Wiktionary talk:About Belarusian

Spelling

@Ssvb. Hi. In your table Łacinka "simvał" is not attestable, "symbal" is.

I would also stick to one version of Łacinka, even on сі́мвал (símval). Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@Atitarev: Thanks for your feedback. The word "сімвал" and its variants with minor vowel adjustments was in use even before the infamous 1933's reform: "сімвалу" (Уладзімір Пічэта in 1924), "сымвол" (Максім Гарэцкі in 1921), "сымвол" (Максім Багдановіч in 1913), "сымвал" (Зьміцер Жылуновіч in 1918), "сымвалы" (Антон Луцкевіч in 1921), "symwału" (Wacłaŭ Łastoŭski in 1919), "symwoł" (Wacłaŭ Łastoŭski in 1918). The historical dictionary hints simultaneous coexistence of both "сімвал" and "сымбаль" even earlier: https://verbum.by/hsbm/simvol https://verbum.by/hsbm/simbol

In 1927 Аркадзь Смоліч wrote the following about Максім Багдановіч: "У 9-м радку аўтарам, як звычайна, ужыта слова „сымвол“ зам. сучаснага літаратурнага „сымболь“". Hinting that the "сы́мболь" ("symbol") spelling used to be the literary norm in 1927. It had the unstressed о, as prescribed by the rules of Taraškievica 1918 for foreign loanwords ("Словы чужазе́мныя, што ўжываюцца ў кніжках і ў кніжнай мове і да народу не дайшлі або дайшлі нядаўна, пі­шуцца так, як у тэй мове, скуль яны ўзятыя: тэлегра́ф, тэлеграма, літэратура, монолёг, тэа́тр, дынастыя, партыя, рэдакцыя, інспэктар, дырэктар, рэдактар і г. д.").

The modern codification of Taraškievica 2005 abolished the unstressed о ("прыхільнікі клясычнага стандарту ў Беларусі адмовіліся ад захаваньня “оканьня” ў пазычаньнях, ад “правіла другога складу” ды шэрагу іншых правілаў і прынялі сфармуляваныя ў артаграфічным зборы 1959 году асноўныя прынцыпы правапісу складаных словаў"). However it prescribes "сы-" in the beginning of foreign loanwords, so "сімвал" with the letter і indeed does not follow the rules and it would be more correct to have it as "сымвал", similar to how it was in some 1920s books, as shown in the examples above. Still the question remains whether "сымвал" and "сымбаль" have the right to coexist as synonyms within the same orthography standard. Does one of them have to be prohibited and erased? --Ssvb (talk) 00:28, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I think that this is largely politically motivated. The soviet commissars shoved their vision of the Belarusian language orthography down the people's throats in 1933, also jailing and executing many Belarusian linguists and writers in the 1930s. Even the USSR authorities later acknowledged these atrocities themselves after Stalin's death and posthumously rehabilitated the victims. This is still remembered today and affects how people feel about these things. Anyway, the essence of the 1933's reform can be illustrated using these examples (mostly foreign loanwords, because the deformation of spelling of the native Belarusian words via removing soft signs is a separate issue and deserves a separate comment):

• символ (Russian), сімвал (Narkamaŭka), сымбаль/symbal (Taraškievica), symbol (Polish)
• алфавит (Russian), алфавіт (Narkamaŭka), альфабэт/alfabet (Taraškievica), alfabet (Polish)
• серебро (Russian), серабро (Narkamaŭka), срэбра/srebra (Taraškievica), srebro (Polish)
• миф (Russian), міф (Narkamaŭka), міт/mit (Taraškievica), mit (Polish)
• лётчик (Russian), лётчык (Narkamaŭka), лётнік/lotnik (Taraškievica), lotnik (Polish)
• бизнесмен (Russian), бізнесмен (Narkamaŭka), бізнэсмэн/biznesmen (Taraškievica), biznesmen (Polish)
• гвалт (Russian), гвалт (Narkamaŭka), ґвалт/gvałt (Taraškievica), gwałt (Polish)
• Швейцария (Russian), Швейцарыя (Narkamaŭka), Швайцарыя/Švajcaryja/Szwajcaryja (Taraškievica), Szwajcaria (Polish)

