Wiktionary talk:About Old Median

Reconstructed Old Median, Middle Median, and its descendents

I'd like to tackle adding Old Median reconstructions, chiefly from {{R:ira:Tavernier}} and {{R:ira:Hinz}}, but there are a few things that I wanted to discuss first.

1. a) We also have evidence of Middle Median dialect called Rāzī[1], and b) many borrowing appear to be actually from Middle Median, ex. OM *rawsī > MM *arōsī → Old Armenian Արուսեակ (Aruseak), and with published MM reconstructions, but we lack a language code for it. Should one be added, and if so, should Median be renamed to Old Median?
2. It has long been thought that the Kermanic and Tatic languages are the direct inhertitors of Median, geographically, culturally, and linguistically.[2][3][4]. Should we start adding these languages as such below Median? --Victar (talk) 07:48, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan, JohnC5, ZxxZxxZ, Ariamihr, AryamanA, Metaknowledge, -sche. Thanks. --Victar (talk) 07:48, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Victar, "Middle Median" in the Armenian context is used only by Périkhanian and has been severely criticized as insecure: see here, page 12f. I would not create a code for it. At least not based on the Armenian evidence. --Vahag (talk) 11:31, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan, I believe you've sent me that doctoral thesis before, but I think to call Périkhanian's work generally "severely criticized" is a bit of an overstatement. Also, lest we forget Henning (1963). To first point out, the thesis mistakenly states that Persian is the primary borrower from Median, but in truth, I would say that most of what we know is from Aramaic, Akkadian, and Elemite borrowings. He goes on to call Median borrowings in Armenian "largely unfounded", but then goes on to say "There is, however, some evidence for a third West Middle Iranian dialect which has had some influence on Armenian, and may be related to Median." That seems contradictory to me -- but I digress. Old Armenian borrowings are certainly not sole basis of reconstructing Middle Median, which can either be reconstructed from other borrowing, outside of Armenian, or by using Kermanic and Tatic. --Victar (talk) 14:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Victar, whatever scheme we adopt do not forget about the scarcely attested Old Azari language which according to Yarshater is a stage between Old Median and modern Tatic and Central dialects. I had made a custom code for it: Category:Old Azari language. --Vahag (talk) 15:10, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, @Vahagn Petrosyan, I should have mentioned that, though, as far as I understand it, it is only the ancestor of Tatic, not Kermanic (Median Central Dialects), so is perhaps a stage between MM and Tatic. --Victar (talk) 15:16, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

This is outside my area, so I can't be of as much help as you might have hoped by pinging me, but it would seem that especially if the existence of them as separate / differentiable stages is disputed, middle Median reconstructions could be included under the same "Median" header as old Median reconstructions (since they're all reconstructed / hypothetical in the first place), and distinguished with context labels as necessary. This is done for Proto-Germanic, where entries are sometimes labelled "West Germanic" (post-dating Proto-Germanic) but it has been decided not to create an entirely separate reconstructed language architecture for them. I see they're currently handled under Median, as Descendants, with an etymology-language code, which seems reasonable. - -sche (discuss) 14:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

@-sche, I created a Middle Iranian etymology code as a temp fix, but I would really need language code for it so that I can create Middle Median specific entries. It's a completely different language from Old Median and not at all like the subtle differences between Proto-Germanic and West Germanic. There is no real dispute to its existence and is partially attested (see sources above) -- the only dispute that Vahagn brought up is that we are unsure if certain Armenian borrowings are from Middle Median or Parthian, but that has virtually no bearing on its reconstruction. --Victar (talk) 15:15, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Here is a list of words from the Rāzī Median dialect from the 11th-13th century.

• نکشت کنیزکان (nkšt knyzkʾn /⁠angušt ī kanīzakān⁠/, “a kind of grape”)
• نهمنک (nhmnk /⁠nuhmung⁠/, “a kind of carrot, daucus carota”)
• ترم (trm /⁠turma⁠/, “water pepper, polygonum hydropiper”)
• هنجمک (hnjmk /⁠hinjamak⁠/, “lepidium draba”)
• هلیله (hlylh /⁠halīla⁠/, “white cedar, melia aze-darach”)
• کاهو (kʾhw /⁠kāhū⁠/, “lactuca sativa”)
• بوش دربندی (bwš drbndy /⁠bōš ī darbandī⁠/, “chelidonium carniculatum”)
• اکر (ʾkr /⁠agar⁠/, “acorus calamus”)
• توریج (twryj /⁠turēj⁠/, “flee, escape!”)
• اج (ʾj /⁠aj⁠/, “from; than”)
• دیم (dym /⁠dēm⁠/, “face”)
• پدی (pdy /⁠padī⁠/, “visible”)
• رود (rwd /⁠rōd⁠/, “copper”)
• روج (rwj /⁠rōj⁠/, “day”)
• تیرست (tyrst /⁠tīrast⁠/, “three hundred”)
• وهشت (whšt /⁠wahišt⁠/, “paradise”)

--Victar (talk) 18:53, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke, pinging you too, because I saw you make a comment on the Wiki page. --Victar (talk) 19:52, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Northwest Iranian isn't exactly my forte. I thought, from more recent statements I've seen, that the whole concept of a "Median language" was highly uncertain, let alone what its younger stages might be. The sub-classification of the Iranian languages, from what I've been told, is a huge mess. So I'm wary of the whole concept. But then, I'm really pretty useless in Iranian dialectology. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:18, 13 August 2018 (UTC)