Talk:Knaanic language

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[edit] needed expansion of article

The article needs to tell: WHAT ARE ALL THE JUDEO-SLAVIC LANGUAGES?

Obviously, the article mentions Judeo-Czech, but that just leaves people wondering what the others are.

Nothing like this existed.

I'm finally getting around to signing the above post. Gringo300 08:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

If people want to know, they can do google searches for Judeo-slavic languages, which turns up numerous results. It would behoove those who ask such questions, at least as much so as the purported "searchers", to conduct such searches, and to contribute to the article constructively, rather than attempting to detract therefrom by means of insipid questions. Tomer TALK 12:33, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking the purpose of Wikipedia was to give people information. Sure, people can do searches elsewhere... for just about ANYTHING on Wikipedia. Yet Wikipedia does exist. Therefore Wikipedia needs to tell about the OTHER Judeo-Slavic language.

Gringo300 21:11, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] reference?

Could someone please add any reference, to any articles, books, original texts (if they exist)?

Numerous sources are made immediately available upon a simple google.com search for "knaanic". When time permits, I'll see what I can do about adding such references to the article. In the meantime, perhaps you could do so yourself, rather than asking trolling questions of this nature.Tomer TALK 12:33, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)
First of all, I think alot of readers would be thankful if you would not label legitimate questions as 'trolling', this is simply rude. Now, if one takes the time to follow such links, it is visiable that most of them are either:
  • WP mirrors
  • oneliners stating 'Yiddish might have been affected by Knaanic' (or the more extreem Wexler approach)
  • A transliteration of the Lord's Prayer in Czech into the hebrew alphabet, in Ethnologue and it's mirrors (hardly authentic Knaanic text)

Automatic assumption of ignorance or lazyness is by far more 'trollish' than a request for bibliography.

I see that someone else was thinking the exact same thing i was...

Gringo300 21:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Clearly there's been a breakdown in communication. Saying that questions are trolling is a very different thing from saying someone's questions are trollish. Please review what I wrote. Tomer TALK 01:37, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of name

It looks like Knaanic is congate with Canaan. If so, that should be mentioned. If not, that should probably be mentioned, to dispel the impression given by the similarity. Dvd Avins 06:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Done, although I don't have a source in front of me that I can cite to back it up. This is based on what I've read elsewhere previously... The same, in fact, is also probsibly true of Sfaradh, and possibly even of Ashkenaz. Tomertalk 02:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
You seem to not have a strong guess on the etymological connection. I do. I'm guessing the name was given by others, as a referent to the people from Canaan who spoke the language. Dvd Avins 02:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

That's a fanciful guess, but one I've never read. Knaanic referred to a number of Slavic Jewish languages. From what I've read, "Slavia", to invent a placename, was referred to as Qna`an. Your theory is interesting, but flies in the face not only of WP:NOR, but also of the fact that Qna`anith/Knaanic was called that by its speakers, Jews, none of whom, to my knowledge, ever referred to themselves as people from Canaan, not only because the land of Qna`an ceased to be called that over a millennium earlier, but because Qna`an implies descent from Qna`an the guy, anathema to Jews. If reference was ever made to the various languages known as Qna`anith by non-Jews, it's more likely they called it Jevrejsko or something along those lines, not Qna`anith. Tomertalk 06:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting putting my guess in the article; I was primarily responding to your previous statement on this page, influenced by your exact choice of words in the article. I don't think there's an NOR requirement for talk pages. As for the merits, what you say argues against my guess but not overwhelmingly, IMO. For my guess to be true, the name would have had to originate with the Gentile locals and later been adopted by the speakers. I've read of names of langages working like that, where the speaking group takes on the name assigned them by outsiders. If the Jews perceived that they were speaking Czech (or whatever the local language was called at the time) but Czech speakers perceived differences that warrented a distinct name, it would not be unreasonable for the jews to adopt the neam that was already being bandied about. Especially if the pronunciation (including local suffixes and/or prefixes) made the word distinct in the Jews ears from a word that would imply descent from Qna'an. Dvd Avins 10:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
You are correct: neither NPOV nor NOR apply to talk pages. That said, I don't know what discussion between the two of us as to the possible origin of the name can accomplish, other than to establish that neither of us is an expert in the field. To repeat myself earlier tho, a central weakness of your theory is that the Jews would not have called themselves exiles of Qna`an, nor would that territory likely have been referred to as such by Slavs. Everything you're saying is "interesting", but as far as the article goes, little more than "idle speculation". That said, I'll try to dig up the sources I've read previously, which support the text I added to the article. Tomertalk 07:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Call for reference

Again, can someone please provide *any* source for Knaanic? Please do not tell us "Search google" again, but provide academic ref. After another search, I can say the following:

  • Google searching with "filetype:pdf" yields nothing (just a ref for a language-code), compare for example 'even' a search on phoenician yields 40k results (in PDFs), so there's not alot of comtemporary academic research regarding Knaanic.
  • A 'free' google search yields really alot of messy results: mostly wikipedia mirrors, and people in mailing-lists asking for reference.

I do not doubt the existance of Judeo-slavic languages all through history (I was hearing such on a daily-basis rather, eg, Israeli Russian). I'm just saying a wikipedia article about linguistics should have an academic reference, and preferably an example text (No fake LORD prayers please)

Anyways - I'm adding a 'lacking source' tag to the article. Oyd11 22:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This article seems to be sourced mainly from Ethnologue [1]. Rudjek
Sorry, returning the unref'd. Ethnologue provides no refrence (except for the nice three-letter language code), please replace the unref tag by a more fitting tag, but do not leave it like that. Evidently, some sort of reference is missing. Oyd11 23:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. The entire first paragraph of this article as it is at present has been copied from Ethnologue, so that should be a sufficient source for the first paragraph. As a rule, Ethnologue gives more information than just a language code. I have not been able to find much, but I have found the following:

  • Judeo-Slavic was a West Slavic language used by Jews living in Central Europe in the Middle Ages in Slavic-speaking regions corresponding approximately with the current territory of the Czech Republic. The term Knaanic referred mainly to the Judeo-Slavic closest to Old Czech, but there were other variants of Judeo-Slavic. All variants became extinct in late Middle Ages. [2]
  • It is mentioned in this book.
  • Someone called Mark Louden mentions in his book that Slavic speaking Jews are called "Knaanim" [3]
  • A .edu and PDF mentions that the traces of "Judeo-Slavic" speech (along with the name "Knaanim") have long since disappeared. [4]

Rudjek

Ok, I've probably used the wrong template then. I ment 'reference' in the sence of bibliography, assuming encyclopaedic articles are to provide that. Ie, I didn't mean to doubt factuality.

From the link you've provide, the following ref seems appropriate:

Oyd11 17:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)