Talk:Proto-Basque language

Nasality
The *n to /h/ change is really odd, esp. considering the contrary *b to /m/. Is there any speculation how this happened, or what the intermediary steps were? kwami (talk) 11:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

If I remember rightly, it only applies to intervocalic n and goes something like this: VnV > VV (two nasal vowels) > VhV insertion of h to break up the vowel group > modern loss of h in Western Basque takes us back to square one. So you get *bini 'tongue' > *mini > *mĩĩ > mihi > mii/mi. Akerbeltz (talk) 00:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Neato! Are the nasal vowels retained in any dialects? Is *b > m related to this, or is it unconditioned? kwami (talk) 00:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, Portuguese has gone through a very similar development. Unfortunately, while it is tantalising to suspect a historical connection between the sound change in Basque and in Portuguese, I cannot see how it could be established even in principle, seeing as the territories are separated by those of Asturian-Leonese and Castilian, which do not even exhibit anything like that as far as I'm aware. But at least, the typological parallel stands (and if the sound changes in question are entirely independent of each other, that may even be more interesting). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Except that in Basque this was over by the 11th century, so they couldn't be related even in theory.. This loss of intervocalic */n/ is apparently termed "Mitxelena's law" and didn't usually operate on morpheme boundary at all, and was a part of a general trend of loss of nasality (which itself later arose by some other means) which happened in different dialects in different periods with different outputs..
 * The change of */b/ to */m/ is apparently a simple assimilation by nasality */bVn/ > */mVn/, and must have happened prior to the aforementioned sound change (because of *bene > *mehe example in the table). In case of *un-be > *ume we're dealing with assimilation by place of articulation *unbe > *umbe and simplification of the resulting cluster *umbe > *ume.
 * It's all in the Trask/Wheeler dictionary.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Except that we don't know when exactly the loss of intervocalic /n/ in Old Portuguese happened – it could well have been contemporaneous with the loss of intervocalic /n/ in Basque, see p. 180 bottom. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Loss of /n/ and "loss of nasality" are two DIFFERENT stages. The first one was due to assimilation, as surrounding vowels became nasalized. For example, proto-Basque *s'eni became *s'ei~ in the High Middle Ages. Then became loss of nasality: *s'ei~ > sehi, segi. But in some cases fro this nasal vowel a new /n/ was generated: *s'ei~ > sein. These stages are well represented in Galician-Portuguese: (1) nasal vowels in Portuguese (e.g. ma~o 'hand'), (2) complete loss of nasality in Eastern Galician (e.g. mao), and (3) regeneration of /n/ in Western (now standard) Galician (e.g. man). In Basque, stage (1) is PARTLY conservated in the Easternmost dialects, Zuberoan and Roncalese (which is now extinct).

IMHO, the common opinion that intervocalic -m- arises from a *-nb- cluster is the result of an incorrect analysis of linguistic data. Definitely, /ume/ doesn't come from **unbe but from *unne (*uNe in Mitxelena's notation), as in /ahuña, ahüñe/ (Biscayan /aume, auma/) 'goat kid' < *an-unne, the /m/ resulting from LABIALIZATION of /n/ after /u/. This is also the case of /zume/ 'osier' < *sunne (PNC *ts’s’wǝ:nHe: 'reed, cane'), which some idiot has proposed to be a compound from zu- 'wood' and mehe 'slender'. The cases of /ama/ 'mother' < *anna and /eme/ 'woman' < *enne are rather peculiar because there's no /u/ to explain labialization.

