Talk:Helveconae

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Name[edit]

The former rendering, Helvecones, is based on a misreading of Tacitus, who has Helveconas. But, where Helvecones would be a nominative/accusative of the 3rd declension, Helveconas is the plural accusative of *Helveconae, a 1st declension, which includes many masculines (e.g. nauta). This dictionary so far has been following the universal convention of giving the names in the nominative, even though the nominative might not be attested, as is the case here. That is for the best; otherwise, the reader might be coming up with some pretty strange "nominatives".Botteville 12:43, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Phrase commented out[edit]

I appreciate the intent but the article is better without the phrase. This is an instance of non-English English. Old Prussian is the name of a language and as such does not live at sites. Only people do that. Now, the people could not have spoken Old Prussian for thousands of years, nor were they at that location for thousands of years. The language lasted no more than a few centuries. It must have replaced some Baltic language, probably western Baltic, which replaced common Baltic, which replaced Balto-Slavic, etc. And for the physical people, well, we just don't know. They lived in prehistory. But, these topics are best covered in other articles, which eventually will appear, if I continue to start these ethnic articles for Wikipedia.Dave 10:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]