Basically, many of the changes pursued the goal of making the Belarusian language closer to Russian and away from Polish. That's how сымбаль got erased from the official dictionaries. But there's one interesting outlier: the pair of Belarusian words "срэбра" & "серабро". Is their relationship any different from the relationship between the "сымбаль" & "сімвал" pair? I think that the only reason why "срэбра" was kept in the Belarusian dictionaries and survived the 1933's reform is that the Russian language also happened to have words "сребро" and "серебро" as a pair of synonyms. Is there any good reason why "сымбаль" and "сімвал" can't be treated as synonyms as well? BTW, the Ukrainian language is also in exactly the same shoes when it comes to the "міт" & "міф" pair even without having multiple competing orthography standards.

Overall, my non-professional impression is that some of the Taraškievica adepts would want to erase the words of foreign origin, that had been already loaned via the Russian language as an intermediary during the USSR times, as a way to undo the damage done by the soviet commissars. And replace them with proper loanwords, constructed according to the prescribed Taraškievica 2005 rules. But after almost a century, it feels a little bit artificial to replace a part of the familiar vocabulary. The so-called "Дзеясловіца" compromise solution also exists (or existed before 2010) as a middle ground approach: basically use the Taraškievica spelling for the native Belarusian words, but take the existing foreign loanwords from Narkamaŭka, because that's how many real people actually speak today. --Ssvb (talk) 01:22, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb: Thanks for the response and the links. It answered some other questions I had, e.g. regarding the usage of letter ґ (g).

My preference is to stick to one standard but if there are some exceptions based on citations, perhaps a reference should be required? It's good thing to document decisions. Thanks for starting it. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:23, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

General Belarusian entries

Hello @Kohannya, @Insaneguy1083, @Ssvb and @Atitarev, how are you all? Well, I decided to mention you because you are the only Belarusian editors I know so far, if there are any others I haven't mentioned, please let me know. Well, without further ado, I'll start talking about what motivated me to create this topic. I've been inactive on Wiktionary for a while now, and when I came back I came across something unpleasant compared to other languages ​​like Polish, etymologies without the use of "From" at the beginning, lack of use of templates like inh+/bor+, af instead of suffix/prefix and col-auto , which I think should be something very solid in the Slavic languages, at least in the vast majority, and I would like to make an appeal to you to make some decision to make the entries in Belarusian something more visually pleasing, something I noticed a lot in the work of editors such as @Vininn126 does in Polish and @Stríðsdrengur with Upper Sorbian. So I start this "agenda" for voting, so that we can decide what is best for this beautiful language. Наименее Полезное (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@Наименее Полезное: Are you primarily talking about the etymology section? Feel free to propose the text of the guidelines related to it or maybe even edit the WT:ABE page yourself to make an initial draft of it. Unification of style with the other languages may be indeed desirable. Now here's one important factor to consider: common sense dictates that any rules have to be practical and they shouldn't become an excessive burden for the editors. Right now the text of the existing old entries is often copy/pasted when creating new entries and we need to take this into account as well. As long as the old templates are still in use in Wiktionary, they may be replicated in the newly created entries too. Personally, I don't see it as a big problem and a lot of the style conversion can be probably automated by a bot. --Ssvb (talk) 03:11, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I mean, I think you know my stance on this. I've used inh+ and bor+ several times, and I did read (I think) that using the suffix/prefix things in place of af are discouraged so fair enough, no issue for me there; but personally, I really don't think initial "from" or "and" between cognates is really necessary, since you don't see "from" after "By surface analysis" either, and stylistically I don't think it's really obstructive at all. col-auto is kind of a 50/50 personally; I use it when there's really a lot of derived/related terms (like I did with каштаваць (kaštavacʹ)), but for one or two I really don't think it's needed. User Kohannya I believe is Ukrainian and mostly just copies Belarusian entries from their Ukrainian cognates. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 03:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