The reason for the absence of *m in Proto-Basque is rather simple, as it simply merged with *n. For example, Basque zehe 'palm (measure); line' < proto-Basque *sene (PNC *tʃ’VmħV 'span') corresponds to Roncalese (t)xeme 'span of thumb and index finger'. Talskubilos (talk) 12:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed, they're two different stages. The problem with your interpretation of intervocalic -m- though is that we have the attested form of Aquitanian VMBE > ume. Not suggesting it couldn't be the result of -nn- > -m- either but it's hard to argue against an attested form. What's PNC? Akerbeltz (talk) 12:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Whoa, relax, I'm not having a go. Yes, you're right, the attested form is VM.ME - sorry, I was doing this from memory and seem to have gotten it mixed up in my memory with SEMBE. Still not sure what PNC is. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

PNC stands for Proto-North-Caucasian, a language reconstructed by S. Starostin & S. Nikolayev in their North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary (NCED). See North_Caucasian_languages article. Talskubilos (talk) 21:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * OR by some layperson based on tortuous interpretation of ambiguous evidence (where the layperson even admits that there is evidence that contradicts his hypotheses and that he himself can't explain, though omitting the even more awkward example seme) and Vasco-Caucasian fantasies, and contradicted by RS written by actual (sceptical, not credulous) experts like Trask (who has refuted attempts to link Basque with Caucasian languages himself), is irrelevant. The ancient forms SEMBE- and OMBE-, VMME are clear enough, and disprove the baseless reconstruction **uNe.
 * Also, mao > man makes no sense and the magical reappearance of the nasal previously lost without trace is impossible – the obvious solution is that Old Portuguese mão /mã.u/ simply yielded Modern Standard Portuguese (based on southern dialects) mão /mɐ̃w̃/, Eastern Galician mao and Western Galician man /maŋ/ directly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Reply to botteville deletions
Well hello there Mr. Austroneser. I don't miss the point. I haven't got to the point yet. However you are clarifying a few points for me. The first point is the meaning of the proto-suffix. In comparative lingistics, you can't have a protolanguage without comparison of daughter languages. You can internally compare all you want but you will not arrive at a proto-language, which is the common reconstructed language of multiple languages. What you deleted was as yet unreferenced. I can open any basic linguistics book and come up with any reference to cover it. But, you brought up an interesting point, which is what Michtelina was trying to do. In essence he was comparing the dialects of modern basques. Some scholars on the Internet claim that they were not dialects but on the standard of mutual comprehensibility were different languages. Otherwise you have the comparative method with nothing to compare. I'm saying, proto- by the dialect comparison or internal method is not the same as proto- by language comparison. But, it isn't for me to ignore the respected Michtelina. We ought to follow your advice and present his method as he presented it or others describing it rightly. But, we cannot ignore the discrepancy in proto-s. I've been looking at Blevins, and she makes a point of using proto- by "traditional comparative methods." Others want to gloss over the dialects by using standard Basque. Blevins' daughter languages are modern Basque, Aquitanian, and a some historical Basques. So, it seems to me the direction in which we want to go is to clarify the meaning of proto giving the so-called internal method with pros and cons and also the comparative method. So. You don't get to just hack out what I am doing out of the blue. I'm not going to restore it right now though. I've been around long enough to do things the proper way. Here is what I will do, but, I'll listen to any suggestions. We want to clarify proto as it has been used by the Basque linguists. I'm going to open up a sandbox page and put in the material you deleted. Then I am going to finish it up, but I will have to change direction to present both meanings of proto. I suppose we are talking quite a bit of literary investigation, as there in not much of it in the article. It already has a tag on it. I invite you to participate freely. I suppose we will be on this for some time. I will put another tag on the article up front. This article so far wants to cover the internal proto. But, the latest linguists have gone back to the comparative proto, relying on the discovery of new material. To me that is an imbalance. There is plenty of time here, no rush. Let's get it right, "right" being no tags. I'm going to set it up now. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 23:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Sandbox for article
