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I have removed this:
Apart from the awkward phrasing, it is misleading. Nobody asserts that "Old Nick" derives from "Nuckelavee"; rather, some people assert that both "Nick" in "Old Nick" and "Nuckel" in "Nuckelavee" have a common ancestor in Old English "nicor" or a Germanic antecedent of that. This deserves mention in the Etymology section, but certainly not in the lede. jnestorius( talk) 12:43, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Right you are jnestorius. The article represents Hibbert as saying the component nuck of the nuckelavee's name is cognate with Old Nick. Well, Hibbert doesnt actually say this. [1] Hibbert says that the Neckar in the Orkneys are "known by some other name" (which he never specifies, but likely he meant trow, mistranscribed as "troicis"); he follows with some bits about shelty and water-trow, then down the line he says the Necker is cognate to Old Nick. -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 09:59, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
So the proper place for this material is probably Neck (water spirit) the general article. Probably does not demonstrate WP:DUE WEIGHT to be put in lede of the nuckelavee article.-- 10:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiyoweap ( talk • contribs)
Following up, derivates of Nicholas pops up in some curious places, like Danish nisse, referring to what today functions as a guardian house spirit in Denmark (nils > nisse, consider how something similar happens with common names like Jack).
That said, the 19th century etymological stuff needs to come out of the introduction and be corralled off into its own section for sure, maybe even just appearing as a a footnote. It's highly dubious. Extensions of Proto-Germanic *nikwiz or *nikwuz are pretty well attested, mostly notably including Old Norse nykr, referring to a creature very much like the nuckalvee. Unfortunately, I see no mention of this in the article. (Old English nicor is just one of the Old Norse extension's many cognates.) :bloodofox: ( talk) 12:18, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Points (mainly for OpenFuture, Bloodofox and Hijiri) to ponder:
- the 19th century was not the dark ages, it was 300 years into the scientific revolution
- philology was already a field in 1786, decades before Traill Dennison was active, when William Jones, with impeccable scientific method, demonstrated the existence of Proto-Indo-European
- argument by analogy (kär/kärring) is dangerous ground
- from what you say nobody since Dennison has researched the nuck/nick connection either to prove or in particular to disprove it
- faux amis and false cognates notwithstanding, in related languages words that look like cognates usually are cognates, so there's a good chance Dennison's theory is right
- to present his theory qualified as "may" be the case is in no way misleading
Cheers, Awien ( talk) 17:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
re mostly Bloodofox above:
- the word philology in the sense of "the science of language" was already in use by 1716 (OED)
- Grimm's Law (1822) is phonology, which was brought to bear to refine Jones's (correct) hypothesis
- "Jones . . . is generally given the credit for . . . putting forward, in 1786, the hypothesis that [Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin] must have 'sprung from some common source'" (Britannica). Flaws notwithstanding, he amassed and examined data, and formulated his (correct) hypothesis. That's the scientific method, quite independently of phonology.
- I didn't say "this sounds like this' is usually right", I said "in related languages (my emphasis) words that look like cognates usually are cognates." Of course one always has to beware of false cognates, but between English and French, for example, for every causer that doesn't mean cause, there are umpteen table, plan, train, danger, village, géométrie, beauté, etc. that are true cognates. If you had to bet your life, the odds would be vastly better betting that the lookalikes are alike than that they aren't. One old French textbook I used long ago lists only a couple of hundred false cognates to beware of for the whole language. That's an underestimate, but definitely of the right order of magnitude.
- Hibbert refers to "profound antiquarians" as the source of the Old Nick theory, but I don't have access to enough of his book to know who or what they might be.
Awien ( talk) 01:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Yeah,
Bloodofox The etymology of nuckelavee can be found under "neugle" in the DSL, and I already pointed out to Eric and Sagacious long ago. I'd forgotten where I wrote it but it is in
Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nuckelavee/archive2.
DSL refers to
Jakob Jakobsen's Etymological dictionary of the Norn language in Shetland (1928), Danish version (1921) available at
hathi trust:
At pp. 571–2 under "njuggel (njugl) [njogəl, ŋogəl], s., nøk [nix], vandvætte [water-wight ]... " After a description of the Shetlandic njuggel he adds: "En lignende tradition findes på Hoy, Orknøerne, om "de knoggelvi [k‘nog″-əlvi]", hvis første sammensætningsled må være samme ord som shetl. njuggel." which I believe says "A similar tradition exists on Hoy, Orkney, regarding "de knoggelvi", whose first component must be the same word as Shetlandic njuggel".