{\{temp|surf}} should be used when a term is inherited/borrowed, but the derivation process would produce the same word. Compare zawód#Polish, which was inherited, but also looks like a deverbal. If the word is internal, then your normal word-formation templates should be used. Vininn126 (talk) 07:18, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that at least "from" in etymologies is more "necessary" than "and" among cognates, it would be good to follow examples from other languages here. Наименее Полезное (talk) 10:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Benwing2 We can probably safe add "From" to any use of bare {{af}} and the like. Vininn126 (talk) 10:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Tentative consensus seems to be switching over to inh+/bor+. Think you could help? Vininn126 (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Vininn126 For Belarusian specifically? Yes I can do that. Benwing2 (talk) 07:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Also could we do plus templates and also add "From ." to Kashubian entries? There seem to be quite a few without. Vininn126 (talk) 17:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

As usual I don't agree with the use of these templates... PUC – 19:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Didn't realize you were an active Belarusian editor! Vininn126 (talk) 19:21, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Not active, but I created more Belarusian entries than you have, I believe? PUC – 21:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@PUC I did not cast a vote, simply stated what the most active editors prefer! Vininn126 (talk) 21:44, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Why? Наименее Полезное (talk) 00:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@PUC: Where can we find your arguments against these templates? Are you in favor of some different changes or just want to keep everything as is? As I mentioned in another comment, I personally don't care much about the existing style mismatches as long as the information itself is correct. But looks like some people are more sensitive to it and maybe converting everything to a single style would be a good idea. What I definitely don't want to see is a potential edit war between the supporters of different template styles. --Ssvb (talk) 05:34, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

If I'm going to be honest I wouldn't pay too much heed to it - generally some people find + templates not necessary or overkill. The current consensus is that if a group of editors for a language likes using them, then they may be used for the language. I see more people here for them than against them. Vininn126 (talk) 08:17, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Following a single style would be the best option tbh, more consistency between entries, and I think the "vast majority" of Belarusian editors we have now are more in favor of + templates. Наименее Полезное (talk) 18:27, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

@Наименее Полезное: No offense, but you seem to be the only one acting as a kind of "style police" here, while everyone else is much more chill. The Belarusian content in Wiktionary will grow faster if we attract more contributors. But contributors tend to flock to useful projects, often ignoring something that has no immediate practical value. And the usefulness itself largely depends on the number of Belarusian lemmas and their quality in Wiktionary. That's a catch-22 situation. The process of gaining new contributors is very slow and we even have no native Belarusian speakers with linguistic education among the current contributors right now. What we surely can't afford in the current situation is losing contributors. See the discussion in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User_talk:Ananas022#Wrong_Russian_synonyms as an example of how to communicate badly (on the topic of "how inexact are synonyms allowed to be"). The rude antagonistic manner of telling people that they are wrong is always a big turn off, especially if the guidelines happen to be not very clear.

I'll reiterate it again: we need some simple and clear guidelines related to etymology in WT:ABE, explaining how the global WT:ETY rules are applicable to the Belarusian language in Wiktionary. These guidelines should cover the preferred choice of templates and maybe explain the most common mistakes to avoid. Complete beginners with no clue about etymology (such as myself) need to know what they can and can't do when trying to contribute. Would you volunteer to write the initial draft? --Ssvb (talk) 13:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, I'll think about it, but I'm very busy, I don't have enough time for Wiktionary for now, I can try later. Regarding what you said, "attract more editors", I partially agree with you, we really need more editors, but it would be better to "educate" them, so that they really understand how to edit the language, after all, it's much better 10 entries done well, than 100 poorly done by someone who has never read a dictionary in Belarusian, I know this may sound rude and rough, but it's the truth. Наименее Полезное (talk) 17:26, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't really care anymore, I'm leaving Wiktionary permanently, you and the other editors do what you want with the language, it seems like my efforts didn't do any good here Наименее Полезное (talk) 02:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Animacy and headwords

̯@Atitarev, Наименее Полезное, Ssvb, Kohannya, Insaneguy1083, PUC, Benwing2 (sorry if I forgot to ping someone else, feel free to do so)

So, it has come to my attention that Belarusian headwords ({{be-noun}}) currently make a distinction between "animal" (конь (konʹ)) and "personal" (муж (muž)) animates. From what I have understood, the difference between the two is purely a difference in noun inflection, and they take the same adjectives and the same verbs.

