Talk:Palaeography/Archive 1

Archive 1

History or Historiography

History is the study of past times; Historiography is the study of the study of past times. Paleography is definitely the study of old handwriting, not the study of the study of old handwriting, so it belongs in the History category rather than the Historiography category. Dpm64 20:17, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is there an English concept similar to the German Historische Hilfswissenschaften? That's where it should belong. / Uppland 20:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, paleography itself is history. But paleography isn't actually paleography, it's an article about paleography. Hence Category:Historiography. (See use-mention distinction.)

No, paleography is part of the science of history. Our article about it is itself historiography but that's completely aside the point: the reason this article belongs in Category:Historiography is that debates about the methodology of palaeography (metapalaeography) are absolutely historiographical and are part of this field as well. OP was just wrong. — LlywelynII 14:33, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

If you really don't like Category:Historiography, find somewhere better. Category:History is much too large a category for any articles actually to appear in it. So find some suitable subcategory. Gdr 22:17, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

This could probably be solved by creating a Category:Palaeography. We have plenty of articles to fill it up (see the "See also" section of this very page...). Adam Bishop 23:41, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A good solution. Gdr 23:48, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

It didn't solve anything w/r/t this debate. It just created a new layer between this article and the other categories. (That said, if it cleaned up the "see also" section, good show.) — LlywelynII 14:34, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Latin bias

Is this an article on Palæography in general, or specifically Latin Palæography? The way the article is written seems to suggest an unfair slant towards Latin Palæography. But then, I'm a Greek Palæographer and would be happy to contribute a section on Greek Palæography if the good folk here think it not irrelevant. InfernoXV 3.32, 09 Sept 2006 (GMT+8)

Of course, please do! Adam Bishop 18:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

rename to palaeography

The UK Nation Archives calls it palaeography (versus palæography). It seems like the more modern and less pretentious spelling. I'd like to propose an article rename. Stbalbach 17:05, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The National Archive's use is aside the point. The modern spelling is paleography but we're ignoring that, too. The reason it goes at palaeography is WP:LIGATURE. We don't use them. — LlywelynII 14:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Could there be supplied some pronunciation details. Specifically is it generally pronounced "pay-leography" or "pah-leography" ? - ToireasaTyers 14:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I think "palaeo" would be closer to "pah-" (or the word pal) than to "pay-". talk to +MATIA 14:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually it is more like pay-, or the word "pail", like a bucket (or "pale"). At least, this is how all the Canadians, Americans, and Brits I know pronounce it, I don't think I have ever heard it as "pah-", but I could be mistaken. Adam Bishop 16:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The traditional greek pronounciation and the continental pronounciations in French, German and Italien would be more similar to 'pah-', but - as being a German and at the moment an Italian resident - I don't know the current use in UK and North America. GVogeler 20:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia is WP:NOTADICTIONARY and you should visit Wiktionary for generic pronunciation questions. There are valid occasions for such glosses in an English-language encyclopædia (Versailles comes to mind) but this isn't one of them. Both /ˌpal/ and /ˌpeɪ/ are acceptable to Brits, Americans prefer the latter, and it doesn't matter which you use. There's not really a point in cluttering up the lead to discuss that. — LlywelynII 14:42, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

cleanup needed

This article is largely incorrect and incomplete, and appears to have been written by someone with imperfect command of English. I've deleted a few of the egregious misstatements, but almost everything about it is problematic. The brief historical discussion of the barbarian invasions is incorrect (the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, for example, were Arian Christians when they entered Italy and Spain--not pagans: but what's this doing here anyway?); nobody calls Gothic Textura "blackletter" anymore; and the bit on "Kurrentschrift" is out of place. Etymologically, "paleography" refers to the study of ancient scripts; the term "modern paleography" is thus oxymoronic, and the section titled "modern palaeography" should probably be removed. The article is also imprecise in ways that make one squirm: it refers to the ampersand ("the & sign") as an abbreviation, when it is in fact a ligature, for example. It also implies that paleographers exist mainly to transcribe manuscripts, which is not at all true. Many scholars are capable of reading and transcribing manuscripts. Paleographers study the development of ancient handwriting. 84.172.228.110 15:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.172.211.189 (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Though this entry is from a few years ago, i largely still agree and the cleanup has not yet been effected to a satisfactory degree. This article is rather disappointing in many respects, though I would not be the one to begin going about a wholesale cleanup - that is better left to those who know the field a little more intimately, and who also have a better command of the English language than is demonstrated in the article as it stands. Peaky beaky (talk) 10:59, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed paragraph

I removed this paragraph because it didn't fit in very well:

Pa-le óg-ra’-fí, the science of reading, dating, and analyzing ancient writing on papyrus, parchment, waxed tablets potsherds, paper, or any other surface. As a rule, paleography deals with Greek and Latin scripts and their derivatives, excluding Egyptian, Hebrew, Middle, and Far Eastern Scripts.

