Vasco-Caucasian languages spread through Europe along agriculture during the Neolithic, being superseded by IE tongues some millenia afterwards. Iberian and (proto-)Basque were fortunated enough to survive until historical times, but traces of other languages remain in form of substrate loanwords in present-day languages (including Basque itself). I've been able to discover the etymology of many Vasco-Caucasian substrate words in Spanish and other languages, including Latin.

About Iberian phonology, it's very much like (except on those points I mentioned above) the one reconstructed by Mitxelena for an archaic stage of Basque (which he called "Pre-Basque"), specially for the lack of /p/. So to be honest, we would have to include a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article. BTW, "proto-Basque" is a very BAD label for Mitxelena's reconstucted stage of Basque, "early Basque" would be better. Talskubilos (talk) 08:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trigaranus, sorry, I missed your response somehow. The thing is, letters can be used to represent anything. Stretching it, the Cherokee syllabary is a perfect example of how a Latin letter can be taken and assigned a totally new function. Now I do *not* think that the Iberian reading of the borrowed Greek alphabet is that far away from what the old Greek pronunciation was, but the thing is since there are no surviving and/or documented sister/daughter languages, β could have reasonably stood for /β b p mb/ or any number of associated phonemes - it could have been nasal, ingressive... who knows? I think we can safely glean from the literature what the readings are, as in, the graphemes of Iberian. But I'd like to see a reliable source that actually gives phonemes for Iberian. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support Akerbeltz. Just look at Modern Greek, where μβ is [b], or Polish, which borrowed Latin c for [ts] rather than for [k]. It's very likely that most of the Iberian sound values were similar, but we can't know how similar—which is why epigraphers don't use the IPA. We should transcribe these as b, k, n, etc., as they are cognate to those letters, but we can't make any claims as to how they were actually pronounced. Best we can do is argue, based on known borrowings, that there weren't any drastic changes in pronunciation. kwami (talk) 00:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talskubilos, you're, by your own admission, violating WP:NOR. I don't care how many theories you can come up with, until you've published them and until they've been accepted or refuted by the relevant specialists, they have no place on Wikipedia. Sorry. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Akerbeltz, the subject of the phonological system of Iberian has been taken up by several authors (Mitxelena, Rodríguez Ramos, etc.). They have already pointed its similarity with proto-Basque's, so it could be agreed this is the current accepted knowledge. Talskubilos (talk) 12:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We know quite a bit about Basque and its history as its a) documented b) alive. Thus we can make statements about its phonology. Iberian is a) not well documented b) not alive. That severely restricts the amount of detail one can gets out of the historical record. Yes, Mitxelena et al have pointed out the apparent similarities (and I'm not arguing about those) but you show me a page where Mitxelena actually talks about Iberian phonemes and their exact phonemic quality.

And sorry but trying to insert the stuff deleted on the Proto Basque page on the Aquitanian page is in bad taste I feel... Akerbeltz (talk) 12:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't help, I'm afraid. I don't know of any study that tries to close in on the exact values of Iberian phonemes. Trigaranus (talk) 01:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

comparative table

What's the justification for the inclusion of the Aquitanian-Basque table? We say nothing, but note that very few Iberian words can be identified. Take aŕs : HARS- : hartz "bear". Do we know that Iberian aŕs means bear, or something like it? Or is it simply an onomastic element that looks like an Aquitanian/Basque onomastic element? kwami (talk) 09:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. None. Been trying to make that point till I'm blue in the face and have given up. And "male gender suffix" isn't even English and certainly not what -(t)ar means in modern Basque. But what do I know of these things... Akerbeltz (talk) 15:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

>Do we know that Iberian aŕs means bear, or something like it? Or is it simply an onomastic element that looks like an Aquitanian/Basque onomastic element?

My answer would be the second one. What could be inferred from this and other matches is the subject of further research and debate.

> Been trying to make that point till I'm blue in the face and have given up. And "male gender suffix" isn't even English and certainly not what -(t)ar means in modern Basque. But what do I know of these things...

