Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 March 23

= March 23 =

Hempl's theory on G
Look at G, specifically the theory believed by someone named Hempl. No other Wikipedia article, not Gamma, Zeta, or Phoenician alphabet pays attention to this theory, which I'm new to knowing today. Wikipedia has no article or dis-ambiguation page titled Hempl, so going there clearly doesn't help. Do any Internet sites talk about arguments suggesting Hempl's theory is more likely than the normal one?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The de:WP has an article on a George Hempl, a US-born son of German immigrants. The time frame would fit.  There are a couple of English references (including page numbers) which may help.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:58, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Difficult to say if this was just an academic outlier or if it had some more profound echo in scholarship. At first sight it seems rather implausible, at least the way it's presented in our article (how would the zeta>g change have anything to do with a "pronunciation /k/ > /ɡ/"?) I'd need to research this in a bit more detail. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:20, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * (ec) The statement in G is sourced with Hempl's original article. It is accessible here. Typing the title of the article into google scholar leads to a list of articles citing this one . This is rather short with only three entries, which – if it is reasonably complete – may suggest that the proposal did not resonate much within linguistic circles. Google books (try from your location, the results may differ somewhat) has a few more results. --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This modern work cites Hempl, apparently approvingly; this  older book (from 1927) cites him as a respected minority position. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:23, 23 March 2017 (UTC)