Talk:Name of Lithuania

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A fact from Name of Lithuania appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on January 24, 2007.

Planning to do some edits here tomorrow, but it sure would be nice to find some more English-language references. Am searching. Very interesting topic; also interesting why everyone loves the rain origin. Later - Novickas 01:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Rain, don't you think it does sound a bit romantic?--Lokyz 09:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It does often appear in the movies, but usually at the sad stage of the romance... Definitely more romantic than "spilling". Novickas 17:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Why in English is it "Lithuania" and not "Lituania"?

Because of mixed origins of English language - Roman (latin), later Nordic (Vikings) later French taht got substantialy mixed with three mentioned earlier. --Lokyz 23:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Additions on September 23, 2007

Could the author please provide references for these additions? In particular, statements referring to "common knowledge" are not useable - see Wikipedia:Verifiability. Novickas 15:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suspicion of WP:OR

Large chunk of text was added, but it is unreferenced, written in weasel language and seems to be on the werge of WP:OR, threfore i did remove it.

While it is clear the name originated in a Baltic language, scholars are still debating about the original meaning of the word. The main question is if the early name pertained to some state, country or to a nationality, language and some other ethnic features of the people populating some area. Possible answers would be: it could denote a state, country, some area, without regard to nationality, it could denote some area populated mostly by one nationality: the Lithuanians, it could denote area where the Lithuanian language was mostly spoken. Most probably the early name of Lithuania in other languages could have various meanings. Furthermore, it could change its original meaning in foreign languages in the course of time. For example, the German word “Lettowen” and the English word “Lithuania” have a similar morphological structure, they were apparently formed by adding the corresponding suffix (-wen in German, –an in English), that were usually used to form a noun from adjectives or proper nouns having collective meaning, for example, Russia and Russians. That means that a hypothetical form Lithua with the suffix –an might have formed the adjective or the collective noun pertaining to a nationality. Next the suffix -ia was added, resulting in the word Lithuania. Besides, it is strange that in German a word form with –land at the end was not used, though it was quite productive in those days to denote states and countries.

The common knowledge is that the population of the Duchy of Lithuania was not homogeneous. It comprised Baltic and Slavic ethnic groups, especially in the 13th century when the Mongol invasion forced the Slavic population of Kievan Rus to resettle northwards, where invaders could not reach them. Since the Slavs interacted with the entire population of Lithuania, it is understandable that the Quedlinburg Chronicle used a Slavic form of its name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lokyz (talk • contribs) 16:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re: additions on September 23,2007

As to my addition it is based on suggestions like many statements regarding early history of Lithuania. To admit them or not is the right of the reader as I understand. The policy of deleting passages is not the best in the debate, dear lovers of history like Lokyz. Some more words to Novickas. He did not like me mentioning “common knowledge” and writes, that “statements referring to "common knowledge" are not useable”. OK, let’s keep to the rules. Please, be fair and comment the phrase “According to a widespread popular belief” in the same article? As to the question “Could the author please provide references for these additions?”, I refer to the works of Adam Maldis’, including his article “The root and crown of history” that appeared recently in Belarusian press. He openly expresses his disappointment about the lack of mutual understanding between Belarusian and Lithuanian colleagues regarding the fact of multi ethnical nature of the GDL. Adam Maldis speaks about the common cultural heritage of Belarus and Lithuania, that in Lithuania is not admitted. Alas!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogi555 (talk • contribs) 03:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC) 

The text was not deleted, but moved to talk page, according to the policy. Wh is Adam Maldis, is he scholar, and did he state exactly the things you put into text? remember this article is not about cultural heritage, it is about a name. And pleaase read WP:Civil and WP:AGF--Lokyz 10:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I have added references for the widely held belief that it derives from rain. I don't mean to disrespect Belarus' role in the history of the GDL and PLC. The name discussion centers around an earlier era, the Duchy of Lithuania. Novickas 12:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Answers to the questions above. Adam Maldis is a prominent scholar in Belarus, a respected professor, Yanka Kupala prize winner who has been studying for years the history of the old Belarusian language and many texts dating back to the early history of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania. Since 1990 he has been participating in debates with colleagues from neighboring countries, including Lithuania. He is sure that the attitude to the common cultural legacy of the GDL is a corner stone in all researches of early history, including the origin of the name “Lithuania” in question, as it is inseparable from the history of both languages. Regarding WP:Civil and WP:AGF, many thanks, Lokyz, I have read them. I am reading once again the article and find a lot of statements that have no references. Why should I place the references and you should not? For example, I am reading in the article: “In early German chronicles Lithuania's name was spelled as Lettowen. In this form the German letter -e- is used to denote the Lithuanian diphthong -ie-, while -owen denotes the Lithuanian hydronymic suffix -uva (-ava).” This important statement has no references, furthermore it states the structure with the hydronymic suffix as a fact, but not a suggestion. Or you meant the early German chronicles as reference? Not of course.. I share another hypothesis that the old name of Lithuania first denoted a people, not a land. The foreign forms such as German and English one, unlike the first mentioned Latin “Litua”, most probably were related to the Slavic nouns “litvin, litvan” with soft “t” or even “ts” in the middle. This word, denoting one person, was used in plural to denote the entire people. Even in the old Russian collective name for the Lithuanians “Litva” was spelled in a Cyrillic version with the softness sigh after “t”, and this word is in the said article as well. To show the softness of the “t”, the letter “h” was added according to the rules of Latin transliteration. Maybe, that was not the best solution to reproduce the original “t”, pronounced by the Lithuanians, but the foreigners chose this one in Latin spelling as the most similar to it. And the last but not the least. In the map of 1507 we read LITHUANIE with plural ending -ie like ibid GERMANIE, RUSSIE, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogi555 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)