Talk:Demotic (Egyptian)

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

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We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

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Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

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Untitled[edit]

I have moved this arcticle back to Demotic (after it was moved to Demotic language). My justification is that Demotic refers to both a language (or phase of the Egyptian language) but also to a writing system. The article discusses to both. Additionally only one page pointed to Demotic language. The other articles pointed to Demotic and referenced both the writing system and/or the language phase (depending on the article). —Nefertum17 09:07, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have again moved this article from Demotic language back to Demotic. As stated above, the article, as it is now written, refers to both a language and a writing system. When/if there are individual articles for both aspects, I could understand the move, but as there are not, and other articles linking here refer typically to the writing system (though not always), this seems to be the best solution at the present time. —Nefertum17 14:14, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move, of course. —Nightst a llion (?) 21:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move request[edit]

Demotic Egyptian → Demotic (Egyptian) – As the page itself explains, the correct term is Demotic, and "Demotic Egyptian" is something invented for Wikipedia. "Egyptian" was only added to distinguish it from Demotic Greek. Demotic is a disambiguation page, which is fair, but this page should then be properly disambiguated, not given an artificial name. We can then remove the silly disclaimer on this being a Wikipedia-only term. 82.92.119.11 18:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Decipherment[edit]

I've copied this from the main article where it was placed by User:77.29.241.152 "Please make a citation how it is deshipered? Could you show us some example of Demotic and Coptic (in English transcription) and English below that? I don't believe that it was properly dechipered, as one symbol in one line sounds one way, and in other line, completly different." Doug Weller (talk) 09:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evolution[edit]

Observation: The article currently doesn't really address the evolution of the writing system at all from the hieroglyphs. This would seem to be a very interesting aspect of the topic. --Mcorazao (talk) 14:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Number of characters?[edit]

I didn't see anywhere in the article how may characters there are in the Demotic alphabet. That seems like a basic fact that should be in the article. Did I overlook it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.82.215.201 (talk) 14:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what direction does it read? There's no mention of that either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.82.215.201 (talk) 14:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, no idea why any of that information isn't included. Every deciphered alphabet entry on Wikipedia has a complete list of characters but for some reason I can't find one for Demotic anywhere on the Internet. Does that mean only a couple of letters were deciphered? I find it hard to believe that the Rosetta Stone inscription was made exclusively out of those few... Jaro7788 (talk) 03:07, 27 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Removed font section[edit]

Hello @Sammaks6:. I removed your Hieratic#Font and Demotic (Egyptian)#Font additions because adding an entire section describing an external link isn't acceptable Wikipedia practice. Per Wikipedia:External links: "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be placed in the body of an article." I don't know if you're associated with the fonts but the sections come off as WP:PROMOTION. If these aren't your fonts (per WP:ADV), and you feel they fall under the guidelines of what can normally be linked, I suggest you add the links to the external links section as a single line, like "Free, non-Unicode Demotic Font". DRMcCreedy (talk) 03:12, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, yes these are my fonts as I described creating them, for free use and distribution. I will add them in the external links.

In the future, please use best practice, by explaining removal of additions, so as to properly follow your guidelines.

Regards Sammaks6 (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding your own fonts clearly breaks item 4 under WP:PROMOTION. DRMcCreedy (talk) 17:53, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the edit summary, @Sammaks6: says

I have added a link to a free-to-use and downloadable Hieratic Font (TTF), DMCCREEDY, you keep referring to self promotion, not sure what you mean, since other links are technically self-promoting their webpages?? Elaborate please, specifically, what you are referring too so I can make the appropriate edit?"

It's not that you added an external link to a free font, it's that you added a link to your free font. That's why I referenced item 4 under WP:PROMOTION. That's why it's self promotion. The other external links (presumably) weren't added by the authors/owners of those sites. (If they were, they would be subject to removal as well.) I understand this is frustrating for you but these rules are in place to keep Wikipedia articles encyclopedic in nature and not massive lists of links to everyone's sites/files. I suggest you contact a site like Omniglot if you want to gain exposure/users for your fonts. DRMcCreedy (talk) 22:48, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

These are meant to be free, and available to academics and public use, what am I promoting but free information, so I have to give my links to someone else to publish for me...so it’s not self-self-promoting? Sammaks6 (talk) 23:52, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do not recommend that. It would be considered sock puppetry. DRMcCreedy (talk) 01:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So if I told you it wasn’t me who created fonts to move knowledge forward, you would be ok with it, but because I added it myself, you reject my submission on the basis of an inflexible legal-jargon regulation, that states that primary party cannot submit personal free-educational content?

Wikipedia has policies. One of them prohibits self promotion. DRMcCreedy (talk) 01:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So it sounds like I have to give my fonts to someone else to publish for me...so you don’t remove them? Is this what your saying? Sammaks6 (talk) 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I did not remove your fonts. I removed the links promoting them. Then patiently, and repeatedly, explained why. DRMcCreedy (talk) 01:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just weighing in here... if there are no other hieratic or demotic fonts available then I think these fonts probably should be added. But as for the fonts themselves, I do have some criticism: 1.) they're ASCII instead of Unicode, and 2.) it looks like these fonts only include the uniliterals, not all the characters. This makes the fonts more or less useless for transcription work, since actual texts are not 100% uniliteral. (They do make for cool dingbat fonts though, I guess. You can at least type up your name and stuff. But you need to spell everything backwards, to compensate for the fact that the scripts read right-to-left) 2601:49:C301:D810:41E1:19F3:64E3:C764 (talk) 01:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting Demotic?[edit]

Hello all! To whomever is listening, I would like to propose splitting this page into two, one for the script and one for the language. This is how it is done on the German Wikipedia. This is better, I would argue, conceptually, and would allow for easier expansion, such as, on the one hand, the relationship between the demotic script and the hieroglyphic (on the script side) and, on the other, linguistic (such as the relationship to Coptic) and sociolinguistic and cultural considerations (such as the domain of Demotic texts which coexisted with hieroglyphic and hieratic texts, on the language side). I don't think there is necessarily enough on the page now to warrant this split happening just yet, but I am interested in drafting out the two new articles in my userspace... -- Joey Cross (talk) 16:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Last usage of Demotic[edit]

For the 17:55, 11 August 2020‎ edit I added the most recent and authoritative reference for info on the last Demotic inscription (the Philae graffito), corrected the date (the new reading is the 12th of December) and thus removed the "dubious" tag on the last Demotic inscription. Apologies for forgetting to note that in the Edit summary. -Joey Cross (talk) 18:01, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]