And I'm getting myself blue trying to explain you why Aquitanian/Iberian TAR can't be an ethnonym suffix like Basque -tar, no matter what your beloved Trask thought of it. Talskubilos (talk) 21:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem with anyone who tries to sell pseudo-science as science, whether that's on this page or any other page. Congratulations, you've now reduplicated your table on both the Iberian page and the Aquitanian page. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you take a close look, you'll see they're different. But I'm planning to remove the Iberian stuff from the Aquitanian article to keep "pseudo-science" sellers like you and your beloved Larry Trask happy :-) Talskubilos (talk) 22:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, if we do not have reliable sources (or, as it appears, any sources) that the Iberian corresponds to the Aquitanian or Basque, then it is OR for us to claim they correspond. "Look alikes" are meaningless: I could make a table of English-Korean lookalikes, and even some with similar meanings (two-tul "two", many-manhi "many"), but its very existence would be misleading. I'm deleting the table. kwami (talk) 23:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is NOT the right way to do it, Kwamikagami. First, you asked me for references, and when I provided them, you apply censorship to my work in its crudest form. Talskubilos (talk) 09:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually you provided some references that refer to the broad onomastic shared pool. You have not provided a SINGLE reference for any of the supposed Iberian-Aquitanian word pairs. Secondly, the wording refers to onomastics, but the table doesn't contain a single onomastic, neither a place name nor a personal name. They're just supposed pairs of common nouns you're listing. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

> Actually you provided some references that refer to the broad onomastic shared pool. You have not provided a SINGLE reference for any of the supposed Iberian-Aquitanian word pairs.

Obviously, you haven't read nor Mitxelena's nor Gorrotxategi's works which I have referrenced to.

> Secondly, the wording refers to onomastics, but the table doesn't contain a single onomastic, neither a place name nor a personal name. They're just supposed pairs of common nouns you're listing.

The Iberian items are compound onomastic element, that is, word that combine to form COMPOUND personal names. They were identified in the first place thank to the Ascoli's Bronze. This is well documented and explained in the article itself. Talskubilos (talk) 10:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop copying text, this isn't an email exchange. For a topic as controversial as this one is, it's not good enough to just say "oh it's in the book somewhere, you go find it..." Akerbeltz (talk) 10:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the books

Hello again. Sorry for the delay (weekending ;-). I am upset because this is getting an impossible mess (in this and in the Aquitanian language page), and, I must say, I am very specially displeased by phrases such as "to keep "pseudo-science" sellers like you and your beloved Larry Trask happy". Not fine, not nice. :-(

I suggest this section should come back to the books, and I remember some readings I miss in this "debate":

Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (2002b): La hipótesis del vascoiberismo desde el punto de vista de la epigrafía íbera, Fontes linguae vasconum: Studia et documenta, 90, pp. 197-218. Already an old paper, but maybe the last monographic on this theme. BTW in this paper both TAR and ARS (as being "bear") are rejected. This is one of some papers in which a model for Iberian phonetics system is proposed.

Orduña Aznar, Eduardo (2005): Sobre algunos posibles numerales en textos ibéricos, Palaeohispanica 5, pp. 491-506. Surprise, a mainstream theory is that Iberian numerals are very similar to the Basque ones!!!

Orduña Aznar, Eduardo (2006): Segmentación de textos ibéricos y distribución de los segmentos, doctoral dissertation, UNED-Madrid (unpublished doctoral dissertation ). With more data.

A resumed statement in an old paper by Correa in * Correa, José Antonio (1994): «La lengua ibérica», Revista Española de Lingüística 24/2, in pp. 284f.

Also in Untermann's "La onomástica ibérica" there are some interesting notes on the relation between Iberian and Aquitanian: pp. 82f. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dumu Eduba (talk • contribs) 12:02, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please may we stick to the reliable sources. (And of course, Trask is one of them). Thanks.

BTW: If you read the Michelena's FHV, you may see that the first part (the one edited in 1960) is plenty of comparisons between Basque, Aquitanian and Iberian. Although doesn't claim a sure genetic relation, fact is that Michelena used Iberian data as a reference for his theories. And, of course, I think that nowadays the only mainstream theory is that Aquitanian do is old Basque.

