User talk:Tom 144

Welcome!
Hello, Tom 144, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Indo-Hittite. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   18:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Indo-Hittite
Hi Tom 144. I've reverted your edits at Indo-Hittite; we do not create content by simply adding quotes. I guess the info is welcome, but by paraphrasing. Succes,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   18:02, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi Tom 144! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

-- 23:09, Saturday, August 25, 2018 (UTC)

Help me!
I would like to cite this paper for my draft at Hittite phonology, but I ignore the format. I would appreciate some assistance.

Tom 144 (talk) 21:35, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, "but I ignore the format"--what do you mean? Drmies (talk) 21:37, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Anyway, I think you're looking for Template:Cite journal. Drmies (talk) 21:40, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks --Tom 144 (talk) 21:42, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Tom144 -- "to ignore" doesn't mean "to not know"; it means "to not pay attention to"... AnonMoos (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Hittite phonology
Sorry for the delay, but I don't know much about Hittite beyond what's in the chapter by Calvert Watkins in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages edited by Roger D. Woodard ISBN 0-521-56256-2 (2004).

Watkins says that single ḫ and double ḫḫ are different phonemes (as also p vs. b, t vs. d, k vs. g, and kʷ vs. gʷ), so it would not be surprising from that point of view that the single ḫ and double ḫḫ have different Ugaritic transcriptions. By contrast, the single vs. doubled versions of m, n, l, r, w, y are not considered separate phonemes.

The cuneiform writing system was originally devised to write the Sumerian language, then adapted to write the Semitic Akkadian languages, and eventually a number of languages from a number of linguistic groups. It has a number of inadequacies with respect to writing languages other than Sumerian...

I'm not sure what "Cuneiform script had only two signs for sibilants, i.e. 'š' and 'z'" means. Akkadian cuneiform has various signs representing syllables with "s", "š", "z", and some signs were developing an incipient specialization to write "ṣ" (though apparently there never fully developed signs with an exclusive function to write syllables with "ṣ"). Note that the transcriptions "s" and "š" are based on the pronunciation of the letters ס and ש in late 1st millennium B.C. Hebrew and Aramaic and afterward. It does not necessarily apply to earlier historical periods in different Semitic language subgroups -- in fact, the Proto-Semitic consonant phoneme often expressed as *s is less frequent and less often appears in morphological constructions than the Proto-Semitic consonant phoneme often expressed as *š, so a number of scholars have thought that the reconstructed *š phoneme was more likely to have the pronunciation [s] in proto-Semitic than the phoneme often expressed as *s.

Hittite seems to have always used the Akkadian cuneiform signs with consonants transcribed as "š", discarding the Akkadian cuneiform signs with consonants transcribed as "s", but whether this meant that the Hittite basic sibilant was pronounced [ʃ] is a very complex and convoluted question. I really don't think it would be wise to just assume this based on conventional Akkadian transcriptions only, without thinking things through in detail.

As for Ugaritic, in some Canaanite dialects the sound transcribed as "ṯ" or "θ" merged with the sound pronounced [ʃ] and written ש in the first millennium B.C., while in Aramaic, the sound transcribed as "ṯ" or "θ" merged with the sound pronounced [t] and written ת in the first millennium B.C. If you think that the Hittite conventional cuneiform transcription *š was pronounced [ʃ], then you could assume that at least in some forms of Ugaritic "ṯ"/"θ" could already be alveopalatal in pronunciation in preparation for the subsequent merger, but that's far from being the only possibility... AnonMoos (talk) 08:06, 24 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, Hittite didn't distinguish between voiced and voiceless signs, and used them interchangeably, but instead it distinguished geminate and simple versions of them. Alwin Kloekhorst treats double resonants as different phonemes as well, so I followed his interpretation for the article.


 * The claim that cuneiform had only to siblant sings is not my own of course. I took it from the latest Hittite Grammar textbook, but apparently I have misquoted it, the pasage gos as follows:
 * "The cuneiform syllabary as adopted by the Hittites had only two sets of CV and VC signs, used non-logographically,69 contain- ing sibilants: šV/Vš and zV/Vz. Having adopted the z-containing signs for an affricate, Hittite scribes had no signs left to indicate a sibilant other than those with š. Therefore the fact that š indicates a voiceless (alveo-)palatal sibilant (like English sh) in Akkadian says nothing about the quality of the sound in Hittite. " –
 * Anyways, I will correct that section. For the "š" I began the article assuming a pronunciation of [s], but as I researched further I realized the arguments for [ʃ] seemed stronger, so to avoid any contradictions I changed the article, since it seem to me that some burden of proof had been met.
 * Concerning Ugaritic ġ and ḥ, do you have an special opinion on their place of articulation? --Tom 144 (talk) 03:51, 25 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think what Hoffner and Melchert said was meant to imply anything about the Akkadian cuneiform script; it says "cuneiform syllabary as adopted by the Hittites".
 * Also, if reconstructing the Hittite basic sibilant as phonetically [ʃ] is mainly your personal conclusion, then that could border on the "original research" which Wikipedia disapproves of. The conventional "s" and "š" transcriptions of cuneiform signs are based on long chains of correspondences with late attested pronunciations in certain other Semitic subgroups, but do not necessarily imply anything definite about the historically earlier pronunciation in Akkadian.  For that reason, and reasons discussed in the Hoffner and Melchert quote above, and in the article "Akkadian and Eblaite" by John Huehnergard and Christopher Woods in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, the fact that Hittite retained the cuneiform signs conventionally transcribed with "š" means nothing with respect to whether the Hittite basic sibilant was pronounced [ʃ].
 * Giving [t:] and [r:] exactly the same status in Hittite seem to be an innovative or radical view, but a more traditional view using d, b, g etc. seems to have prevailed for a number of decades, so that the more traditional view should be mentioned.
 * If Ugaritic was at all like other attested older Semitic languages, then "ḥ" was voiceless pharyngeal [ħ]. I'm not sure I would care to make a strong statement on the place of articulation of "ġ"... AnonMoos (talk)


 * After a while I decided to change the article to something more typologically plausible. I still haven't finished it, but so far I've been able to make the changes you offered. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 04:23, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm much more of an expert in Semitic than in Hittite, but I don't see any major problems with the article (the English needs a little polishing)... AnonMoos (talk) 15:59, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Hittite phonology has been accepted
 Hittite phonology, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created. The article has been assessed as C-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article. You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. If your account is more than four days old and you have made at least 10 edits you can create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer. Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia! Drewmutt ( ^ᴥ^ ) talk  19:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the  [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:AfC_talk/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=Hittite_phonology help desk] .
 * If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider.