Talk:Proto-Indo-European mythology

Deity infoboxes

It's been a point of minor edit warring on whether infoboxes should be included for Indo European deities. I firmly stand in the pro infobox category as they make it easier for people to get immediate info on such deities. We should come to a consensus here about them rather than just adding and removing them constantly on articles.

. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 08:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Priesthood

Much is made of Mallory & Adams (1997), but what we say in the priesthood section bears little resemblance to the cited entry about priesthood. There is no mention of the trifunctional ideology discussed in the source (although there is mention of the proposed duality, so someone has clearly read the source), but there are bold statements that are not in the source, such as The king as the high priest would have been the central figure in establishing favourable relations with the other world. or mention of shamans. I have not removed these statements yet, because they are not totally implausible, but at this point it feels like the section has been written from a certain POV and that the source is merely cited to lend credence to it. I think it needs re-writing, or else better sourcing.

• Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.

Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

"Proto-Indo-European" as a classification.

I'm not going to argue about anthropologists and I understand the conclusion they came to with this. But I feel the article fails to mention that the Greek and Roman Pantheons are directly related to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian pantheons, which are not part of this theory of a main Sky deity. There is a mix up here, or it's actually a Proto-Indo-Euro-Semitic religion. To me this seems like most likely a linguistic connection and not relevant to religions in South Asia, in the Indian part, "Dyus Pitr" is a minor character, which makes it seem like it's just a cognate. On the other side of the coin however the Sky father is the main God in Abrahamic faiths but has no relation to Proto-Indo-European and is Afro-Semitic. 2800:A4:1F95:B800:E811:3879:543F:1C4F (talk) 02:15, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Indo-Europeans in their presumed early homelands (Pontic-Caspian steppe) and early migration routes were not in direct contact with Semitic-language speakers (much less Egypt), and such syncretism could have started only after they reached the Mediterranean area or northern tier of the mid-east. See Interpretatio graeca and Interpretatio romana... AnonMoos (talk) 08:50, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

P.I.E. *h₂éngʷʰi- (*h₂n̥gʷʰi-) and English 'negation' are not etymologically related as claimed in this article.

Please see the links:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/negation From Middle English negacioun, from Old French negacion, from Latin negātiō (“a denial; negative word”).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/negatio#Latin From negō (“deny, refuse”) +‎ -tiō.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nego#Latin From ne (“not”), possibly by means of nec, + -ō, -āre (verb-forming suffix).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ne#Latin From Old Latin ne (“not”), from Proto-Italic *nē, from the extension of Proto-Indo-European *ne (“not”). Cognates include Proto-Germanic *ne (whence Gothic ni and Old English ne), Sanskrit न (ná), Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Russian не (ne), Lithuanian ne, Irish ní.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nec#Latin Apocopated form of neque.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/neque#Latin From Proto-Indo-European *nekʷe (“and not, neither, nor”), from *ne (“not”) + *-kʷe (“and”). Cognate with Proto-Celtic *nekʷe, whence Irish nach; Proto-Germanic *nehw, whence Gothic nih. Equivalent to Old Latin ne (“not”) + -que (“and”).

Whereas

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂éngʷʰis Noun *h₂éngʷʰis (oblique stem *h₂n̥gʷʰéy-) "snake"

End of quotes.

David W. Anthony, or his source for this odd claim, is doing do-it-yourself look-alike linguistics, not scientifically sound etymologization. 2602:306:C4CE:81C9:605D:E26F:BB03:6897 (talk) 00:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Per the content guideline at Wikipedia:Reliable sources#User-generated content, user-generated sources, such as Wiktionary, are never acceptable as reliable sources. Please present reliable sources that support your position. Donald Albury 01:42, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I cited Wiktionary for your convenience only. It's not my own source for these facts. I began the study of comparative and historical linguistics long before there was an internet.

