User talk:Pfold

Jans der Enikel
Hi, given your interest in articles on Middle High German, I thought it might interest you that Jans der Enikel is currently the subject of a DYK nomination. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Frankfurterisch Dialect
Hello, a few days ago you saw fit to reverse my edit concerning Frankfurterisch as a dialect, your justification being that if it is „not important enough to have its own article, so not important enough to list here“, may I say that, on the one hand it does have an extensive article written about it (to be found here: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurterisch) and that, secondly, should this not be enough, the dialect is important enough to have entire articles written in it. I would be thankful if you would reverse your reversal (so to speak) and that you give me enough time to implement a hyperlink to the article.

Kind regards, H.R. Horatius Rex (talk) 23:32, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi,, sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Why not get started on the article — an initial stub is fine — then you can reinstate the link yourself. --Pfold (talk) 14:30, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Map: West Germanic language area around 580 CE
Hello Pfold, you removed this map from the article "West Germanic languages":

Your arguments were: "Euler's views are idiosycratic and far from mainstream. Maps should represent the consensus." The second sentence is correct. The first sentence includes three errors:
 * 1. This map is not from Wolfram Euler but from Robert Pfeffer, although it is used in Euler's latest book.
 * 2. The map does represent the scientific consensus on the West Germanic language area around 580 CE. What do you disagree with?
 * 3. Euler's views are not idiosyncratic. Even regarding the question of relicts of aorist tense in Germanic (where he supports the minority "pro" position) he is in line with other scholars, e.g. A. Bammesberger, W. Meid and K.H. Mottausch.