--Dumu Eduba (talk) 11:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How you go from Sobre algunos posibles numerales en textos ibéricos to a mainstream theory is that Iberian numerals are very similar to the Basque ones? Yes, Mitxelena et al tried to relate Iberian to Old Basque once Iberian had been deciphered, it's a logical step given the close proximity. But in 1964 he concluded that our inability to use Basque to unlock Iberian "could hardly happen if Iberian was an ancient form of Basque or even a close relative of it". If you read through his material in roughly chronological order, you can see that he thoroughly investigates the possibility of a link but gradually comes to the conclusion that any links were not of a genetic nature.

And I know the remark about pseudo-science was harsh but for some reason, Basque, both on and off Wikipedia, seems to attract an extraordinary number of people with... well, fascinating ideas that for the most part they can't back up with science. It gets onto your nerves after a while I guess. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The studies on numerals is published in a reputed journal and in a doctoral dissertation (whose director was de Hoz), and has been followed in other papers by Ferrer (I should look whether some of his articles is in the net). This study shows the conicidence of some "words" associated among them and with numerals and value terms (yes, salir is acknowledged as "money" / "value" or so, and the idea of comparing it with 'sari' is Michelena's). This "words" remind Basque numerals: cases as borste+abar-ke-borste; orkei-ke-laur; abar-ke-bi; orkei-abar; orkei-ke-iru, abar-sen sorse, erti /erter and so. If bar comes from abar (Orduña affords some data in this sense) we also have barbin, sisbi barkeike, orkeibar, etc. Hence the comparison: abar/bar 'amar', orkei 'ogei', ban 'bat', borste 'bortz', laur 'laur', sorse 'zortzi', etc; while erter is the mark of value in 'semis' coins.

Maybe not the ultimate true (time will say), but a fully respectable theory, published in reputed journals; and coincidences are striking (at least it is much more serious that all those theories on the Caucasian or Berber origin of Basque).

And, of course I fully understand anybody who is tired (of sick) of all those silly lunacies and crackpot theories (as I fully understand and respect Trask ideas against). Who can stand them?

But today Iberian-Basque relation is a serious theory (not a certainty, of course). Maybe in the next 20 years it will be a certainty or may it will be rejected and all these "coincidences" will be explained as cultural loanwords (maybe even from a third language, who knows). This theory was followed from 1900 to 1960/1970 (Schuchardt, Gómez-Moreno, Caro Baroja, Michelena), then it was rejected as too fruitless to be believed. But in the nineties those damned Likinos mosaics (Likine-te ekiar; Likine ekien) showed something unexpected. You may read the "moderated" statements of Correa and Untermann that I quoted (something like: there do is a relation but it is too soon to know what kind of, more investigation on Iberian language is needed before).

The real problem (I am afraid) is how to add quotes on the academic studies on the Basque "connection" without geting this article a mess of opinions, or without geting it a article with two paragraphs on the Iberian language and two thousands on "fascinating" hypothesis and theories on the Basque "connection" (when of course it should be the opposite). It is very difficult to write this part whithout begining a dozen of war editions! That is why I suggest to stick to reliable sources and nothing, absolutely nothing more.

Regards. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As regards your last recommendation, yes, that is exactly what we need to do in this situation. Unfortunately, I am in no position to help decide what is "reliable" re. Iberian. If you and Akerbeltz can agree on sources, then we're gold. Otherwise we might need to go to the linguistics project page etc. for an outside opinion. kwami (talk) 22:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agreed. I'm not the least bit against including such data on ongoing scientific studies and research into a possible Basque-Iberian link as long as we stick to the facts. Perhaps the best way would be if Dumu rewrote that section on the link in his sandbox and we could pour over it and then when we got something, move it here? Akerbeltz (talk) 23:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just been reading Orduña and Untermann. The argument on the numbers is well presented and researched as far as I can tell. It's circumstantial but the way he builds his case does not, to my mind, violate any red lines (including common sense) - it's at the very least as founded as the stuff on Rongorongo so I have no objections to presenting the numbers case here for example. It was, actually, a refreshingly sensible article, thank you for the link! Akerbeltz (talk) 23:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, you mean we might actually be moving toward—what's that word again?—consensus ? Since you both seem intelligent, informed, and appropriately cautious, I'll be happy to support whatever you can come up with together. kwami (talk) 02:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Numerals from 3 up are commonly borrowed. Do 1 and 2 correspond as well? kwami (talk) 02:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is a very interesting article, and there is some more data in the doctoral dissertation. The main problem is that some identifications are better based that others, and it will be better if more than one expert talk of every idea.