I created a sandbox for development of the article according to the previous discussion. It is at :User:Botteville/mysandbox protobasque. You don't expect ME to go through the personal combat of deletion/counterdeletion threat/counterthreat insult/counterinsult do you? No thanks. In the sandbox I write what I think is best and you are free to change it or comment on it. It does not have to be up to standard at any given time. Ever worked on sandbox before? There's more freedom of expression because nothing there is official yet. Eventually we will put it in the article but not until all the issues have been hashed over. We don't HAVE to do anything until we are ready. See there if you are so inclined. Meanwhile I will not be changing this article except for non-controversial things like bibliography and format..Botteville (talk) 00:23, 24 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I have no idea if you're talking to the world at large here or yourself, but can you slow down please? A lot of what you write is hard to follow, even with the best of intentions, and often in a very unencyclopedic style. I think it would be better if you avoided everything-on-top-of-each-other edits and also tried for a style more suited to Wikipedia, so there's less to tidy up and to give people a chance to digest what you're trying to say. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:13, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Mr. Akerbeltz, it appears as though I am talking to you. I must say I am delighted to do so, you have such a great paper background. The rest of it I daresay you sound as though you are not acquainted with (can't be). It is what you might call notification. Let me slow down a bit. Sequence: I attempt to develop an article online. Next event: it is stopped - indeed deleted - by someone who wants to see the whole thing polished right now. There is an editorial crisis here. I can't go any further online. I'm stopped. How can I procede? Wikipedia provides for this. The provision is called a sandbox. The sandbox allows me the leeway to develop this article and for the other editors to broach their comments and misgivings. Now, in the sandbox, the creator either abandons the article, or he goes ahead and develops a polished article. Once that is available the whole editorial picture changes. I give notification that I have a polished article to drop in. If no one responds I drop it in, complete with references. No one deletes that without proper reason. If someone tries it I revert it with cause. If after all that the drop-in proves unsuitable for the article in a late notification then I start another article with it. In this way if you are trying to block anything I do for reasons of your own you fail, I succeed. Have you never heard of this or have you never done it? So, I look forward to seeing you in the sandbox if that is what you decide to do. The big problem about this article is the reference, just as the tag says. No development, no references. The thing is a total linguistic muddle as far as I am concerned. But, I see there are some good online books for me to get through. So, I am moving slow if that is what you mean. I see on your site you are often unhappy with wikipedia editors. I must say I do not blame you. So am I. But, we have to go forward here, do we not? We have to make the best decision we can at the moment. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead, said Admiral Farragut. I find your celtic background really quite interesting. I had a great uncle who learned Scottish Gaelic at his mother's knee. Over here he found no one to speak it with so he let it go. Colloden, you know. No one now remembers it or the culture. Anyway this is fortuitous speaking to you. After I finish with the Basques and the Iberians I am going on to - you guessed it - the Celtiberians. If you don't like my plans i invite you to stop me if you can. Otherwise I will see you in the sandbox. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Answering to both sections, I should emphasize that it's not just a matter of lack of sources or this being a work in progress. I don't agree with lecturing our readers with personal opinions about the correct use of the prefixes proto- and pre- in historical linguistics. This is unnecessarily pointy and also in parts plainly incorrect. You can do this in a personal publication or website, but not in an encyclopedia based on reliable sources.
 * Yes, most proto-languages are the product of reconstruction based on the regular sound changes in a set of mutually related languages or dialects. But somewhat different uses of the term "proto-" do exist in the literature, and this includes the work by Michelena, Lakarra and also Blevins for "Proto-Basque" applied to a linguistic isolate. Proto-Basque is not just the result of comparing Basque dialects, but integrates the phonetic changes that are visible in loanwords from Latin or Common Romance, which allows to back-project these sound changes also to non-borrowed material. Further, internal reconstruction makes use of synchronically opaque morphophonological rules, which must have been the result of regular sandhi rules (and other phonetic rules) at an earlier stage. Again, results of this analysis can be extended to root-internal sounds.
 * And if we're lucky enough to find actual written attestations of this reconstructed stage, nothing stops scholars from labelling this attested material as being a sample of "Proto-X". Proto-Norse is a prime example of this.