But to keep the discussion focussed: What do you think is incorrect about the map?--DownUnder36 (talk) 20:03, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi . You'll notice that I haven't questioned any of the text references to Euler - they are all issues on which variant points of view are possible - so your point 3 is quite irrelevant. The problem with the map is that should clarify the text but doesn't. The terminology for the various language areas is highly idiosyncratic - it simply doesn't match up with what's in the text and it certainly doesn't represent the consensus based (with whatever caveats) on Maurer's work.
 * Also, I have to say that I don't regard Euler's West Germanic book as a suitable source. It was published by a tiny press owned and run by Badenheuer, who seems to be a close associate of Euler's and who has co-written works with him. I would want proof that the book was subject to pre-publication peer review by someone well qualified and completely independent. Otherwise, it is effectively self-published. Unfortunately it will be some weeks before I can get to an acadmeic library, so this is not something I can research at present.
 * I'm not sure of the role of Pfeffer but as far as I can see he is a jurist. He has no authority as an expert of language history. --Pfold (talk) 13:44, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Pfold, it took me some days to answer because I did some research. First - and a bit off topic - I did further work on the article with including information from Patrick Stiles' most interesting 2013 article. IMHO, much of this paper is clearly relevant for Wikipedia, e.g. his notes on Old Germanic research history since 1860 and also his remarks on Proto-North-West-Germanic. It seems reasonable that Wikipedia sooner or later gets its own articles Proto-North-West-Germanic and Proto-West-Germanic just as it has long included an article Proto-Norse language.
 * Now again on the map. Let me discuss your three points (i) terminology, (ii) does the map match the text? and (iii) is it accurate?
 * (i) As to terminology, Google gives 957,000 hits on "Anglo-Frisian" and 2,99 mio. hits on "North Sea Germanic", but OK, these are probably not the terms you had in mind ;-). "Proto-Franconian" indeed is unusual, but the map reflects this by using quotation marks. And "northern, central, southern, eastern West Germanic"? Well, if an area extends from the north to the southeast, why not simply calling the northern part northern part and so on? By writing the word "northern West Germanic" (and so on) with lowercase letters and not with capital letters, it is made clear that these terms are not to be understood as names (like "Upper German" and "Lower German"). The rest of the terminology of the map is well established and usual.
 * (ii) Does the map match the text? Well, the text says: "By the 4th and 5th centuries the great migration set in. By the end of the 6th century, the area in which West Germanic languages were spoken, at least by the upper classes, had tripled compared to the year 400. This caused an increasing disintegration of the West Germanic language and finally the formation of the daughter languages." IMHO, the map under discussion almost perfectly illustrates these important findings.
 * (iii) Is the map accurate? By saying that the author seems to be a jurist you didn't directly put this in doubt. In fact, the quality of a map does depend much more on the information the author has been processing than on his profession (as long as he can handle tools to design maps, of course). Regarding this point, I now did some quite extensive research on almost any element of the map under discussion and I invite you and anyone else to do the same. Maybe you find better sources, by my result is simple: This map is REALLY good.
 * Last but not least: The two other maps in the article have substantial flaws. "The approximate extent of the continental West Germanic languages in the early 10th century" is wrong in at least two points: Western Bohemia clearly has not been German speaking at that time (only Prague has been as an urban linguistic island, which marks the Eastern corner of the green triangle of the map and probably has induced the error). The other mistake: The Old Saxon area for sure reached the Baltic Sea at that time, whereas the Slavic language area did not reach the North Sea (then or at any other time). More inaccuracies could be added. - The other map ("The varieties of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum around 1900") is also doubtful as it shows the situation of 1950 and not that of 1900 in the East (Oder–Neisse line) and also in the West (the dikes around later Flevoland didn't exist yet in 1900).
 * But should we remove these maps because of such shortcomings? No - but encourage their improvement. As to the map under discussion: While I am still curious to learn about inaccuracies of this map, I really think it should be re-integrated in the article. DownUnder36 (talk) 22:51, 9 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi@Pfold. Now I made some findings on the question if Wolfram Euler's contributions meet the standards of scientific work. First is the list of his books as documented in the Catalog of the German National Library. It gives evidence of 15 books by Euler issued with other publishers than his book on Proto-West Germanic. As far as I can see these publishers are all university publishers or other established scientific book publishers. Second are the positive reviews of his books as published here (2009) and here (2013). Third are the references Don Ringe gives to Euler's books. In his 2013 book covering Proto West Germanic (A Linguistic History of English, vol. II) he quotes Euler on pp. 512 in a most respectful way: "the numerous relevant questions raised therein [in his book of 2009] can only be addressed in a full revision of vol. i [of Ringe's own Linguistic History of English]". In his 2017 book he quotes Euler on pp. 85, 127 and 333.
 * But once again, Euler is not so much my topic, but the map you have removed. After you didn't contradict my views of June 9, I feel free to re-publish it.--DownUnder36 (talk) 08:57, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Dennis Howard Green
He clearly was a prolific writer. What's your objection? Rathfelder (talk) 12:06, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The point is: he was not a professional writer, he was an academic who, as part of his job, wrote some books. Is it really the case that on WP that any academic who publishes books is categorized as a writer? Surely not. If anything, he should be in an "Academics from Bournemouth" category, whoch would also subsume  Academics of Arts University Bournemouth‎  & Academics of Bournemouth University‎. --Pfold (talk) 12:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Low German
Perhaps you have an opinion on how this could be better worded ? I've given it the old college try but I think more finessing may be needed.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heldenbuch
Lienert, Elisabeth; Kerth, Sonja; Nierentz, Svenja, (...)  : |format= requires |url=
 * Thanks for the correction. It appears, then, that there is no way to list a multi-volume work, other than to cite each volume individually, which is hardly a good way to do it. Unless you know a way? --Pfold (talk) 13:42, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