It reads like a definition, but it was the third paragraph and the term was already defined. - furrykef (Talk at me) 20:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

the directed at Reconstiting "the ductus"

This edit in Jan 2007 introduced this:

Their efforts were mainly the directed at Reconstiting "the ductus" ie. the movement of the pen in forming letter,

The redlink seems unlikely to turn blue, and the word "the" prior to "directed" looks like an interloper, but my big puzzlement is with "Reconstiting". Is that an English word? Should it be capitalized? Is it a corruption of "reconstituting"? I am changing the offending passage to read as follows:

Their efforts were mainly directed at reconstituting "the ductus" i.e., the movement of the pen in forming letter,

I'm not doing this because I am sure I am right, but I am sure this is no less broken than before.  Randall Bart   Talk  23:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed as "spam"

The following external link:

The Manuscript Studies and Palaeography Collection at Senate House Library, University of London

Was deleted as "spam"!--Wetman (talk) 07:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed it because it set off my spam radar. User:Palaeography Room, the user adding the link was a new user whose only contribs were adding this link to several articles with no edit summary, always listing them at the top of the list, and originally calling this site "the best." This made it look a lot like advertising. If you feel this link is appropriate, by all means add it, but the way User:Palaeography Room did it made it look like spam. Thanks. Apparition11 (talk) 11:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Expansion

I'd like to expand and slightly restructure this page, in order to make it more focused on the actual discipline of palaeography and less on the "see also" histories of alphabets etc. I believe the article should conentrate on the science of ancient handwriting per se, as acquired from a study of surviving examples. The word palaeography is sometimes erroneously used where epigraphy (←page I'm expanding right now) would be better. It is difficult indeed to define the boundary between the two sciences; many of the ancient inscriptions of the Far East, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, etc., may quite legitimately be dealt with as part of the study of palaeography, although they are usually treated by epigraphists as purely confined to their realm of activity. I'll expand the section on Greek and Latin palaeography only... which will be a laborious task in itself.--Monozigote (talk) 13:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Sounds great! Johnbod (talk) 13:49, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

William M Schniedewind's assessment of Palaeography

In his 2005 paper "Problems of Paleographic Dating of Inscriptions" (reprinted as part of Thomas Levy and Thomas Higham 2014 The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science Routledge) William M Schniedewind stated in the abstract that "The so-called science of paleography often relies on circular reasoning because there is insufficient data to draw precise conclusion about dating".

Claiming this statement is "Sweeping assertion; not supported or accurate" when it is made by a noted expert in the field (William M Schniedewind) in a work printed by a noted scholarly publisher (Routledge) is clear POV editing. It is a reliable source by wikipedia standards and unsupported personal views don't mean squado. If there is another expert that counters Schniedewind's statement after 2005 then by all means included them but don't remove reliable sources.--216.223.234.97 (talk) 23:07, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:LIGATURE

Short version is we don't use them. There's a redirect from palæography to here and that'll bring in the search engines, but we don't actually write it out as if it were a separate spelling. It's not. — LlywelynII 15:00, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Lombardic incorrect inset photo

The inset photo in the section on Lombardic writing is incorrect — it shows a beautiful 10th century Carolingian codex. Instead it would be more appropriate to show a Beneventan sample, some of which are also quite beautiful. Fenrisulf (talk) 00:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Chinese paleography

Is there any reason why there is absolutely no mention of Chinese paleography in this massive article on world paleography? Tooironic (talk) 01:59, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Possibly because Chinese calligraphy has remained remarkably stable for the past 3,000 years, and so there's less inducement to study and discuss its historic aspects. Or possibly because no-one's added it yet. Wikipedia content depends on the initiative, interests and energy of individual editors. If you think there's a gap to be filled, write something. GrindtXX (talk) 09:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

You don't have to make an uninformed orientalist comment in order to make the point that no one who knows about Chinese Paleography has contributed to the article yet. I don't feel I know enough to make this contribution, but even a search within wikipedia would take you to articles like Chinese script styles, which shows a historical progression of dominant forms of cursive all the way through to the modern dominant style.

While the letters of alphabetic scripts are fairly stable, what's particularly interesting about Chinese Paleography is tracking the evolution of the character forms. Additionally, it seems that Paleography in Chinese performs many functions that would be considered etymology in a language like English. Here is an example etymology/Paleography for the character for West Furicorn (talk) 22:11, 10 October 2015 (UTC)