 * As for pre- being only applicable to earlier unattested languages that were supplanted by an intrusive language, this is just one side of its usage. Who says that Lehmann is "wrong" when using "Pre-Indo-European" for the internal reconstruction of an earlier stage of Proto-IE beyond the stage that is immediately ancestral to its daughter languages (thus "pre-Proto-IE" in more common parlance), and who says that Beekes is "right" when using "Pre-Greek" for the autochthonous non-Greek languages that were supplanted by Greek?
 * So let's not redefine "Proto-Basque" and the scope of this article based on what we might think this term should mean, but what it actually refers to in the works of Michelena, Lakarra, Trask, Gorrochategui, Hualde, Blasco Ferrer etc. I'll be happy to see this article expanded based on the relevant literature, by reflecting them faithfully and without being driven by pre-conceived notions of what the study of the thing called Proto-Basque "should" be about. –Austronesier (talk) 19:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Improper reversion by Akerbeltz
This user has given up any pretence for a legitimate reversion. His only reason for doing so, he says, is me personally. This is an attack on my person that verges on libel and certainly is not according to Wikipedia policy. I do not know who you really are, Akerbeltz, but your approach is totally wrong and is not allowed. Please stop. My reason for this change is as follows. Additional reading as a section does not go before the references, but is after. I do not mind if you keep the term additional reading. In the rewrite I plan to use it as a repository for harvnb references. The main tag asks for references. Regardless of what we accept for a rewrite, harvnb might apply to any refs anyone csres to put in. Austronesier's critique at least made some sense, which is why I decided to use the sandbox. You stepped into this situation bringing insults and arbitrary reversions. I don't think Wikipedia leaves me no defense against people like you. We will find out. You have one reversion. The count is not in your favor. I would expect your apology if not some cooperation in what I am trying to do, which is provide a sensible referenced article. I got no idea who you think you are to behave like this but as I say, it isn't according to policy.Botteville (talk) 13:59, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

suggestions of austronesier
Thank you Mr. Austronesier. I don't disagree with your comments. "Expansion along the current lines" seems pretty good. Whatever is in the sandbox for now you can ignore as being too undeveloped. It will be a while before I can make it start to make sense. You might be interested in what brought me to this article. As you may or may not know, a while ago some of the university linguistics departments got together and decided to work on Wikipedia articles. I appreciate the work they did but their whole method it different from ours. They style is different. Their work is usually quite condense and relies on the reader already knowing a great deal about linguistics. Their audiences are professional linguists. The upshot is, we have a lot of linguistics articles that look good to linguists but have a tag at the top saying, "this article is incomprehensible ...." To make these articles comprehensile we can't make the same assumptions about what the reader knows or thinks. To a large degree we have to spell it out. What struck me about the Internet literature I can find is the use of "proto-Basque." Credible authors don't mean the same thing by it. The usual definitions didn't seem to apply. The current article although I am sure is valid at its own level does not help us much. We can't just assume the student can spend his own midnight hours trying to come up to speed in linguistics on the few bread crombs thrown out by the experts. Now, I'm not unacquainted with linguistics. My field (classics) overlaps on it and I did take a course under Watkins when he was alive and at Harvard. Maybe he should have stayed there. But, you know, if this article is difficult for me, how do you think it is for the great majority of readers? So, in this expansion, I will be wanting to define terms, explain concepts, give historical milestones, give sources of information, and trying to make things clearer for the less exalted readers. Otherwise, what good is a people's encyclopedia if the people can't even read it? By the way, the linguists quit trying to write the encyclopedia. There is a rule here anyway, professionals can't use WP to present their material. You have to already be published. Well I got to go now. Don't put too much reliance on that sandbox until I am able to get going on it. Thanks for your critique. It was in fact a useful one. No doubt you will be following this. You seem a bit more professional than the others. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 15:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Back again
