Talk:Karaim

Wikipedia article

FYI, the Wikipedia article on this was recently the subject of some dispute over POV issues; more information is available in various places, such as w:Talk:Crimean Karaites and w:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive767#User_Kaz_and_Crimean_Karaites.2FKaraims_POV_Fork. - -sche (discuss) 01:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the history of that page, and the dispute has been going on with different users (possibly sock-puppets of each other) for years. Basically there are two sides, one side (Toddy etal.) seems to be arguing that Karaims and Crimea are inseparable and are therefore more correctly commonly referred to as Crimean Karaites and the other side (Kaz et al.) says that the qualifier Crimean is not necessary. However, both sides miss the point that they are confusing two different groups. if you read the old version of the article you can see how different the groups they are talking about. I think I will will abstain from involvement in that polemic though, thank you for the invitation. WordsWorth (talk) 08:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Collective plural

I think the second meaning in the noun section needs to be discussed. Karaim (collective noun) and Karaim singular noun/adjective are not to be confused. There is no collective noun for the Karaims (except with the plural -s suffix). The reference given is simply an example of where the author (Bernard Comrie in this case) is to be criticised for not knowing his subject well enough. WordsWorth (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Bernard Comrie is a professor of linguistics, he certainly knows how to use words, and there is no reason to doubt that his use of Karaim as a plural of Karaim is an error: many nouns pertaining to groups behave this way. Compare Japanese and almost every Native American ethnonym ("the Salish are", "the Abenaki are", etc). - -sche (discuss) 22:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

He is indeed as you say, but unfortunately in this extremely specialist area there are all too many experts in other fields not checking their assumptions. Bernard confuses the ethnic Karaims (numbering about 2000 worldwide) with the Hebrew Karaim (numbering about 40,000 worldwide). While it is correct to refer to the Hebrew Karaim collectively as Karaim it is not correct to refer to ethnic Karaims in this way. The confusion comes from identifying the religion of the two groups as one and the same therefore leading to the assumption that their names have a common etymology. However, the Karaite Folk Encyclopedia (1995) indicates that the ethnic Karaims (more recently Caraims) were originally the indigenous people of Crimea (Krim). Meanwhile the Hebrew Karaim have nothing to do with Crimea. For proof that the religion of the ethnic Karaims is only mistakenly identified with the religion of the Hebrew Karaim please check out prayer number 122 on page 61 of the ethnic Karaims prayerbook provided by Central Asia's UNESCO website here. Looking forward to your constructive feedback. WordsWorth (talk) 00:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

1. It's hard to argue that "Karaim" doesn't exist as a plural of "Karaim" when there are so many authors who use the term in this way. If there were reason to think such use was an error, we could describe it as such, but there is not reason to think it is an error, given that it is entirely normal for ethonyms to have collective plurals which are identical in form to their singulars. Note that no-one is denying that the word can also be pluralised "Karaims".
2. The sources I've found so far either consider the Karaim(s) to be adherents of Judaism, or do not mention their religion.

- -sche (discuss) 01:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

1 Yes you are correct, it does exist as a collective noun without plural -s and it is not a mistake. I had hoped I had successfully explained how. I will try again another way, but please also read through my last post again and let me know if I could ave put it better last time too. So here goes again. When Karaim is a collective noun, it refers to a different group entirely from the Karaims. When it refers to this different group (to Karaite Jews to be precise) it is a transliteration of a Hebrew word which would normally be transliterated Qaraim instead. The correct English language word for the Hebrew Qaraim/Karaim would be Karaites. Karaites itself is also recognised as having two distinct meanings. One is in reference to the Jewish group, and the other is in reference to the Turkic ethnicity also known as Kereyids or Keraits. In referencce to the former the correct term would be Karaite Jews, and to the latter Karaite Folk.

2 Yes you are correct again, many sources other than those which come from the Karaims themselves do confuse their religion with a sect of Judaism or do not mention it at all. But not all sources, and especially not the publications from the Karaims themselves (E.G. the Karaite Folk Encyclopedia). But one of these religions is called Karaism and the other Karaimism and are quite distinct. The prayer 122 on page 61 of the UNESCO document which I hoped to draw your attention to (i.e. the Our father/Lor'd prayer given as quoted from the Gospel of Matthew and Luke) shows that the religion of the Karaims is more Christian than Jewish. WordsWorth (talk) 08:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

You say "When Karaim is a collective noun, it refers to a different group entirely from the Karaims", but I've provided citations where "Karaim" refers to the Turkic-speaking group. What am I missing? - -sche (discuss) 02:48, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Very good work! Even so these examples are extremely rare and arise from either typos or a confusion in the minds of the authors who have not understood the difference between the Universalist Karaims of Eastern Europe who pray the "Our Father" and the Karaite Jews (Karaim) who do not. Nevertheless you have found that the word is used in that way. Changing the subject slightly I can find thousands of examples where "effect" is used to mean "affect" and vice versa, since it does not matter whether the authors are confused or making a typo, we should make sure that such usages are indeed mentioned on the pages for those words correct? This is a rhetorical analogy, my point is any high-school student can find a reference, in order to understand a reference then one must be capable of critically engaging with a text. Writing dictionary entries is not a high-school game to have fun with references though, so we have to set standards of critical engagement right? WordsWorth (talk) 07:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)