OHG
I trust you, but why is the chart on West Germanic different from those others, for example at Germanic_languages and at Proto-Germanic_language, where we list OHG alongside the same proto-languages that appear on the chart I edited? Is Old Upper German a wider category than OHG? If so we should at least define it before we use it so that people know what we mean. Thanks, — Soap — 10:01, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * OHG is not strictly a language at all, but a blanket term for the early medieval period that covers both Central and Upper German dialects - there is no generalisable OHG phonology, hence the need for the CG and UG columns. It is a convention that when giving a statement about OHG as a whole, scholars generally take the East Franconian dialect, which is between CG and UG, but that that doesn't mean the differences aren't significant and require separate listing in some cases. Here, since CG and UG are the descedants of two distinct branches of WGmc, it makes sense to list them separately.--Pfold (talk) 10:53, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Low German
Do you have an opinion on the many revisions and additions going on at Low German? There's been so much and it's happened so incrementally that I'm having trouble making out exactly what's going on. See .--Ermenrich (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry,, I share your concerns, but can't help at the moment - I'm travelling in Europe and away from my normal editing environment, not to mention my library, and also not to mention having more enjoyable things to do! Be glad to look at this again in a couple of weeks, when I'm back. --Pfold (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Recent removal of "West Ridings Yorkshire" edit to "West Germanic Languages".
Hello, I'm just writing to enquire why you recently removed my addition of West Riding dialect vocabulary to the comparison tables in the West Germanic languages page.

I'm a contributing member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society and all of the forms I added are correct and attested in literature (although the dialect doesn't have a standard written form, only conventions, of course).

Thank you, Fendditokes. Fendditokes (talk) 01:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I would have thought it was obvious - we do not need entries for individual Engliah dialects on a page about W.Gmc as a whole. --Pfold (talk) 08:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand however considering the fact a daughter language of the same dialect from which the standard parent language developed such as Afrikaans is included (versus, for example, traditional West Flemish) is perplexing.
 * Surely it would make more sense to include West Flemish for instance instead of Afrikaans when the former is genetically more distinct from Standard Dutch than the latter. This is of course, if the objective is to give an overview of a wide section of West Germanic as a whole. To that end, The inclusion of Low and High German examplars would also help.
 * Thank you, Fendditokes. Fendditokes (talk) 14:42, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * West Germanic "Languages" - even the West Flemish article says it's a "collection of dialects". --Pfold (talk) 15:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hollandic is describable as a "collection of dialects" including Standard Dutch and Afrikaans. Moreover Scots is a group of dialects without a standard (central dialect forms are given in the comparison list but those by no means reflect the entirety of Scots). As a result, I don't understand what is being got at here.
 * Could you please clarify?
 * Thank you, Fendditokes. Fendditokes (talk) 15:55, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You're not being got at. I suggest you take this to Talk:West Germanic languages so we can see whether anyone agrees with you rather than with me. --Pfold (talk) 16:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I meant what was the meaning being got at behind the comment on West Flemish being a "collection of dialects". I will introduce this to that page.
 * Thank you, Fendditokes. Fendditokes (talk) 16:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Idle question
Hi Pfold,

As I'm teaching German again this semester, I was struck with a thought: why is the normal order for listing German relative pronouns, articles, adjective endings, etc. Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, Plural? It would seem that it would make more sense to list Masculine, Neuter, Feminine Plural, since that places genders with overlapping forms beside each other. The current system keeps them apart. Do you happen to know where this tradition comes from?--Ermenrich (talk) 18:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi Ermenrich, don't know off-hand. But the obvious question is: how were they ordered by the Classical Latin grammarians? A quick check of Donatus:
 * "What are the genders of nouns? Four. What? Masculine, as hic magister; feminine, as haec musa; neuter, as hoc scamnum; common, as hic et haec sacerdos. There is besides the common of three genders, if so be everything is said, as hic et haec et hoc felix. It is epicene, that is, without distinction of gender, as passer, aquila." (first page of Ars Minor).
 * Might ultimately go back to the Greeks, of course. --Pfold (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I figured it probably had something to do with the Greeks and Romans. Yet somehow we're okay listing the cases as nominative, accusative, dative, genitive rather than nominative, genitive, dative, accusative. I wonder why listing the genders this way has stuck when there are obviously better ways.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2024 (UTC)