Talk:hwaet

When dealing with an old language like this, what does it mean when we say "common misspelling"? Does it mean that in this time we are misspelling it or does it mean the people back in the day were often (also) misspelling it? 81.68.255.36 10:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

See WT:RFD#hwaet. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Like I said on RFD, it started as a redirect because of the difficulty in typing æ. I think it's basically just a wrong entry. Also (not that I know much Old English) spelling wasn't standardized back then, and typography even less, so it seems almost silly to talk about misspellings. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

It should remain a redirect, due to the difficulty of typing æ. 71.66.97.228 17:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

It shouldn't actually, the search function 'guesses' at hwæt if you type in hwaet. So it achieves nothing, and perhaps hwaet will one day be an entry in another language. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Deletion debate

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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hwaet

"Common misspelling" - I don't think it is, it's just use of ae to replace the ligature æ which is harder to type on a QWERTY keyboard. If kept, we'd pretty much have to allow any ae æ substitution. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

See Talk:hwaet. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing but I thought someone with more knowledge of OE created it. Anyway, why delete it and not just say "alternative spelling of"? 81.68.255.36 10:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually it was created as a redirect towards hwæt. As for alternative spelling, that would depend on it being used somewhere. It gets a little trickier at that point as we'd be relying on modernized versions rather than original texts. However, my point stands, "If kept, we'd pretty much have to allow any ae æ substitution". Mglovesfun (talk) 11:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Google gets 28 hits for hwaet on the English Wikisource, only one of which is hwaet, the other 27 are for hwæt. The one that's for this form is not Old English, it's an etymology so it wouldn't meet CFI (see use-mention distinction). Ergo delete or move to RFV, where it would likely fail. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I thought iwas used the same as daemon. Cheers 81.68.255.36 14:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Old English treated æ as a distinct letter, whereas in Latin ae was just written as æ because it had turned into a single sound. Writing æ as ae is never correct in any of the Germanic languages that use it. —CodeCat 09:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Dæmon is Modern English, which is a distinct language. It's not a good choice of comparison. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

But the issue of two spellings (æ and ae) is inherited from the original Latin writing. So yes, it is. —CodeCat 23:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I mean the rules for Modern English don't also apply for Old English, though I take your point, just it seems to be a separate point. Deleted this entry. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)