Talk:Mannaz

Man/human

Is there any relationship between the word "man" and the word "hu-man"? Thanks. --Eleassar777 12:10, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

no. man is from men-u-os (or similar), human is from gdhom-ion-os (or similar). Irish duine "man" is related to human, though. dab (ᛏ) 12:38, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deduction

in the Romance languages, homme, uomo, hombre, homem etc. have all come to refer mainly to males, with residual generic meaning.

Actually, in Romanian, om mainly refers to human, not to male. Man (male) is bărbat (from barba = beard) Bogdan | Talk 21:31, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

wiktionary

this isn't a dictionary definition, it's a discussion of the word's complex etymological background. Also, it is an article about a rune, we have articles on all of the Elder Futhark runes (some of them stubs), see Template:Runes. dab (ᛏ) 17:32, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Merge with Man (word)

The discussion should currently be held at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ancient_Germanic_studies/Runes#Mannaz. --Holt (talk) 20:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

no, the discussion should be held here. The Wikiproject page can be used to draw the attention of interested editors to this page. At the page linked, you state

"New opinion: As there already exists a thorough article for the word and concept man at Man (word), I think a general explanation should be given in the Mannaz article, and that a {{main}} template should be added instead of having duplicated etymology sections."

Since the etymology discussion is the core of both articles, this will leave one of the articles as a "perennial stub" (a WP:DICT entry). I have no opinion in which direction the merge should go, but I do think a merge will be necessary. --dab (𒁳) 14:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Alright, holding it here is much better. I will post the discussion for reference. –Holt T•C 14:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think this discussion is bound to cause irritation, because there are basic points where people might not agree with eachother. The rune articles all have a common purpose, to give a thorough explanation to the runes of the futharks. A rune has more than one aspect. The first thing you see is the shape. Although the shape may change based on time and place, it roughly stays the same. The second aspect is the phonetic value. As the shape, this may also change a bit depending on different factors, but in general this also stays much of the same. The third is the meaning of the rune. The issue here is how deep we are going to analyze the meaning. The case with *mannaz is very clear, in my opinion. *Mannaz means man, and was used as a general term for human being. The deeper etymology of the word man is not relevant here, it has no clear value to know that the Indo-Iranian word for man is manu, because the runes were used in the Germanic north. Having a wordy section on the etymology in the Mannaz article is like having a big section in the Berkanan article — of no great use. However, in articles where for example the reconstructed name is disputed, where the name is unclear, there is need for a good section providing different theories and so on. Split. –Holt T•C 14:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

in this case, you are arguing that Man (word) should be the target article. I dont's see why we need an article just for saying "mannaz is the name of the m rune", that information is easily accommodated in the runes article. Now before redirecting Mannaz to Runes, I suggest it makes more sense to redirect it to Man (word), and mention the rune there. Avoid {{Duplication}}. I am sorry, but I fail to see why we need one article per rune. Berkanan essentially reproduces the relevant sections of the rune poems, and states that the b rune is called "Berkanan". Why do we need a standalone article just to repeat information that is already discussed in context in other articles? You will note that Berkanan has been classed as a {{writingsystem-stub}} since I created it in March 2005. Do you have any notion of how to expand it beyond its "perennial stub" status other than by merging? If you do, I will be glad to hear it, but stubs may still be turned into {{R with possibilities}} until somebody actually does expand them. Please. {{R with possibilities}} doesn't mean "this topic isn't worthy", it just means "nobody has compiled a full standalone article on this so far. You can read it up in context there" dab (𒁳) 14:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be a matter of principles, as I mentioned earlier. Wikipedia is supposed to be a wide covering encyclopedia, a work of reference. It is therefore important to sometimes take the place of the laymen and unitiated, who want to access information and knowledge as easy as possible. It really shouldn't matter if an article does not contain more than, let's say, a thousand letters, if it is informative and serves its purpose. If I wanted to know more about the b rune, I would like to read everything that concerns the rune, be it rune poems, interpretations or modern usage. This cannot be provided for every rune in one article, it would become too long.

"You will note that Berkanan has been classed as a {{writingsystem-stub}} since I created it in March 2005. Do you have any notion of how to expand it beyond its "perennial stub" status other than by merging?" – No, I do not. Neither do I understand why it is so important to have one lengthy and overfilled article, instead of several clear, smaller ones. The information is the same, whether it is in a long article or a short one. Splitting and merging is just a matter of having better order. And it is better order to have single rune articles.

Now, the point of this discussion is to reach a compromise, do you have a constructive suggestion for what to do? –Holt T•C 15:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)