Akerbeltz, I will try to write some phrases in the Sandbox, perhaps more like a scheme of data half worded, but I will need some days to try to decide which is the more solid material and which the more interesting, as in the books and papers sometimes ideas are showed only as suggestions or posibilities more than as claims.

Kwamikagami, Orduña proposes as the more clear: (a)bar 10, orkei 20, laur 4, borste 5, and with lesser evidence sisbi 7, sorse 8, bi(n) 2 and sei 6. Ferrer (links to his papers see e.p. and both 2007) specially in coins finds also ban 'one' and erder 'half' and serkir 1/6. In fact Ferrer 2007, p. 88 shows the more complete list of numerals from the ideas, hypothesis and suggestions of Orduña in his doctoral dissertation as follows: erdi = 1/2; 1 = ban?; 2= bi(n); iru?=3; lau(r)=4; bors(te)=5; sei = 6; sispi = 7; sorse =8; (a)bar = 10; and orkei= 20. (Some signs are in fact with ´). But this version is somewhat different in Ferrer (e.p. p. 4): there is no iru 3, and ban is from coins only. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 09:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, these days you rarely expect consensus on such topic and when it does happen, it's like a bolt out of the blue :b The one thing that we will need to explain carefully is the reasoning for why these sequences of sounds are likely to represent numbers. The remainder is just "business as usual" in a way for a historical linguist. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to say the expression "pseudo-science" was Akerbeltz's, not mine. He did some personal attacks on me, and I've counted adjective "stupid" among his comments at least 3 times! Apparently he didn't like my criticism about Trask's proposal on Aquitanian -TAR. I've also have to say I'm no "crackpot" nor "lunatic" person (although I've dealt with people like that in the past), so please STOP your mumble-jumbo. Talskubilos (talk) 10:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In case you haven't noticed Tals, we've moved on. Enjoy your day. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talskubilos, before you keep on complaining, may I ask you to think about the possibility that you are not the only person who has dealt with crackpots and lunatics, and that so we can talk about other persons?.

Some weeks ago Akerbeltz, Kwami, me and others has to read some very nasty comments by alleged persons (maybe just one person, I'm afraid, sometimes one user answered the question to another as having been asked to him) claiming against the conspirations and censorship against an alleged decipherer of the Iberian, saying that every expert who has criticised him is part of a conspiracy or fugitives, that wikipedia user who does not agree with him have hidden interest, that he could answer any question on the references of his edition, but not in the way he was asked (this was asked if he could add references to the alleged sumerian words and meaning he show as evidence, and that of course do not appear in any Sumerian dictionnary ;-). (Curiously enough he used the same IP that his favourite decipherer, but whereas he claimed that every user who writes on the theme should show his real name, the many cloned users never did). These pages are usual victims of interested users who claim crackpots theories so absurd that, IMHO, I suspect even they do not believe.

BTW, do you really think that it is serious to say that Trask is a ""pseudo-science" seller" ??? --Dumu Eduba (talk) 13:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO Trask wasn't a very good comparative linguist, so he tried to cover his own faults. A good example of what I'm saying is this: in his unfinished Etymological Dictionary of Basque he analizes zapelatz 'buzzard' as a compound of zapo 'toad' (?) and belatz 'hawk', when the first member is actually zapel, a less frequent variant of txapel 'hat'.

Thus relying on Trask as the ONLY source of information, as does Mr Akerbeltz is a kind of intellectual suicide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.50.124.65 (talk) 11:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I wouldn't say that hat-buzzard etymology quite makes its point... But yes, of course we need as much variation and peer-review as one can get on the matter. Trigaranus (talk) 12:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I didn't say he invented inexistent Latin words as **rato:nem?