Hello men. I'm back. My previous unmonitored state was too big in scope to handle. I'm doing as I said, I'm controling it better by working on smaller chunks. Thanks for the suggestion. Now I can deal adequately with each and every suggestion of yours should you choose to make any and make sure that every aspect gets considered. I did not pursue the vandalism aspect as I think this is better all around. The reversion pursuit is really a matter of discipline but we are trying to do content here and the two efforts are not always compatible. We will eventually get to that stuff you reverted but only when we are ready. Right now I am tending to the references requested. We can't neglect the detail. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 18:19, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Various issues with the last edit
Telegram style as I am *really* pressed for time

- abbreviations are not easier for non specialistis, we should spell them out

- using BCE is unhelpful because of the historical anomaly of late Christianisation of the Basque speaking areas, we should stick to unambiguous AD/BC

- we need to drop the past tense "was" and the style is still too unencyclopedic but could be fixed

- the page is getting confusing - better granularity of periods is fine by me but the page is literally called Proto-Basque. Since I doubt we'll ever have enough material to maintain separate pages, we may be better off considering moving the page to something like Linguistic reconstruction of Basque so we can cover all periods on the same page Akerbeltz (talk) 08:45, 29 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Well well. Some talk at last. With talk we don't have to go through the reversion scenario, I hope. I will if I have to but WP policy is to get through this by talk. I think you won't find me unreasonable. As a matter of fact if you hadn't started with the reversions I would have been glad for the advice. You are actually following a pattern. You aren't the only "enemy" determined to dog me. I get one every several months. For a while it is hour by hour, day by day. Then suddenly they disappear and I never hear a single word more. We got better things to do, n'est pas? I'l play along as long as you have time to play. But I could make better use of my retirement time. I just can't seem to give this up. It is addicting. But, if you look at the really good articles, it seems worth it. You have to make up your own mind. I once was against it but I was won over.
 * True I'm retired so I have a little more time. Get as concise as you like. But you know, WP is time-consuming. Any group effort is, especially with academic prima dona's. Enter a couple of words per item if you like.
 * abbreviations. No opinion. We do tell them what the abb. are. I can try spelling them out, see how it goes. The spelling out might get tedious. Let's see how it goes. If you change your mind let me know.
 * BC/AD OK. WP once tried to get a handle on that by asking you to declare Christian or secular up front and whoever did that first would prevail. You can still find the policy. But, it was never seriously maintained so nothing improved. I don't mind switching over. I will see if I can find the tag they invented to declare which one is in effect.
 * Your next comments are a bit unambiguous. You are doing what everyone else does, blame the problems of the article on me. This article was already totally confusing. That is why the tag is at the top. Our major goal here at least for me will be to unconfuse it. I will be doing writing never done. If you find something I wrote unencycl. it may change automatically but if not you will have to say which part you think it is. You can use unencycl. if you want.
 * Naturally like all writers you aren't going to be happy with anything anyone else writes. Your only alternatives are this or doing it yourself. If you want to take it over, fine. But, you have to fix it, to supply the refs. You just can't leave the tag at the top and forget it. I'm not going away unless something changes in my personal life and you can only revert me up to a point.
 * WFor the extra article, well, my only thought here is to mention these proto-basque offshoots containing the words proto-basque so the reader will know they are there and what they are. I'm not going into any detail. Another artcile spending some time on the development of these concepts would I think be a useful addition. Who is going to do it? That is a non-ironic question. My suggestion is, let me say what I was going to say and see how it turns out. My feeling is the reader should be told this proto-Basque is not an isolated invention but belongs to a sequence. When he sees stuff like pre-proto-basque he will know generally what it is. One of the differences between linguistic writing and encyclopedic writing is that linguistic articles are isolated. If you can't make the links you can't read the article. Now, I KNOW wikipedia doesn;t want isolation. They have a warning tag that states whether your article commects to others. My impression is they opt for the bigger view not for the narrower.