I am of the opinion that making this distinction in the headword (to be clear, not talking about the table header) is slightly misleading: I was confused myself and had to google and ask around to make sure Belarusian didn't indeed make the same distinction as Polish or Pannonian Rusyn do. As such I propose to only make a distinction between "animate" and "inanimate" in the headwords, so like in Russian.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Thadh (talk) 19:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

To be honest, I prefer it the way it is in Russian, although the current form is not something that bothers me personally. Наименее Полезное (talk) 19:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

We can do some kind of vote where the majority of active and definitive editors decide what is best. Наименее Полезное (talk) 19:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't have any thoughts on the matter. I will say, I have had to use animal conjugation on certain very much non-animal words, like блізняты (bliznjaty). So it could be interesting to indicate that the noun isn't necessarily "animal" in nature as such, but rather just happens to have animal-type conjugation in be-conj. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:35, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not competent enough to come up with an authoritative answer. And I even don't know what Polish or Pannonian Rusyn do on this matter. FWIW, the Ukrainian entries кінь (kinʹ) and муж (muž) currently seem to have this kind of "animal" vs. "person" distinction too. Does it look like the Ukrainian language might be in the same boat? --Ssvb (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb Ukrainian is different; the three-way distinction between personal, animal and inanimate is reflected in adjective agreement in the accusative plural. Benwing2 (talk) 04:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Per Module_talk:be-noun#personal_nouns,_animal_nouns locative sg. of тру́цень (trúcjenʹ)

• (drone, animal) - тру́тні (trútni)
• (sluggard, person) - тру́тню (trútnju)

Only affecting some nouns, no impact on adjectives. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:12, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It might be interesting to check if any traces of any possible impact on adjectives could be found in older Belarusian texts hosted on Belarusian Wikisource. --Ssvb (talk) 06:55, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@Thadh: We had clear cases where animal and person had differences. When I have time, I will try to find more cases if I have time but please check Module_talk:be-noun#personal_nouns,_animal_nouns, we agreed on with @Benwing2.

@Ssvb, @Наименее Полезное, @Insaneguy1083. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but that difference is not a matter of agreement, which means it's not a gender or animacy, that's my point. Thadh (talk) 08:44, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Borrowed from Polish vs. inherited from Old Ruthenian

@Atitarev, Наименее Полезное, Kohannya, Insaneguy1083, PUC, Benwing2, Vininn126

For example, let's look at the word коўдра. The "Etymological Dictionary of the Belarusian Language" {{R:be:ESBM}} states that it "was borrowed from Polish and ultimately came from Italian". However the "Historical Dictionary of the Belarusian Language" {{R:zle-obe:HSBM}} shows that this word was attested [1] in Old Ruthenian in the 16th century. In this sense, looks like Old Ruthenian borrowed it from Old Polish rather than modern Belarusian borrowed it from modern Polish.

The etymological dictionary isn't exactly wrong, but it just omits the information about the approximate time period when the word was borrowed and doesn't differentiate between Polish and Old Polish. At the same time, English Wiktionary does have Old Ruthenian and Old Polish languages in its etymology tree (plus maybe even Middle Polish?). How do we want to handle Belarusian etymology entries like this? This isn't a single oddball example. There are many of such Belarusian words. And the HSBM dictionary has 37 volumes of Old Ruthenian quotations, cherry picked from various sources originating from the territory of modern Belarus and Lithuania.