BTW, a version of the "stupid" (Akerbletz said) table comparing Iberian onomastic items with Aquitanian and Basque is found at Gorrotxategi (1993). Talskubilos (talk) 09:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I disagree with some ideas of Trask (as did Gorrochategui who published some discrepancies, but never denying him to be an expert), but even so he is a legitimate source on Basque. As a matter of fact in his postume dictionary he even quotes a relationship between an Iberian word an a Basque one (though he considered it unclear, and surely he does not believe). But this is not a place to quarrel on whether Larry Trask was good or bad (or 'the ugly', such discussion are better on the other Larry Trask ;-) ), you can begin that discussion here and soon discover the discussion centered on the virtues of some crackpot theory . Better not.

On Gorrochategui's list, that was an experimental article (probably made to order), and the content of the text shows that Gorrochategui believe that only two terms may be significant (only may be).

But I hope that in a few days there will be a section on Iberian and Basque with much more sources than Trask works (who, of course was an expert on Basque, but not on Iberian, as many if not all the experts on Iberian are not experts on Basque). But I insist: this is not the place to quarrel on experts virtues or mistakes, only if a source is a reputed expert or not, if it is a reliable source or not, and Trask do is (but of course not the only one). --Dumu Eduba (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ergative

I admit to total ignorance - how can it be argued that Iberian was ergative? That seems like a long shot. If one argued that certain endings mark agents, that would be a reasonable deduction but has it actually been proven that it's an ergative language? Akerbeltz (talk) 13:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see, it is what Untermann says in the quote. BTW I am looking now at a recent articleon Iberian as an ergative language, although this one says that the ergative suffix was -ka.--Dumu Eduba (talk) 20:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah thank you. I didn't realise that ref applied to more than one case ending. Perhaps we should add it to all it applies to. I might fiddle with the formatting a bit too. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:58, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Orduña's article and NPOV

Lately an anonymous editor has made some improvements to the article, specially an observation about borrowing of numerals in the section on Orduña's paper, which have been reverted by Akerbeltz. As this might compromise the article's NPOV, I've put a NPOV violation banner and also I've added a note to the statement of the author's POV. Talskubilos (talk) 13:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the [Editor's note: this statement reflects the current paradigm's view enforced by the author] because it wasnt clear. Could you explain what you meant by that? Who's the author whose opinion is being over-represented? —Soap— 13:26, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The current paradigm among Basque specialists is that Basque and Iberian are unrelated (that is, there's no proof of a genetical relation between them). As Orduña's work might challenge this view, he prefers to be cautious and tailor his conclusion to it.

It seems that even suggesting Basque and Iberian could be genetically related is taboo in Spanish Academy. Talskubilos (talk) 13:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Akerbeltz gave a clear explanation to the revertion: "revert, too much conjecture, no refs". The edition he deleted were more personal opinions than data: Vasconic is a theory (and a rather absurd one IMHO) not an accepted family oflanguages; considerations on the lack of "p" are out of place, off-topic and amateur from a linguistic point of view; considerations on borrowing are again out of place and mostly an editor opinion. None of the deleted contents had any reference. To put a NPOV violation banner based on this is frankly not polite. The basis afforded for this banner is rather ridiculous.

And BTW there are many articles on the relation between Basque and Iberian published in Spanish journals, so you should revise the meaning of the word taboo. The same on the claim that were Orduña wrote A, he means B, and that so we should say that he wrote B; it is Orduña's exclusive right to say what he meant. You may say exegetical your opinion on Orduña's words (although better in a forum or in a journal), but not to impose it as the truth.

The only claim that could be stated on NPOV is the absence of any reference to the authors that claim that there is no relation between Basque and Iberian. I do not meant they should be added (as long as the paragraph show the question as yet not sure), but this lacks shows how wrong are the reasons afforded for the NPOV banner.