 * Well I need some time to act on these items. My time is valuable also. Do you know how long I spent working up that material you reverted? Well, but I didn;t really have control over it so I did take on more than I could do. I chalk that time up to education and development. I'm not done with it yet anyway. Anyway this way is better. There used to be a famous German admin who got to WP early in the game and went over the initial articles. I will not name names. One of his famous tricks was to let you spend your time working up an article and then, whisk, it was reverted. He was famous for a while but then he became I think the most hated admin on WP. People used to appeal to me against him. He just loved to pull my chain and he was not politically objective. He hated Russians. Nothing you said about Germany got through him. But, he started to make some decisions that were narrow and non-productive. He was aginst developing boxes. Finally he collapsed. I don't know if the admin got him or he changed is mind. He's still on but he does very little. I don't think he is admin any more. Maybe the hate was too much for him. He started leaving me alone years ago. I use to swear at him with ^&$@@) . I suggested many times he resign from WP. Unfortunately the similarity of your tactics to his made me think of you in terms of him. But it seems to me now you have had a change of heart. I will not treat you like him. Otherwise I know your reply will be a cold "how dare you" sort of thing. Well, don't think you have to reply to this in detail. I'm just sharing experience. I will act on these things. I need time too.Botteville (talk) 13:58, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Do us all a favour and aim for brevity, none of us have time to digest reams of ramblings. I am disinclined to let you "say what I was going to say and see how it turns out", we had that, and it was beyond repair. So we do this in bits, and agree them before doing another bit, or not at all. Akerbeltz (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This is all so abstract I cannot make out what you mean. It was abstract when I said it, let alone you. I thought you might be getting interested in what I think. I guess that does not matter as you do not have the time. I guess you don't have time to address the article, as you are leaving it up to me. I don't know what you mean by "agree before doing another bit, or not at all." That sounds like I can't work on the article unless you say so. If that is so, no. I don't need permission to work on articles. I should clarify this. Most of this article is unreferenced. By the rules I can therefore delete it, pretty much as you have done. But, that wouldn't be very nice, would it? Our policy is to fix material not throw it out. There is a request for refs and there are many errors. I am fixing errors and providing references. I'm sorry you don't like spending the time. You aren't very polite and you aren't very considerate of the time of others. You seem to think no one can work on this article without your express permission. That isn't right. There was an issue of where the additional reading went. It goes at the end before the links. You reverted it wrongly. Apparently the policy did not matter, only the fact that I changed it. So, I think we are going to have to slug it through detail by detail. If you can delete unreferenced material then it follows that you can't delete referenced material without an issue and some sort of consensus. I am providing us with references. I am sorry you don't have the time fror free speech. If it makes you so angry you are just going to delete everything then maybe you should withdraw, because right now it seems to me you are blocking this article. You are, so to speak, telling me to shut up and do as I am told. In a word, no. Anyway I am going on with this work. I think I've responded adequately to your reservations. If you don't want to hear more start following the rules yourself. Oh, try to be more explicit about these issues that come up in the article. Don't make assumptions, for example, just because I mentioned the surrounding phases of Michelena' system doesn't mean I was headed for a digression on them. And, you didn't answer the question, who is going to do the requested article?~ Botteville (talk) 07:50, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This is not a game ("I'l play along as long as you have time to play"). This is not a battleground ("You aren't the only "enemy" determined to dog me"). Face disagreement not by de-indivduating your interlocutor ("You are actually following a pattern"), but by trying to understand why an indivdual capable of rational thinking in the same way as you are doesn't see your edits as improvements—regardless of the way they express their disagreement. An edit summary "Rv crackpot" can be just as thoughtful as a long-winding comment. Maybe with less erratic and less voluminous verbiage in both article and talk space, you might elicit different reactions from your peers (and please regard fellow WP editors as such) here. This is all I have to say about your communitation style, I will further on not engage in metacommuniation.
 * Your latest edits are a step in a good direction since you represent "Proto-Basque" as what it is and make use of a brilliant source.