I think that if some word is mentioned in HSBM (preferably with more than one quotation), then it can be interpreted as a proof that this word had been inherited from Old Ruthenian. Regardless of what the other etymological dictionaries say. Does anyone see any flaw in this logic? And in the cases if such interpretation contradicts what is said in some other etymological dictionary, then maybe we can try to mention all the alternative opinions. --Ssvb (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that's fine. In my mind, etymologies should be as detailed as possible. I find that the ESBM, despite being the "etymological dictionary", is often too reductive in its etymology, like mentioning "from" some other language but not mention the path that it may have taken to reach Belarusian, or the ultimate origin of the borrowed word. For instance, I've not seen it mention Belarusian terms which were calques or semantic loans of words from other languages, and following solely the ESBM as gospel might be problematic in creating a full picture of where Belarusian terms really derive from. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:21, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

But obviously it would be necessary to have a strong confirmation of the reference itself, as some of our editors loves to add deductions Наименее Полезное (talk) 20:33, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Наименее Полезное: Wiktionary stands on its own feet and isn't strictly dependent on the other dictionaries: WT:WFW#How_we_provide_references_and_citations ("Rather than trying to document the words that others have documented, we do all the documenting first hand. This means that to prove a word exists and is in use, we need to cite actual usage, not documentation of that usage"). For example, we are free to find quotations in durably archived sources and document the words, which are still missing from the official academic dictionaries. Though I'm not sure how much freedom do we have when it comes to etymology. --Ssvb (talk) 22:13, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

A certain degree of Original research is allowed, and of course making things agree temporally is essentially necessary. Vininn126 (talk) 22:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

It's better to check sources, but there are times when you have to ignore one or the other, or make them agree, etc. Vininn126 (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Basically the issue here is periodization. This is a common issue on Wiktionary. Keep it in mind when it comes to borrowings/inheritances. If it's in OR then OR borrowed it, and be aware of the year. Old Polish is pre 1500, Middle Polish from 1500-1780, and Modern from 1780. Vininn126 (talk) 20:38, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Good point on the years w.r.t. periodization, however as far as I can tell, English Wiktionary doesn't differentiate Middle Polish. Instead, they have an lb tag for Middle Polish, and just label everything MP as Polish, e.g. potym. Not sure why they've done this, but that's just something to be noted here. I get that they have Old Polish listed separately because of the non-Polish descendants i.e. Silesian, Kashubian and so on; but wouldn't those inherit from Middle Polish as well? I wonder what the Slavic linguistic literature says about Middle Polish.

On a similar vein, I'm also thinking about Old Belarusian. I've seen so many places mention derivations from старабеларускі (starabjelaruski), and indeed there exists Category:Belarusian terms derived from Old Belarusian, but it's linguistically vague and coming back to this topic of Ruthenian, should we agree on whether something was inherited from Old Belarusian or Old Ruthenian, or does it even make a difference? According to the English definition, Old Belarusian is just Old Ruthenian within the specific context of Belarusian, so they are one and the same. I used to think that Old Belarusian predated Old Ruthenian, but I suppose not. So should we abandon one or the other on Wiktionary? Or just keep both at the same time? @Ssvb do you have any input on this? I know you have access to some more historical Belarusian dictionaries, like the one used in венцэй (vjencej). Perhaps answering this question could help with the question of Category:Ukrainian terms derived from Old Ukrainian as well. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 00:00, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

There is also a language code, and I'm the one who set it that way. It's because Middle Polish is much closer to Polish and in my opinion does not need an L2. Vininn126 (talk) 06:53, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Should or shouldn't Middle Polish be used in etymology entries? I'm asking this because right now there seem to be barely any entries referring to it. Are most of modern Polish words inherited from Middle Polish according to the current Wiktionary policy? And if yes, then how does this affect the etymology sections of Wiktionary articles? --Ssvb (talk) 12:23, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