So, please, 90.163.20.209, delete yourself the banner. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 10:43, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I read the papers, the current view is that we cannot read Iberian much and until we can, we have lots of theories (some better than others) floating around. People have tried to tie Basque to Iberian ever since Poça in the 16th century first suggested it so I really don't think one can claim it's a taboo topic. But my main reasons for the reversion is that the article clearly states that it's Orduña's theory and that he does NOT at this stage propose a genetic link but lexical borrowing. So there's no need to re-state that in this somewhat clumsy way and that does not make the article NPOV. It's actually rather balanced these days. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Full ACK. The similarity (if not virtual identity) of the reconstructed phonological system (only the system of contrasts, however, not the phonetic details, which in an extinct language are at best partially recoverable, anyway) of Iberian to the reconstructed phonological system of Aquitanian/Ancient Basque is no doubt striking; but since the Iberian inscriptions are not plainly readable as Ancient Basque, nor even with its help, this militates against, if not virtually rules out a close relationship. In fact, an agreement this close would be unusual in related languages, as phonology is usually the first area of divergence, along with lexicon, and therefore suspicious - of areal convergence. If not intense contact, even. But if this was the case, even clear lexical equations (which at this level of knowledge about Iberian should be hard to come by) would prove nothing, as they could easily be due to borrowing. What is really needed is an understanding of the morphology of Iberian, as it is least easily borrowed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As 90.163.20.209 has not afforded anything but personal opinions and speculations without references ("As Orduña's work might challenge this view, he prefers to be cautious and tailor his conclusion to it" that is claiming that he wrote A but meant B; "It seems that even suggesting Basque and Iberian could be genetically related is taboo in Spanish Academy.") I deleted the NPOV banner (s)he put. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 10:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You might call my statement as "exegetical", but reading carefully Orduña's article one sees his assertion of the proposed ressemblances being due to borrowing rather than a genetical relationship as a contrived one. I personally don't know his motives, which I can only guess.

That said, your opinion about "Vasconic" is irrelevant, as Wikipedia has already a Vasconic languages article (notice that the contributor said "possibly Vasconic", clearly expressing this isn't a generally accepted fact). As this is a bona fide reference, your reverting compromises NPOV. As readers should be aware of this, I'm restating it again. Talskubilos (talk) 09:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Talskubilos, but you can discuss particular aspects of the content of the article, but to put a NPOV tag every time you disagree with any revertion do not seems to me bona fide.

Speculations on whether Orduña means B when he writes A are completely out of place here. You can discuss the question on Vasconic but your argument lacks logics and references. First, VAsconic a la Venneman has nothing to do with Iberian language. Second Vasconic as it is defined in the article Vasconic Languages refers to a very close family to Basque (for example, Basque and Aquitanian); this does not means that every language related to Basque is Vasconic. For example, English and German are Germanic languages; Greek and Italian are genetically related with both languages, but are not Germanic languages. Last: any references on any reliable source claiming that Iberian is a Vasconic language???

Please, think twice before using the NPOV tag!. Dumu Eduba (talk) 14:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

I'm failing to see how that tag is appropriate. The section up the arguments, pro and contra and leaves open the question of whether it's a genentic link or sprachbund or coincidence. How much more neutral can you get? Which aspect in particular do you take exception to Talskubilos? Akerbeltz (talk) 14:10, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see it's a re-hash of the previous debate, right, deleting the tag. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'm afraid this is a matter of {WP:UNDUE} about Orduña's theory, including academic chatter about it since 2010, so it's NOT an old debate. Talskubilos (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As regarding POV, Orduña's theory is comparable to Casule's theory of Burushaski as an Indo-European language. Talskubilos (talk) 22:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you can bring better arguments than you brought in 2010, the debate stands as it did back then. Seriously... Akerbeltz (talk) 11:39, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Iberian confusion

There is still aome confusion of terminology with Iberian. Iberian can mean either the Iberian peninsula or the Iberian language. Paleohispanic was invented by the scholars to help straighten out the confusion. Also another point of confusion is that the script covers two languages, one known, Basque, and the other not, Iberian. There is no unity of pre-Roman scripts and languages. Nothing is easy in the topic. Someone needs to work through the terminology making sure of what these names really mean. It has to be someone with some knowledge of historical linguistics and epigraphy.Botteville (talk) 01:24, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Iberian script was not used to write Basque. At least not until we manage to establish whether the Iberian language was related to Basque or not. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:02, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]