 * As for the scope of this article, we have two options:
 * We strictly only address Proto-Basque as defined by Michelena in this article, and present other stages in the reconstruction in a broader article Linguistic reconstruction of Basque, as suggested by @Akerbeltz.
 * We move the title of this article to Linguistic reconstruction of Basque and expand it to a broad article that covers a) the reconstruction of Common Basque based on the documented modern dialects, b) "classical" Proto-Basque that represents the stage right before the influx of Latin/Romance borrowings, and c) the more speculative "pre-Proto-Basque" efforts ala Lakarra and Blevins that go deeper in time by means of internal reconstruction.
 * Note that the article – in spite of its literal title – already includes a piece on pre-Proto-Basque, so option 2 is actually our de facto starting point and my personal favorite option.
 * One caveat is that we should not overly rely of primary sources. In the case of Common Basque and Proto-Basque, this is easy, as there are many secondary sources including several chapters in the volume edited by Martínez Areta. As for pre-Proto-Basque, we can certainly give an excerpt of Lakarra's and Blevins's work, but should also include include comments from secondary sources. For that purpose, I have added a review article for further use that exactly covers the scope of the "broad" article outlined above and also contains a critical assessent of the reconstruction of pre-Proto-Basque.
 * Another thing to consider is that we don't have to go into every minute detail about the history of research. A short paragraph mentioning the milestones is enough, but this article shouldn't become a History of the linguistic reconstruction of Basque. –Austronesier (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for weighing in. I see you got some good suggestions and options. I think we can get this topic going. It grieved me that I could read the article and still not know a thing about proto-basque, which was obviously an important development in Spain (and France). Thanks for not complaining about the time. No pain, no gain. We obviously all care about this. Which is mightier, the pen or the sword? Anyway I hope we are all done butting horns and can get to work. I have to plan my changes change by change. Also it will take some time to absorb everthing you said. Just one point. To reconfirm what you said, all I want to do with the variations of "proto-basque" is cue the reader they are there and generally what they mean, dictionary style. Then hopefully they can be put over to a fuller resource. But meanwhile I need a chance to analyze your contribution to the philosophy of planning. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 15:31, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking about it. I got three thoughts for the moment. 1. The title does not imply a restriction to Michelena's proto-Basque. A lot of people have been doing the Proto-Basque topic since Michelena. In fact one of the sources I am going to put in uses the term Michelena's proto-basque. That latter is not our title. 2. We DO need to distinguish between the two proto-'s for public comprehension. A lot of people have heard of one but the second remains kind of obscure. 3. I wonder about the length of the articles you propose. Will we put it all together only to face tags that say we should take it apart again? Not that we can't do it. WP can do anything. These matters will need some consideration. I know you will think about it. Meanwhile I am going on with this article for which work has been requested. Botteville (talk) 18:12, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The "second" one is usually specified as Old or Pre-Proto-Basque. Even Lakarra himself uses this term in some publications for his own reconstructions to distinguish it from the "Classical" Proto-Basque stage as reconstructed by Michelena and refined by others. We can accomodate this in a dedicated section called "Old Proto-Basque" (or Pre-). –Austronesier (talk) 11:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

My preference would be to move this page to Linguistic reconstruction of Basque, in the unlikely event that it gets too big, we can always split something out but in the meantime, with the fairly meagre data, it would allow us to paint a fuller picture. I've ordered Martinez-Areta's book in the meantime, rather than trying to piece things together from chapters that have somehow made it onto the net. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:19, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Austronesian takeover