Jakobsen's also has an entry on "mukkelevi" on p. 536. "mukkelevi [mok・əlē'vi], s., de m. [the mukkelevi] djævlen, søtrolden [sea-troll], fiskernes onde ånd [fishremen's evil spirit], imod hvem „havets moder“ ( de midder o' de sea) ..." where he adds that Orkney's nukkelevi is surely the same word as Shetlandic mukkelevi ("I orkn. nukkelevi, mystik vandvæsen [mythical water-creature], dels i åer og indsøer (nøk [nix]), dels is havet (havdæmon [sea-demon]), er evi sikkert samme ord som i shetl. mukkelevi"). Jakobsen's conjectural etymology here is that it was originally Old Norse "mykil afi" "great man (or grandfather)". -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 09:47, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
Under /*Etymology*/ I worked in info from the DSL entry for " neugle". The heading is for the short Shetland form "neugle" and variant spellings, and the Orkney forms nukkelevi and knoggelvi are stated as derivative forms. I dont see either DSL or Jakobsen indication that nuckelavee definitely derives from knoggelvi; this probably is another conjecture from orkneyjar.com site, in which case it should be left out (I've tagged with {{ dubious}} for now).
I also added Jakobsen's material (above, fine print), including his rather different etymolgoy on "mukkelevi". -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 10:06, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
@
Cas Liber In your GA review, you stated that so I doubt we'll see the mythological demarcation disputes
. A premature assessment as it turned out, since in
#FAC review 2 demarcation did crop up, but not pursued. It seems your interest dissipated after commenting on the kelp matter. But thi is just another instance showing that the lackadaisical FA review got cut off far short of thoroughness.
The demarcation issue came up when we were discussing whether nuckelevee was a type of " trow (folklore)" (as folklorists say) or whether these could be deemed interchangeable (as the candidates seemed to believe). This was dismissed in typical fashion as some obsession on a fine point. But the inconvenient truth is that Dennison actually makes a clear distinction between his "nuckelavee" and his "sea-trow". [6] [7] (non-JSTOR links here)-- Kiyoweap ( talk) 02:10, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I have removed this:
Apart from the awkward phrasing, it is misleading. Nobody asserts that "Old Nick" derives from "Nuckelavee"; rather, some people assert that both "Nick" in "Old Nick" and "Nuckel" in "Nuckelavee" have a common ancestor in Old English "nicor" or a Germanic antecedent of that. This deserves mention in the Etymology section, but certainly not in the lede. jnestorius( talk) 12:43, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Right you are jnestorius. The article represents Hibbert as saying the component nuck of the nuckelavee's name is cognate with Old Nick. Well, Hibbert doesnt actually say this. [1] Hibbert says that the Neckar in the Orkneys are "known by some other name" (which he never specifies, but likely he meant trow, mistranscribed as "troicis"); he follows with some bits about shelty and water-trow, then down the line he says the Necker is cognate to Old Nick. -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 09:59, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
So the proper place for this material is probably Neck (water spirit) the general article. Probably does not demonstrate WP:DUE WEIGHT to be put in lede of the nuckelavee article.-- 10:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiyoweap ( talk • contribs)
Following up, derivates of Nicholas pops up in some curious places, like Danish nisse, referring to what today functions as a guardian house spirit in Denmark (nils > nisse, consider how something similar happens with common names like Jack).
That said, the 19th century etymological stuff needs to come out of the introduction and be corralled off into its own section for sure, maybe even just appearing as a a footnote. It's highly dubious. Extensions of Proto-Germanic *nikwiz or *nikwuz are pretty well attested, mostly notably including Old Norse nykr, referring to a creature very much like the nuckalvee. Unfortunately, I see no mention of this in the article. (Old English nicor is just one of the Old Norse extension's many cognates.) :bloodofox: ( talk) 12:18, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Points (mainly for OpenFuture, Bloodofox and Hijiri) to ponder:
- the 19th century was not the dark ages, it was 300 years into the scientific revolution
- philology was already a field in 1786, decades before Traill Dennison was active, when William Jones, with impeccable scientific method, demonstrated the existence of Proto-Indo-European
- argument by analogy (kär/kärring) is dangerous ground
- from what you say nobody since Dennison has researched the nuck/nick connection either to prove or in particular to disprove it
- faux amis and false cognates notwithstanding, in related languages words that look like cognates usually are cognates, so there's a good chance Dennison's theory is right
- to present his theory qualified as "may" be the case is in no way misleading
Cheers, Awien ( talk) 17:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
re mostly Bloodofox above:
- the word philology in the sense of "the science of language" was already in use by 1716 (OED)
- Grimm's Law (1822) is phonology, which was brought to bear to refine Jones's (correct) hypothesis
- "Jones . . . is generally given the credit for . . . putting forward, in 1786, the hypothesis that [Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin] must have 'sprung from some common source'" (Britannica). Flaws notwithstanding, he amassed and examined data, and formulated his (correct) hypothesis. That's the scientific method, quite independently of phonology.
