Talk:padawan
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The first couple of pages at google books:padawan -jedi -intitle:padawan -anakin -star all seem to refer to the universe, or to be of a different sense altogether (a place name, capitalized).—msh210℠ (talk) 20:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Failed: deleted.—msh210℠ (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
- Oh no, I wish I had seen this earlier. The better search would have been for "young Padawan", which is how it is almost always phrased outside of the Star Wars context. Here are some books results: [1], [2], [3], [4]; and there are plenty more here. - [The]DaveRoss 18:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
- Unstriking and undeleting. I've also now changed our definition from "A young apprentice, especially in the Jedi tradition of the Star Wars films" to "An apprentice" (since you say it's used with young almost always). Now the question is whether "apprentice" is correct anyway: the second through fourth cites you provide here could reasonably be interpreted that way (though a more general "student" might make more sense).—msh210℠ (talk) 19:48, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
- This word has been added and deleted at least twice before, you know. I discovered that a while back when I looked to see whether it had been included in Wiktionary. The majority of uses do seem to be "in-universe," but as the sources cited above make clear, it's widely used without further context by computer programmers and the authors of self-help manuals. I did find two uses in the New York Times.
- The more recent one is here from the sports pages of September 5, 2010, in a column entitled "The Fifth Down," in reference to "proteges" or replacements for veteran quarterbacks: "The first of the padawan has already flopped." Here the author has (probably) mistyped the plural without an "s" and the spell checker did not catch it, since it probably didn't contain "padawan" in the first place. In any case, I know of no other instance where "padawan" has been used as a plural, so I believe this was a mistake rather than a deliberate usage.
- The second, and perhaps more significant, was in a column by Maureen Dowd on September 29, 2002. Here she presents a satirical (and hypothetical) conversation between then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, described as a "mandarin" and "imperial war tutor," to then President George W. Bush, described as "the Boy Emperor." The President addresses Rumsfeld as "teacher," and in reply to a question posed, Rumsfeld responds: "Holy mackerel, my young Padawan! The risks of doing nothing are greater than the risks of knowing nothing and doing something."
- I think we can say that the word "padawan" (which may or may not be capitalized, depending on whether one treats it as a person's title or merely a status or rank), and which is made plural with an "s", has made the transition to everyday English, to the extent that people can be expected to understand it without further reference to Star Wars. The phrase "my young padawan" is idiomatic, a bit like "my dear Watson," but the word can be and is used independently; and despite the idiom, a padawan need be neither young nor formally apprenticed.
- The origin of the term is indisputable; if George Lucas didn't invent it, he's the one who made it known. Its current usage has nothing to do with the city in Malaysia. The word seems to be used variably, to refer to 1) an apprentice; 2) a pupil, student, or learner (the phrase "padawan learner" is sometimes used in-universe); 3) a protégé. All of these are related, but restricting the definition to any one of them would be inaccurate, given the current usage. P Aculeius 14:26, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
- Unstriking and undeleting. I've also now changed our definition from "A young apprentice, especially in the Jedi tradition of the Star Wars films" to "An apprentice" (since you say it's used with young almost always). Now the question is whether "apprentice" is correct anyway: the second through fourth cites you provide here could reasonably be interpreted that way (though a more general "student" might make more sense).—msh210℠ (talk) 19:48, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
- Oh no, I wish I had seen this earlier. The better search would have been for "young Padawan", which is how it is almost always phrased outside of the Star Wars context. Here are some books results: [1], [2], [3], [4]; and there are plenty more here. - [The]DaveRoss 18:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
etymology[edit]
Could it be from Persian پهلوان (pahlawan) "athlete, hero, wrestler"?--176.4.64.213 17:01, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- No, it's an arbitrary coinage. Links to words in earthly languages are completely unsupported by any evidence. Unless you can find a reliably-sourced statement by George Lucas or one of his script-writing collaborators saying that the word was borrowed, rather than invented, there's no reason to add every similar word that could conceivably have inspired it. As it is, it's only one step removed from claiming that "Batman" was named after a city in Turkey. P Aculeius (talk) 23:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- @P Aculeius: Ironically enough that is exactly what happened, someone connected this term to the Padawan municipality in Malaysia. I have removed that ridiculousness from here, including a Sanskrit connection that had no reference, but that the Sanskrit bit does still exist on the main enwiki page with original research directly referencing Sanskrit dictionaries. Gotitbro (talk) 00:36, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Just an observation, from some brief research, the astronomer and scientist Galileo taught at "Padua University" in Padua, Italy. Someone who attended that university was called a Paduan (which, in English, is pronounced Pad-ew-an). I would bet that the origin was from that town/university. Would be interesting if someone someday could ask Lucas the question directly, if they were influenced by Galileo when they came up with the term. Obviously this is just speculation, but I thought it was interesting and worth a note. 14:09, 28 December 2020 (UTC)