Talk:Charlemagne

Karl's etymology

I see the link went dead. That is probably because it should have, and that is what comes of using Internet sites as sources. The Internet surely is the Matrix. Think what you want. Anyway there have been some good Internet sites. We just lost one of the best, Pokorney at Leiden University. This is akin to losing the American Heritage Dictionary online, which you can't get now. You have to buy the very expensive book. Money wins in the end, you see. Ideology is only a way station to that goal. I see someone at Leiden, I won't say who, is going sell Pokorney for over 500 dollars. I also see Leiden is advertising for new experts. Well well. If you can get a second-hand copy anywhere, better jump on it. These people who do the Internet, you know, they are not going to do this for free forever. Anyway, what can I get for you in etymology now? It turns out Lubotsky at least for the time is giving us Pokorney updated. Better download him now, I don't know long THAT will last. And for more detail we can still get Koebler. The etymology that's in there - well, close but no cigar, and it is gone now anyway. We don't know who the perp was. Since it is now unrefed I am going to rewrite it to correspond to Lubotsky's Pokorney and Koebler. There's a U. Texas site too but it is only a list. No detail. I guess Lehmann started something he was unable to finish, quite a common story. Reminds me of WP.Dave (talk) 17:54, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, here is the sad story. Brill made Lubotsky an offer he couldn't refuse. All of a sudden hundreds of WP links have gone dead without notice. Par for the course today. Lubotsky made the best management decision he could. He put the project first. Bad luck for us but probably good luck for history. The universe is not spatial, it is time-spatial. We have to consider the future. Lubotsky has released a pdf of the new Pokorny. I can't give you the link because it is blacklisted on WP. I did cite the work without the link. You can find the pdf for yourself if you try with less trouble than getting a library book. Otherwise we will have to start citing the original book.Dave (talk) 01:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Things happen fast around here. The Russians are not leaving us high and dry. A bunch of new sites have appeared; for example, Pokorny. There might be a font problem. In the Leiden site you could install Starotsin's fonts.Dave (talk) 10:22, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I came here because some vandal named Lord Deleter just deleted a huge section of this article, and this was on my watch list. However, before hitting the Undo button I looked to see what got deleted. That's when I read the part about the etymology of the name Karl. I used to have Julius Pokorny's Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (and yeah, it was about $500 or DM 1000) but here is my point: what "Karl" meant circa 3700 BCE is completely irrelevant to what it meant in 8th century Frankish, and therefore has no place in this article. Plus, the English version of Pokorny in an appendix to the American Heritage dictionary is more accessible. Zyxwv99 (talk) 03:30, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I reverted the apparent vandalism. A brand-new account deleting nearly 12K characters without so much as a word of explanation deserves an immediate revert, in my experience. If the edit was something that was discussed, I missed it and apologize. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 04:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Charlemagne: French, German?

Perhaps I haven't read enough detail yet, but it seems to me this article doesn't make clear an obvious question of why he has a French name, while apparently he had little to do with the French - he was Frankish, spoke German, Latin, etc. Is there an explanation of how the French version of his name was chosen to refer to him?Jimhoward72 (talk) 22:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Good question. Well, it is a little more complex. Actually he did not speak either French or German as those languages did not exist as we know them today. They were somewhere in the earliest stages of development. Naturally the Franks spoke Germanic. When they moved into Neustria, which was full of Romance language speakers, they blended the two languages together, much in the same way English is a blend of Norman French, Anglo-Saxon and early Danish. It seems pretty clear that the subsequent division of his empire was based on language differences. When Charlemagne spoke to his mother, what language did he speak? I don't know, I have not checked on that yet. Why do we use the French form instead of Karl? Well I would guess we had two choices. We could pick our own native language, much of which is adapted from the French, or we could decide, no, we like the German one better. I suppose we could have gone for the Dutch. Sometimes in this world we do not get a choice. When the Germans and French got to fighting over the territory formerly in Lotharingia feelings ran high and the fighting was bitter. If the French took a German-speaking canton they absolutely forbad the speaking of German and vice versa. Well, what are the citizens to do? All of a sudden you can't speak your own language any more. So I do believe, seeing that much of English is French, the English perforce had to use the French form. But of course, with today's freedom of speech, you may call the man anything you like! Use the Swahili form if you know what it is. Here on the English WP we are somewhat limited. Most readers expect it mainly to be in English and Charlemagne is English. The English dictionaries per se use Charlemagne. I encourage you, however, to fight for your rights. Don't let society tell YOU what name to use. I am pretty sure the Supreme Court would back your use of anything you like! Another factor to be considered is the French literature we all have admired so much. The Chanson de Roland uses Charles le roi, it doesn;t use Karl. I don't know what there is to explain here. Everything I just said is common knowlege, not encyclopedic knowlege, I do believe. I could be wrong. Why do we anglicize foreign names? What's it to us or us to it? We just do it a certain way and Charlemagne is the way we do it. Well anyway if I see any locus where that could be made clear without becoming non-encyclopedic I certainly will exploit the place.Dave (talk) 01:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I was just looking for the simple historical reason (probably only a sentence or two) that would fit into the article and meet Wikipedia standards for accuracy/reliability.Jimhoward72 (talk) 08:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the German article actually states it clearer in the introduction, saying something like "both the Germans and the French trace the beginning of their national history back to Charles the Great." The English apparently went along with the French version.Jimhoward72 (talk) 08:39, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Charlemagne is what English-speaking people call him. It is not what he was called in his own day, just as "Alexander the Great" did not have the English word "the" for a middle name. Obviously we English speakers borrowed the word from French. Zyxwv99 (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well I would say his name wasn't "Charlemagne" because this means actually "Charles Great" (literally translated). I think his name was "simply" Karl or Charles (French/English). Since you've mentioned Alexander the Great I have to say his name wasn't Alexaner the Great either, but simply Alexander. I noticed the English wikipedia even calls the Karlspreis "Charlemagne prize" which is totally wrong because it translates simply as Charles Prize! I'm just saying this to fuel the discussion a bit, so think about it! --82.113.103.164 (talk) 20:48, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The English language borrowed a huge amount of vocabulary from French, perhaps that's why he became known as Charlemagne. Machinarium (talk) 11:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

uggh

charlemagne is so lame and im learning about him in class right nowww........ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.185.177.41 (talk) 01:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Aquitane

I'm not sure why this page features a partial history of Aquitane? Muskeato 18:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Muskeato, I agree with you. Someone took the pain to expand liberally a related topic, but sorry, it doesn't belong in this article. Sometimes edits are accepted to avoid a discussion, but definitely this is not the place. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Death of Carloman

From the summary: sudden death of Carloman in 771, in unexplained circumstances

Does this mean that in the present day we have no knowledge of how he died, or was it a mystery to his contemporaries back in 771? I don't want to be picky, but there would be a difference. If we simply don't know how he died, that's perfectly in keeping with our general level of knowledge of the period. As written, it implies a suspicion about his demise. The phrase seemingly of natural causes is likewise ambiguous. I'm not a historian, still less a scholar of 8th Century Europe, but if anyone is, please contribute. Rob Burbidge (talk) 10:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It appears to have been a mystery then and now. Some historians have suggested foul-play (largely due to the convenience of the death for Charles rather than any evidential basis) but contemporary sources don't appear to allege this, though the reasons given for his death differ. Reichsfurst (talk) 15:22, 14 February 2012 (UTC)