It's relatively new. If the term was borrowed between 1500-1780 then yes, the code should be used. With etym-only codes we don't usually give them for inheritances. It's used mainly for things such as borrowings. Vininn126 (talk) 16:58, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks. To be consistent with that, it means that Belarusian words should never inherit from Old Belarusian (etym-only code) and need to always inherit from Old Ruthenian. And this explains why @AshFox applied this correction to гмах. My (incorrect) reasoning for initially adding "zle-obe" was that it looked like a regional Belarusian word, which wasn't used in the Ukrainian language. But such information can be labelled via something like {{lb|zle-ort|Old Belarusian}} in the Old Ruthenian article for кгмахъ, right? There are https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Old_Ukrainian and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Old_Belarusian categories for that. --Ssvb (talk) 19:30, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb in Ukrainian there is ґмах (gmax) - https://goroh.pp.ua/Етимологія/ґмах / Hrynchyshyn, D. H., editor (2000), “ґмахъ, кгмахъ, гмахъ, кмахъ”, in Словник української мови XVI – 1-ї пол. XVII ст. [Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language of 16ᵗʰ – 1ˢᵗ half of 17ᵗʰ c.] (in Ukrainian), numbers 7 (головнѣйший – десѧтина), Lviv: KIUS, →ISBN, page 138 AshFox (talk) 19:42, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I apologize for my mistake with ґмах. Do you recommend this goroh.pp.ua site as a good online Ukrainian dictionary in general? I've been using https://sum.in.ua so far and it found nothing for ґмах or гмах. Either way, there are likely some regional Ukrainian-only and Belarusian-only words in Old Ruthenian and I was wondering how to label them in Wiktionary articles. --Ssvb (talk) 20:02, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb yes, I recommend the site "Горох" (goroh.pp.ua) if you need to quickly look up the etymology of a certain Ukrainian word. The "СУМ-11" (sum.in.ua) dictionary is also very good, but sometimes there are no obsolete or dialect words, because "SUM-11" is a dictionary of the literary Ukrainian language. The advantage of site "Горох" is that it has an online version of the "Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language": https://goroh.pp.ua/Етимологія (its template on Wiktionary: {{R:uk:ESUM}}).

Regarding regional words in the Old Ruthenian, yes, they probably were. But usually on Wiktionary, dictionaries of the Old Ukrainian and dictionaries of the Old Belarusian ‒ they complement each other. Because, unfortunately, not a single dictionary of Old Ukrainian, not a single one of the existing ones, is complete and full at the moment. For example, the word хвоꙗ (xvoja) is only in the Old Belarusian dictionary, but is not in any of the Old Ukrainian dictionaries, because there is no full volume of the Old Ukrainian dictionary for the letter "х". At the same time, the word хвоя is in both modern Ukrainian and modern Belarusian... It is unlikely that the absence of хвоꙗ (xvoja) in the Old Ukrainian dictionaries at the moment is a reason to mark Old Ruthenian хвоꙗ (xvoja) as a regional Old Belarusian.

Sorry if I explained it too complicatedly. AshFox (talk) 08:01, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Based on what @Vininn126 said, we need to change all these 124 derived from Old Belarusian etymology entries to "derived from Old Ruthenian". Because we shouldn't inherit from etym-only codes. This looks like a job for a bot. However we might also need to verify whether the referenced Old Ruthenian words are conforming to the WT:AORT#Spelling_normalization conventions, which is again probably a job for a bot or needs a manual review. --Ssvb (talk) 22:53, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: As for венцэй (vjencej), I don't have any other historical dictionary. It's documented in all the same HSBM: https://verbum.by/hsbm/ventsej and dated as 1501. --Ssvb (talk) 22:53, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb: I've added another reference. Both references are true, dependent on how you treat them. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:18, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

• It is interesting that I, being the sole editor of Old Ruthenian in the English Wiktionary, was ignored and not mentioned... «ну да, ну да, пошел я на хер».

@Ssvb in the case of коўдра and similar situations, of course! it is necessary to indicate that the word was originally inherited from Old Ruthenian, and then borrowed from Polish (with clarification from which: if the word is attested in Old Ruthenian after 1500, then it is borrowed from Middle Polish zlw-mpl, if the very old attestation is before 1500, then from Old Polish zlw-opl). Everything is simple.