I'd ask which etymologial dictionary of Latin you'd consider authoritive, if I still thought the word 'negation' had been improperly etymologized, but I no longer do. I looked at D. W. Anthony's book again just now and, despite his having put negation in italics, I rather think he meant not the word negation but the grammatical process of negation. If so, he shouldn't have italicized it as he did, though it isn't italicized in the article here, to be fair. If so, however, he's still incorrect. Only the 'n' part of that word, at most, could possible involve the negational particle. 2602:306:C4CE:81C9:605D:E26F:BB03:6897 (talk) 03:40, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

2602, your argument looks compelling, except for a few sticking points. First, David W. Anthony (and especially his book, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language) are well respected by other experts, including linguists. The article on his book does mention disagreements from Philip L. Kohl (another anthropologist, by the way), but it seems like most experts agree with Anthony. And this has only increased over time. Second, we can't use user-generated content like Wiktionary itself as a source, and most of the citations on those pages are from 1879 through 1934. See WP:AGE MATTERS, because it's entirely possible that the newer scholarship from Anthony is correct and our Wiktionary entries aren't. And third, even if newer sources are found for the Wiktionary content, we don't simply remove one reliably-sourced claim and replace it with another. We include both, with context. That's assuming there aren't a number of sources out there showing how Anthony is incorrect—but I can't find anything like that. I also checked a handful of subreddits discussing Anthony, and they all seem to agree that Anthony knows his stuff. Not that Reddit is a reliable source, but I've found that the science-focused subreddits can be a good starting point when looking for contrary research—and again, I can't find any. Woodroar (talk) 01:46, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

But Anthony's parenthetical insertion of the claim about *ngWHi- at the beginning of chapter eight is a mere aside. No other part of his argument depends on it being correct, nor falls apart if it is wrong. The respect of other experts and linguists you cite is for his claims about the migration of Indo-European-speaking peoples, only. That linguists in agreement with his central thesis choose to ignore his, a non-linguist's, faux pas in an aside, about one word, shouldn't be taken as proof that he was not in error. See my reply to Donald Albury above, however, as to what I now think that error actually was. 2602:306:C4CE:81C9:605D:E26F:BB03:6897 (talk) 04:02, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the OP here. Several sources, such as Oxford English Dictionary and de Vann's Etymological Dictionary of Latin (itself part of the acclaimed Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Online series) show negation probably coming from Latin "negātiō", with cognates in Romance languages, including a OED reference to "negecion" in Spanish from 1490.

While David W. Anthony is popular and generally agreed on within historical linguistics, that does not mean he couldn't of made a small error in the etymology of this word, especially because he isn't talking about the word in its own context, but in the context of mythological characters, where, like OP said, is an aside. The line is literally "But the cattle were treacherously stolen by a three-headed, six-eyed serpent (Ngwhi, the Proto-Indo-European root for negation)" with no further elaboration on the subject.

It seems The Horse, the Wheel, and Language was used for this source as it is a primary citation found throughout the article, making sense since his book is about this very subject.

However, it should be stressed that his book is not a rigorous academic paper, with data and in-text citations. Therefore, we should err on the side of caution in hyper-specific claims such as this Serpeant-negation mess here. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language will never have comprehensive peer-review because Anthony never included the comparative process of how he got from one word to it's PIE reconstruction. In short, something like OED or the IEDO will be far more trustworthy than a single sentence in a popular audience non-fiction book.

