Talk:North Picene language

Remark
The monument doesn't belong to the cemetery. Translation exists but was not published yet. It is available as pdf exclusively to academic community on request mailed to @mail.muni.cz where =niederle.

It starts

Monuments these stand guard on the place where through thin arrow-spear Isairon killed was having pastured cows.

mimnis is plural. Two other monuments are still in Novilara. European tradition was building three monuments on the place of a murder. The inscription clearly explains why. It was a symbolic three-membered guard.

Pilum was a steel arrow on wooden handle.

The language belongs to Germano-Italic group.


 * This remark was place into the article by the Anonymous user Special:Contributions/147.251.80.34. I've removed it from the article, as it is not written properly and not really cited. I will put it here on the talk page, to be discussed. I think if a link to this work can be provided it might be of use to the article, but as it is, its not appropriate. --Hibernian (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this gobbledeygook could ever be of use to this article. You could cut out all the words in a newspaper, put them in a hat, draw some at random and put together "utterances" such as these. These are crank statements. Every untranslatable inscription has them, as the world is full of impromptu linguists (like its impromptu prophets). Don't encourage these people; WP is better than that.Dave (talk) 07:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Frankly, that's ridiculous. There is no conceivable reason to keep the translation secret. Publish, or it didn't happen. If Niederle can't publish it, perhaps it isn't defensible...? David Marjanović (talk) 10:21, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Niederle really should have no place on this page. Di Carlo presents a detailed, careful, well informed and scientific analysis. If we are going to go into any one person's theories or conclusions, they should be his! Johundhar (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Image?
Is it possible to obtain images of this stele for the article? 05:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know, is it? Did you check Commons? Are you asking someone to donate one?Dave (talk) 07:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thoughtful text please
"for this reason, it is generally assumed not to be an Italic language (unlike the South Picene language, which is). What language family it does belong to (Indo-European, Tyrrhenian, etc.) or even if it is an isolate, cannot be determined one way or the other."

Think about this for a minute. If it is untranslatable, why would you have to say what it is NOT assumed to be? Why not assume is is NOT hindustani, Chinese, Tibetan or Algonquuian? All those things are already ruled out by the very first statement, which is concise. Then you go on to suggest a couple of families and say, we can't know if it is those families. But we can know. Languages of those families can be translated; this one can't be. According to the first sentence, we are not saying the script is unknown nor are we saying the transliteration is likely to be wrong. If we were, then it would be an unknown script and we would be justified in presenting the language represented by it as totally unknown. It is not totally unknown, only untranslatable. We know how it was written and to some degree how to pronounce it. If we can trust the transliteration then we already know it isn't those you list. Since it isn't any other, that makes it an isolate until such time as something like it turns up, if any. If we were going to present this as an unknown script then your assumptions would be justified, but that is not how it is being presented. I just started with this article. I have no idea how it is going to turn out. I suggest we wait until more is done before placing these illogical sweeping generalizations in the introduction. When I do an article I often have to rewrite the intro a couple of times. I don't see any point in trying to summarize something you know nothing at all about, do you? Let's know something, then we can summarize.Dave (talk) 08:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

- Actually, it is often possible to determine (or make a good educated guess) about what language family a language belongs to even without being able to translate it. That is because one of the strongest determinant of relationships are grammatical endings and patterns. But reasonable linguists can and do disagree even here. Johundhar (talk) 04:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The novilara alphabet link

 * Novilara alphabet

This link is not that. The editor uses the format to rename it. This is in fact a personal site in which the editor presents his own decipherment of the inscription. Regardless of whether he presents it directly on WP or creates a personal site and links to it on WP, this is still original research, not written or developed in a context of scholars writing in an official or funded capacity. There is no tradition here, only his personal work. This is what is generally called a crank translation done by an amateur without reference to or the support of the scholarly community. It needs to be published first. Is publishing on your own web site publication? Well it is on the line. My judgement is, no, he's a maverick without access to the usual resources, out of the mainstream, amateur, not authoritative, not encyclopedic. So, I'm taking it out. Sorry, editor, get yourself published first. You can't use WP for publication. This section is for discussion if anyone cares to discuss.Dave (talk) 11:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Britannica and Sabellic
"It is a very interesting monument both for its own sake, since it is sculptured as well as inscribed (there is one — or more — hunting or pastoral scene on the back), and because the archaeological stratum (late Bronze period) of the cemetery from which it is believed to have come is clearly marked. "

Britannica 1911 discusses the monument briefly under "Sabellic" in the language I just excised. It does not distinguish between north and south Picene. But, that distinction is the whole theme of this article! On this one I think it is best not to rely on or reference Britannica 1911. So I am taking it all out. Even a small box pointing to the article is still totally misleading; we use Sabellic with a totally different meaning throughout WP. The 1911 material is outdated; there is no question today concerning it. We don't need 1911 for this one.Dave (talk) 12:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)