If you haven't noticed, the "Etymological Dictionary of the Belarusian Language" {{R:be:ESBM}} never indicates that a particular Belarusian word comes first from Old Belarusian, and then from some other language. The {{R:be:ESBM}} simply skips the Old Belarusian stage, as a chain through which the word passed. Only sometimes does it distantly mention the Old Belarusian form of the word. Therefore, as I said earlier, you simply take it and indicate that the word is inherited from Old Ruthenian zle-ort (if the word is in the dictionaries of this language, here they are), and then from the language as indicated by etymological dictionaries. In 98% of cases you will be right. The exception may be words that have been borrowed repeatedly and from different languages ​​(eg. гїєна), but such words are very few. AshFox (talk) 04:29, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

@AshFox: On the topic of "being ignored". The first priority was (and still is) to deal with the @Наименее Полезное's ongoing efforts to aggressively edit Belarusian etymology articles in Wiktionary, apparently aimed at turning them into mostly exact replicas of the information from ESBM. And decide whether that's what we actually do or don't want to have. This primarily concerns the editors of said articles. If we all agree that ESBM is insufficiently detailed, then pinging you would have been the next step, but you came here on your own, so it wasn't necessary. Offending you wasn't my intention. If you feel that my apologize is necessary, then I apologize.

The intended goal of this topic is to reach consensus and produce brief instructions for the etymology part of WT:ABE, which would be easy to understand and comply with. Also limit the scope of these instructions to what the beginners need to know specifically about formatting of the Belarusian articles. While delegating the things related to formatting of the Old Ruthenian articles in Wiktionary to WT:AORT. --Ssvb (talk) 10:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb there was no need to apologize, everything is fine :) I understand that not everyone may know that Wiktionary has a Old Ruthenian editor. AshFox (talk) 12:35, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@AshFox, @Vininn126: On the topic of periodization of Middle Polish vs. Old Polish. Using year 1500 as a cutoff point surely makes sense for Polish. But for the Old Ruthenian articles, this effectively lumps the 16th and the 18th century borrowings together into a single broad "borrowed from Middle Polish" category, while the bulk of Old Ruthenian words are attested for the 16th century. This coincides with the appearance of the first printed books in Old Ruthenian and abundance of Old Ruthenian sources from that time. Would it make sense to have something like a new etym-only code for "early Middle Polish" specifically for labeling the 16th century borrowings? --Ssvb (talk) 11:06, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need that, we could couple it with {{etydate}} to show someone when something was borrowed, allowing the user to be aware of the exact period of Middle Polish. Vininn126 (talk) 11:09, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, this can work. --Ssvb (talk) 11:22, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the {{etydate}} template. According to the HSBM's first volume introduction article, the quotations in HSBM are sorted by date, but the exact date is explicitly mentioned only for those quotations, which are taken from the sources that span over multiple years. So, for the earliest of the ковдра quotations, it's additionally necessary to decipher the abbreviations mentioned in the HSBM's "колдра" article. Would it make sense to implement a Lua module to assist in deciphering these HSBM abbreviations and turn them into human readable dates? For example, "Зб. 262, 96б" would turn into "early 16th century" and "Бава, 143" would turn into "1580". --Ssvb (talk) 11:29, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I had to do something similar for Old Polish. See CAT:Old Polish quotation templates. An alternative is to create an appendix where years for abbreviations are given. It's quite some work. Vininn126 (talk) 11:34, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm mostly interested in making it easy for Wiktionary editors. The HSBM's list of sources and their abbreviations can be found here. Creating many individual templates for each of the sources like it's done for Polish looks like a big chore, also the editors may struggle with identifying the appropriate template names when creating articles for Old Ruthenian words. And an appendix would be less convenient for the readers. So I think that a Lua resolver/lookup module, incorporating the table of these sources could be the optimal solution. The editors would only need to copy/paste a cryptic HSBM abbreviation and use it as a template parameter. All the magic would happen automatically. --Ssvb (talk) 11:58, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Please consider the template {{Q}}. Vininn126 (talk) 11:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb I was thinking about starting to create many separate templates for each existing ORT source... but it's just an incredibly huge job... I only created 3 templates: CAT:Old Ruthenian quotation templates. I am simply amazed at what was created for Old Polish... incredible. AshFox (talk) 13:00, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb regarding mysterious abbreviations without exact dates... unfortunately, each time you have to manually look at how this or that source is deciphered, and look at what the approximate date is. The most convenient way is here: https://verbum.by/hsbm?section=abbr