- I didn't say "this sounds like this' is usually right", I said "in related languages (my emphasis) words that look like cognates usually are cognates." Of course one always has to beware of false cognates, but between English and French, for example, for every causer that doesn't mean cause, there are umpteen table, plan, train, danger, village, géométrie, beauté, etc. that are true cognates. If you had to bet your life, the odds would be vastly better betting that the lookalikes are alike than that they aren't. One old French textbook I used long ago lists only a couple of hundred false cognates to beware of for the whole language. That's an underestimate, but definitely of the right order of magnitude.
- Hibbert refers to "profound antiquarians" as the source of the Old Nick theory, but I don't have access to enough of his book to know who or what they might be.
Awien ( talk) 01:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Yeah,
Bloodofox The etymology of nuckelavee can be found under "neugle" in the DSL, and I already pointed out to Eric and Sagacious long ago. I'd forgotten where I wrote it but it is in
Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nuckelavee/archive2.
DSL refers to
Jakob Jakobsen's Etymological dictionary of the Norn language in Shetland (1928), Danish version (1921) available at
hathi trust:
At pp. 571–2 under "njuggel (njugl) [njogəl, ŋogəl], s., nøk [nix], vandvætte [water-wight ]... " After a description of the Shetlandic njuggel he adds: "En lignende tradition findes på Hoy, Orknøerne, om "de knoggelvi [k‘nog″-əlvi]", hvis første sammensætningsled må være samme ord som shetl. njuggel." which I believe says "A similar tradition exists on Hoy, Orkney, regarding "de knoggelvi", whose first component must be the same word as Shetlandic njuggel".
Jakobsen's also has an entry on "mukkelevi" on p. 536. "mukkelevi [mok・əlē'vi], s., de m. [the mukkelevi] djævlen, søtrolden [sea-troll], fiskernes onde ånd [fishremen's evil spirit], imod hvem „havets moder“ ( de midder o' de sea) ..." where he adds that Orkney's nukkelevi is surely the same word as Shetlandic mukkelevi ("I orkn. nukkelevi, mystik vandvæsen [mythical water-creature], dels i åer og indsøer (nøk [nix]), dels is havet (havdæmon [sea-demon]), er evi sikkert samme ord som i shetl. mukkelevi"). Jakobsen's conjectural etymology here is that it was originally Old Norse "mykil afi" "great man (or grandfather)". -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 09:47, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
Under /*Etymology*/ I worked in info from the DSL entry for " neugle". The heading is for the short Shetland form "neugle" and variant spellings, and the Orkney forms nukkelevi and knoggelvi are stated as derivative forms. I dont see either DSL or Jakobsen indication that nuckelavee definitely derives from knoggelvi; this probably is another conjecture from orkneyjar.com site, in which case it should be left out (I've tagged with {{ dubious}} for now).
I also added Jakobsen's material (above, fine print), including his rather different etymolgoy on "mukkelevi". -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 10:06, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
@
Cas Liber In your GA review, you stated that so I doubt we'll see the mythological demarcation disputes
. A premature assessment as it turned out, since in
#FAC review 2 demarcation did crop up, but not pursued. It seems your interest dissipated after commenting on the kelp matter. But thi is just another instance showing that the lackadaisical FA review got cut off far short of thoroughness.
The demarcation issue came up when we were discussing whether nuckelevee was a type of " trow (folklore)" (as folklorists say) or whether these could be deemed interchangeable (as the candidates seemed to believe). This was dismissed in typical fashion as some obsession on a fine point. But the inconvenient truth is that Dennison actually makes a clear distinction between his "nuckelavee" and his "sea-trow". [6] [7] (non-JSTOR links here)-- Kiyoweap ( talk) 02:10, 13 July 2016 (UTC)