While on this topic, I find this article is bloated to the brim with information all coming from a single source, West (2007). Go to the references and you'll see exactly what I mean. West, while himself a respected and usually-agreed-upon linguist, should not be the sole source for so many claims in this article, at least without a clarification saying "all of this stuff comes from one guy". Many of the deities and mythological concepts he wrote about haven't shown up yet in recent Indo-European textbooks, although some are slowly but surely are (such as in Mallory and Adams, another popular citation here). I would suggest at minimum a heavy article trimming only leaving what is commonly agreed upon, or a full on AfD, since the subject itself is too niche, relatively young, and controversial for Wikipedia to present in a definitive way. JungleEntity (talk) 07:32, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to note that Modern English is not the best language to use to judge the validity of proto-IE reconstructions. While one can argue that Anthony was wrong, what we need are reliable sources that offer one or more different reconstructions of this particular feature of proto-IE, and any reliable sources that compare those reconstructions. Then we can discuss the weight to be given to different reconstructions. Donald Albury 15:09, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I've provided reliable resources above that give a direct link from negation to the reconstruction 2602 provided in their original OP. Further more, "Indo-European Language and Culture, An Introduction (2nd ed)" by Benjamin Fortson and "The Oxford Introduction to Proto Indo European" both give not reconstructions to the specific word "negation", but to the PIE grammatical concept of negation, if that indeed was what Anthony was referring to (although I doubt it). Those reconstructions include words closely related to the word negation. It's pretty safe to assume most, if not all n-starting negational words come from *ne, otherwise many reconstructions wouldn't make sense. We won't find an author pushing back on Anthony because this assumption is already widely assumed in the field.

Barring all of that, this little line saying that Anthony relates his reconstruction to negation shouldn't be included anyways. It isn't related to PIE mythology and is truly only six words in Anthony's book, which I elaborated why might not be the best source for a reconstruction like this.

I'm happy to give specific page numbers and all that if needed, but I think it's quite silly this is even an argument at all. JungleEntity (talk) 01:13, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

You make a good point that the bit about negation isn't really important anyway. I'll remove it. Anyone should feel free to revert me if they think this discussion needs to continue. Woodroar (talk) 22:34, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, all ¦·) 2602:306:C4CE:95A9:DC3F:9394:12B2:A184 (talk) 23:17, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 24 October 2024

Proto-Indo-European mythology → Proto-Indo-European paganism – Per WP:OVERPRECISION and WP:CONSISTENCY. The scope of the article (and associated categories) goes beyond mythology alone and into topics such as rituals and the PIE priestly class. In addition, the name Proto-Indo-European paganism would be consistent with those of other articles on historic religions such as Slavic paganism (as opposed to "Slavic mythology") and Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism (moved from Proto-Indo-Iranian mythology) Midnight-Blue766 (talk) 22:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. As far as I can tell, "Proto-Indo-European mythology" is what reliable sources tend to call the subject. Searching academic sources via Wikipedia Library found 353 results for Proto-Indo-European mythology and only 27 for Proto-Indo-European paganism. Google News found 300 results for mythology, 16 for paganism. A general web search found 11,300 results for mythology, 1,940 for paganism. Woodroar (talk) 00:57, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, it would be completely anachronistic. Paganism is what early Christians called the belief systems they wanted to replace. PIE mythology is a hypothetical reconstruction of one that existed five thousand years earlier. – Joe (talk) 14:04, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, paganism is a term Christians invented to describe non-Christians, usually with a negative connotation. As such I do not think it is appropriate, given WP:POV, to describe religions as pagan unless they self-describe themselves as such. Additionally the PIE people's left no direct records of their spiritual beliefs and practices. This article is therefore primarily on their myths, stories, and cosmological beliefs, as best reconstructed from comparative mythology and linguistic analysis, rather than concrete ritual practices or religious structures that an article titled "paganism" might imply the focus to be on. Photos of Japan (talk) 04:40, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Woodroar. Paganism would give this a POV slant, but not sure I agree that is because it was coined by Christians to negatively describe "rural" beliefs (which is quite correct, of course). Rather, it is because pagan groups have taken on this mythology for their own modern religions, and this has given the historical and academic interest a religous veneer and a POV that encourages movement beyond the sources. Let's keep this focussed on the academic study. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:47, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Mythology is accurate for this article, paganism is not. This article is about reconstructed mythology, a body of narratives focused on either one or more deities. It far predates any concept of paganism. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:11, 26 October 2024 (UTC)