Thus, it is clear that "Зб. 262" is dated "early 16th century" for ковдра (kovdra)... I look at this list manually every time and look for the earliest date of the word's mention. It is unlikely that it is possible to create some code that will automatically determine the date by these abbreviations. AshFox (talk) 12:56, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@AshFox, @Atitarev, @Benwing2: You can check the Module:User:Ssvb/zle-etydate-HSBM prototype. And {{#invoke:User:Ssvb/zle-etydate-HSBM|abbr_lookup|Зб. 262, 96б}} expands into "early XVI century". There's no need to do manual lookups. We can maybe add it as {{zle-etydate-HSBM}} or pick a different name or calling conventions for it. A full text description can be added as a tooltip too. I can add testcases, convert roman numbers, make formatting match {{etydate}} if the community is interested in such module in principle. --Ssvb (talk) 14:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Moreover, it would be probably useful to automatically link to the scans of these books or manuscripts on Wikisource whenever they are available. This is doable, since HSBM provides page numbers. --Ssvb (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb no, that's not necessary. In the future I am going to make a separate template for each ORT source CAT:Old Ruthenian quotation templates, as it is done in Old Polish CAT:Old Polish quotation templates... as an example {{RQ:zle-ort:Skaryna}}. And there in each source when citing I will add links to scans of these documents if they are somewhere on the Internet, for example in the WebArchive. But this is a very long job, to create all these templates and search for scans of them on the Internet and make it so that the pages refer to the necessary pages in the documents. But I would like to do all this for Wiktionary. But it’s a pity that no one was interested in this except me... no one supported me, even morally. AshFox (talk) 05:08, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb I wrote the date manually for each abbreviation of the source - User:AshFox#zle-etydate-HSBM. This will be better. AshFox (talk) 01:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb I think that a separate code for Early Middle Polish is redundant and there is no need for it. Now everything is quite simple, if there is a date for attesting Polonism. If it is after 1500, then "from Middle Polish", if earlier than 1500 (for example the words дѧковати (djakovati) or панъ (pan)) "from Old Polish". AshFox (talk) 12:41, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@AshFox, @Vininn126: Looking at the History of Polish orthography article, I get an impression that Middle Polish emerged as a result of 1514–1515, 1549 and 1551 orthography reform efforts. Yes, any standardization lags behind real usage and the spelling updates were likely motivated by a mismatch between the spelling and reality. But can we really say that the Old Ruthenian words from Skaryna's «Библия руска» (1516—1519) should be categorized as the words borrowed from Middle Polish?

Also could anyone please take a look at the etymology of the Old Ruthenian генералъ (heneral)? It has two senses, dated as 1406 and 1514, but they are both "civilian" rather than "military" according to the HSBM's interpretation. And the Polish word generał is dated as 1551. How do we handle this? The ESBM dictionary says that the "military" sense of the Belarusian генерал (hjenjeral) is likely borrowed from German via Russian. --Ssvb (talk) 23:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb It would make more sense to look at w:Middle Polish. Vininn126 (talk) 08:35, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ssvb Yes, it will be necessary to somehow update the Etymology section for ORT "генералъ". It will be necessary to point out that the word was borrowed twice... the first time from Old Polish, the second time from Russian/German in the 18th century (this is still the ORT period). Yes, it is strange that the ORT word is attested earlier than in Old Polish. But the same situation exists with the word "школа"... it is attested in Old East Slavic in 1388, and they write that it was borrowed from Polish. But in Old Polish it was attested for the first time in the 15th century AshFox (talk) 01:38, 27 August 2024 (UTC)