Talk:Etymologiae

Tertullian
I have never made a suggestion for a Wikipedia article before so apologies if this is the wrong way to point this out, but Tertullian was a Christian author, not a Pagan one as it says in the article. 87.81.227.94 (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Whether or not it supplanted other resources
It says right in the current text (which the reverting editor says he wrote himself) that "[t]hrough the Middle Ages Etymologiae was the textbook most in use, regarded so highly as a repository of classical learning that, in a great measure, it superseded the use of the individual works of the classics themselves, full texts of which were no longer copied and thus were lost. It was one of the most popular compendia in medieval libraries" (emphasis mine). This is referenced to: Barney, Stephen A.; Lewis, W. J.; Beach, J. A.; Berghof, O. (2006). The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-21969-6. I think that "superseded" and "supplanted" are pretty equivalent, particularly since the full texts were lost and no longer available, whereas disagrees and would rather edit-war than follow the standard process for discussing disagreement on content. That two separate and very different editors disagree with the reverting editor does not appear to have occurred to him. So...let's discuss. Risker (talk) 21:00, 3 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Please maintain politeness. What the text, and the cited source, does not say is that "Scholars recognize its importance less for the preservation of classical texts that it largely supplanted than for the insight it offers into medieval thought." In other words, it is agreed by everyone that it did the supplanting; it is not at all agreed that scholars recognise its importance for that fact. The opposite may well be (I think is) true, namely that scholars are incredibly interested in the fragments it preserved. If you want to maintain that they aren't interested in the fragments but in the fact of supplanting, you definitely need sources for that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:17, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * My message is considerably more polite than the one you left on 's talk page, and I am quite shocked that you found it more polite to re-revert than to follow BRD, which is pretty much the type of rudeness that BRD is meant to prevent. The modern scholars, according to the article (and references 48, 47, and 4) all imply that the main longterm impact of the work is the reflection into the medieval mindset. Risker (talk) 22:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've added a mention of the medieval mindset in the lead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:21, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Typography in volume 1
There is a reference based on a (respected) French magazine source at Quotation mark which quotes from the Etymologiae. I suspect that it is volume 1 from the table given in the article. To save you the effort, here is the relevant section: "The single quotation mark is traced to Ancient Greek practice, adopted and adapted by monastic copyists. In his seventh century encyclopedia, The Etymologiae, Isidore of Seville describes their use of the Greek diplé (a chevron) " ⟩ Diplé: our copyists place this sign in the books of the people of the Church, to separate or to indicate the quotations drawn from the Holy Scriptures"."

Even though the source doesn't say so, would it be reasonable to say "In Volume 1 of his seventh ..."? Is "Diplé" the correct word?--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:00, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Citogenesis
appears to have captured a citogenesis in the wild! I've been waiting for ages to see one. I'm not sure that this one stands being pinned to the board though? Yes, I know, spoilsport. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:31, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I went to update the sentence with this extra information but before saving, concluded that the whole thing is off-topic, and furthermore violates wp:LEAD because it doesn't summarise body content. I moved the citations to the article about Isidore, where it belongs. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:33, 11 November 2021 (UTC)