Talk:Tjeker

Shekelesh

 * I removed this:
 * They may be identical to the Sea People nation referred to as "Shekelesh" in Egyptian sources, but some have postulated that the two were distinct tribes.
 * Justification: Egyptian texts (i.e., the Medinet Habu inscriptions of Ramesses III clearly speak of "Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denye[n] and Weshesh, lands united". There is no reason to assume that the Tjeker and the Shekelsh are one and the same. —Nefertum17 09:39, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * --- The excerpt from the Intmar Singer book on the Sea Peoples page says that Dor was a city of the Shekelesh (I think Shekelesh, in any case, not Tjeker).
 * Justification: Egyptian texts (i.e., the Medinet Habu inscriptions of Ramesses III clearly speak of "Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denye[n] and Weshesh, lands united". There is no reason to assume that the Tjeker and the Shekelsh are one and the same. —Nefertum17 09:39, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * --- The excerpt from the Intmar Singer book on the Sea Peoples page says that Dor was a city of the Shekelesh (I think Shekelesh, in any case, not Tjeker).
 * --- The excerpt from the Intmar Singer book on the Sea Peoples page says that Dor was a city of the Shekelesh (I think Shekelesh, in any case, not Tjeker).

When I saw the variant SKL, I immediately thought of the Shekelesh / Siculi that supposedly gave their name to Sicily.

If Homer's Achaeans / Danaans (Ekwesh / Denyen) can - perhaps - appear in different guises in the Egyptian lists, why not variant versions of 'Sicilians'? There may be no reason to assume it, but is there any good reason not to hypothesize it?


 * That's what we call 'original research', see WP:NOR and doesn't belong here unless you have a reliable source suggesting it. Dougweller (talk) 21:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Original research, Teucri, and the Sikils
The identification with the Tuecri appears pretty flimsy, an unpublished PhD dissertation. Why should we pay more attention to that then do Trevor R. Bryce's authoritative book on the Hittites, which calls this pure speculation?. 'Tjeker' is just one spelling/pronunciation the Sikils, in fact, "ikr/skl (transliterated in various ways: Tjekru, Tjekkcr, ski, Sikil. etc.)" which is from Trevor Bryce citing Ephraim Stern. It looks as though this article is basically based on one unpublished dissertation and needs heavy reworking. Well, mainly pruning as we know very, very little about the Tjekker/Sikils. dougweller (talk) 16:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The listing of the dissertation in References gives a link to a copy on the web. Are documents available only on the web still generally considered 'unpublished'? Dudley Miles (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's complicated. Yes, unpublished, reliable, maybe. You need to look at it in a bit of detail. See this discussion . In this particular case, the author of the PhD wrote a book about the ethnicity Sea Peoples in 1992 - and what is noteworthy about that is that even so, he has very little mention, virtually none, in Google Scholar or Google Books. I note that he doesn't mention Bryce. My conclusion from all this is that his dissertation isn't a reliable source. If it had been published, or his earlier book frequently cited, my opinion would be different. But I can find no citations of his book. dougweller (talk) 19:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Some resources
Lester Grabbe dougweller (talk) 18:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

'Linguistic connection' and Sandars
The sentence suggesting a possible linguistic connection with the Teucri references Sandars and also says not to be confused with Teucri. However, I am looking at Sandars right now and all she says on the referenced p.170 is "The Tjeker, may or may not have had some connection with the Teucri of the Troad and with Greek Tuecer, the traditional founder of Salamis in Cyprus, butthey certainly have a better right than the Peleset to a sea-going reputation, and quite as good a right to the so-called 'feathered crown'." Earlier, on p.158, she writes "The Tjeker have also been connected with the Teucri of the Troad, and with the Greek Teucer, the legendary founder of Salamis in Cyprus, after the Trojan War." Unfortunately she doesn't say who has made such a connection or why. dougweller (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

An Euskine word?
"Tjekker" means "hound" or "dog" in the Basque language. ("Dog" is not an unliked animal amongst them, they are associated with hunger, ambition, hunting, and groups.) Wherever they were from, perhaps this was the language they spoke. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.156.150 (talk) 04:04, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Cannot be transcribed, transliterated, or romanized as skl
I removed the following sentence:

The Egyptian may also be romanized as skl, i.e. Sikil or Sical.

It is sourced correctly, but Grabbe is simply wrong here. The word is spelled with a 𓅷 č(A) which simply is not transliterated ("romanized") by s- following any Egyptological convention. See, for example, Junge "Late Egyptian Grammar" p. 42, under signs commonly used for group writing (https://ia800903.us.archive.org/17/items/LateEgyptianGrammar_201902/Late%20Egyptian%20Grammar.pdf). One could accuse me of original research or suggest that I need to find a source that specifically refutes the statement by Grabbe, but consider this counter-example: if a published author had made the misguided statement that 北京 Beijing could also be romanized as Beiping and that statement had somehow made it into Wikipedia, I think anybody should be at liberty to correct this. Beijing can also be romanized as Peking, and the city was at a time referred to as Beiping 北平, but those two things are not the same and the hypothetical author in this example has obviously conflated them. Likewise, one COULD argue that a people skl and the Tjeker are the same people, but that does not mean that č-k-r can be transliterated as s-k-l, it cannot.

One could add a lengthy discussion to the article as to the merits of Grabbe's statement, but I do not see how this adds any valuable information - I left the next line (that they have been identified as Sicels) standing without generating the impression that this was supported by the spelling in Egyptian. Hope we can leave it like this, but happy to discuss!

MikuChan39 (talk) 14:53, 7 October 2023 (UTC)