I see you want to take it over. All right, I don't mind. But, your intent is not quite pure. You want to use my material as well. I still don't mind. If you are so interested in the topic you may have it. For years no one showed any interest. But that was wrong, I think. You may take the lead if you like. You have to deal with Akerb. If a conflict develops I will jump in on the side that seems rightest to me. Meanwhile I have a few questions. Pre-Basque bothered me considerably also. Are you sure that is what you want? One of the linguists, who also was famous, uses it. Let me know, will you? Also, where are we going to put the date section? Aren't we going to say when proto-basque prevailed? There is going to be another issue coming up: the geography. Commons has some stuff on that. Apparently a lot of sources spent some time on the range of proto-basque. Also I do not wish to frighten you off but more recent linguists have gone way beyond phonetics. How much into that do you think we should go? One more point. My work now is based on references. You are still omitting those. If you don't mind I think I will just try to provide some of those. What, don't you like research or only easy answers? (Ignore that). Your approach of interrupting my editing is not novel. I've had vandals do that to me before. But, I understand. You are so eager to get your views in that you can't wait. It's all right. Everyone needs a good editor. For the moment I need some coffee. I'm going to let you finish your editing and then I will look at it, not necessarity today. Do a good job. Remember, the tag asks for references, not for more unreferenced opinions. See you later.Botteville (talk) 11:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Your approach of interrupting my editing is not novel. I've had vandals do that to me before. It's called collabaorative work, not vandalism. I've rephrased things, trimmed redundancies and restructured stuff out from the lede into specialized sections to keep it from blowing up again into inadequate lengths. And I have not removed a single citation that has been there before, in fact I even had added Trask (1997) before your revert. The article was in poor shape before, but then suddenly turned in a massive OR trainwreck, which spurned my interest to slowly bring it into a better shape that gives to justice to extant scholarship (not "my" and "your" sources). Finally, I'm confused (but not surprised after all these exchanges) about "Aren't we going to say when proto-basque prevailed?" I've simply changed the verbatim "last centuries before the Christian Era" to paraphrased "the last centuries BCE". –Austronesier (talk) 11:55, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Communication problem. You've been editing while I edit, causing a conflict when I try to save. That is what I mean. That is not collaboration in any sense. Your tallking when someone else is talking is not a conversation.
 * One problem is, we seem to have different styles. You don't like mine. I'm not sure now we CAN work together. You feel you have to rewrite or revert everything I do. Not very good for collaboration.
 * You talk about citations being there before. I think there was one or two. Not enough to remove the tag, I believe. Why do you exclude my citations? Don't they count as removal of citations? For Trask, you added him to the Bibliography but you did not make a citation of him. He does not appear in your references.
 * I don't see that my and your sources are not extant scholarship..
 * You want to go back to BCE when the other editor expressly asked for BC. Were you aware of that? There is more to be said on time. It isn't the first few centuries BC. That is only a convenient estimate. That sentence would have been part of a time write-up.
 * You say you are confused. I got no confusion at all about your techniques and intents here. WP says I am to take you in good faith. OK. I have good faith that you are what you seemed to be. But, unfortunately we're so different that we don't seem to have any luck working together. Even if I did use the powers of WP to enforce your following the rules, I would have to spend all my time policing that. I didn't want administration because I wanted to do content rather than police work. You're not giving me a choice. In order to stop you from wrecking everything I try to do I need some backup from the admin or from the other users. Without it it's a pretty one-sided fight, two to one. Not good for consensus. So, until I get the help I need I'm backing off. Maybe I'll get to come back, maybe not. Botteville (talk) 20:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The reason people keep editing everything you write, Botteville, is because you write in a style that is just not encylcopedic. It wouldn't even work for a school essay, to be frank, it all comes out in short bursts, often without apparent cohesion. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:27, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I don' t think you'd know the difference. I don't know what you mean by to be frank. I don't think you'd know what that means either. Never mind the academic pretense. Academics don't talk like you. I've done my level best to get along with you two. I don't think there was ever a chance of that. To people like you attempts to work it out are a sign of weakness and an opportunity to attack. I suggest you both resign immediately. You've held this article up for years. Time for change. If I don't make a stand right on this article it is for reasons of my own. Don't bother to reply, I won't be looking. I guess you can regard that as some sort of victory, if you are opaque enough to do that. Ciao. Botteville (talk) 01:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)