Talk:Samoyedic languages

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Вышла в свет "Северная энцклопедия" В январе 2005 года вышла в свет «Северная энциклопедия», включающая четыре тысячи пятьсот статей от «А» до «Я». Is somebody able to make a connetion to this peoples? Why not a servernaya-wikipedia? Wer könnte da eine Verbindung anknüpfen, wäre das nicht eine Sache für die Wikipedia des Nordens? - Ilja • Ilja 12.3.2005

he is saying a "Northern Encyclopedia" ("ru:Северная энциклопедия"?)appeared in January, with 4500 articles. Not sure how this relates to the Samoyedic languages, though. dab (ᛏ) 20:54, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

the first post one here looks to me like it's partially in russian and partially in german. i can't read russian and can read very little german. Gringo300 05:39, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am bit surpised that linquists have no shame to call a people with a name that in a major language, the official language in their home country means "eaters of themselves" !!! Including the linquists from the countries that are notorious of their political correctness. Seriously, why cannot some Nenets organization in America sue some Harvard or Yale for using systematically obvious racist slur in their publications? Hehe they have big money in Nenets standards :)) Warbola 13:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you're not serious. But in any case, please note that the connection between Samoyed and Russian "self-eater" is really just a folk etymology. --AAikio 09:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did you notice that your statement is not what the article says? Do you think all ca 200,000,000 Russian speakers are equally dismissive of it as a 'silly folk etymology' (I have certainly seen some that are not myself). Also, why Nenetses themselves avoid that word? Why it went out of use at the same time with other offensive ethnic names in Russian language? Warbola 12:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course some speakers of Russian can't recognize it is a folk etymology, that's exactly the nature of folk etymology. But your comments are nevertheless just bizarre. First, Samoyed is the only generally used term for the Samoyed peoples and Samoyed languages, and there's nothing we can do about that. We can't just invent new terms for the Wikipedia because you think someone doesn't like the old ones. Second, it just borders on the ludicrous to say that Harvard or Yale ought to be sued for using an "obvious racist slur" because some Russians think that Samoyed originates from "self-eater". I guess this case would be literally laughed out of court. --AAikio 13:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lets forget about 'folk etymology' and look just what that word means in Russian. Open some online English-Russian dictionary and look what is 'ogre' in Russian. The answer is великан-людоед , velikan-lydoyed or giant-people-eater. Now replace the people (lyudi) in the lyudojed word with samo or 'self', like in famous samovar 'self-cooker' and what word you will get? And remember, these are official dictionary words we used, so your 'folk etymology' argument is not very strong.

You, me and most of the world would 'laugh off' most of American lawsuits but proving in American court that calling a people 'flying purple people-eaters' is offensive is a slam dunk, scientific word or not. The offensiveness of this expression is far mor obvious than for any of American N-,C- and K-words. This kind of litigation exists. Wikipedia does not need to worry as it does not have money but the ones who do should really ask the opinion of their lawyers.

and there's nothing we can do about that. Well, starting to use 'Nenetsian languages' instead of 'Samoyedic languages' is not entirely beyond the reach of possibility, I think. Especially when linguists are little more educated about the erm. folk etymology of the word they are using. Warbola 14:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I can only repeat my position here. We can't invent any new terms here on Wikipedia, that would be blatantly against Wikipedia guidelines. As long as we don't have any common alternative term, we can only use Samoyed, even if someone were to find it offensive due to the Russian folk-etymology. (And it really is a folk-etymology, or at least explicitly claimed to be such in all linguistic sources I am aware of.) --AAikio 21:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You still make a small logical error. I hope you know German better than Russian: 1) Does fuchs (junior student organisation member) come from Germanic 'fox' ? : Correct answer: No, it comes from Latin 2) Does this word mean 'fox' in German ? Correct answer: yes it does. You and your linguistic sources are talking about (1), I am talking about (2), because (1) is completely irrelevant for the topic (is the word 'samoyed' offending). And you appear to critizise common people just speaking their language for doing 'folk science' just like these Ivans and Pyotrs were some sort of Uralic group deniers or inventors of new paradigms. If Wikipedia cannot change terminology then I just hope linguists will use their academic freedom and write about Nenetsian language group instead. Warbola 07:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If someone can trace etymology and origin of term "samoyed" first recorded, we could find explanation. To me (and this is just a speculation) "samoyedi" sounds similar to "Sami lyudi" (Sami people), Sami being another (European) Arctic indigenous people known to Russians, so perhaps these people were at first wrongly "recognized" as Sami by first explorers and later that name got vulgarized by ignorant Russian commoners on service in Arctic into something they could relate to and memorize. I have often seen foreign words perverted in common talk of uneducated masses in my own environment, I have no reason to believe it would not had been so elsewhere, especially in dark past. However, certainly this matter could be explored in Russian historical archives if anyone cares and can do?

The term "Samoyed" is derogatory, and should be avoided as a propagation of the name-calling. I suggest to re-phrase the header entry to add the explanation as follows:

"The Samoyedic languages (now called Nenets languages) are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by perhaps 30,000 speakers altogether. The obsolete Samoyed is a Slavic (later Russian) derisive name for a branch of Uralic people, with a meaning of self-eater. Because of its direct insolency, the term Samoyed was not used as a self-desciption by any member of the Nenets language family." Barefact 00:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regrettably, this edit can't be accepted because it is false that Samoyedic languages are "now called Nenets languages". Such a practice does not exist; I am myself a scholar who has published on these languages and I've never heard of the proposed term "Nenets languages". We cannot avoid the term "Samoyed" even if it were derogatory as long as there is no established alternative. --AAikio 19:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And what was the term you discovered in the literature in the native language(s)? As a scholar on these languages your are aware that none of these languages use the term Samo(y)ed either for their ethnonyms or for their languages. Nenets and Samo(y)ed are synonimous, but Samo(y)ed was used exclusively as a foreigh term (Russian and Russian-influenced). Thanks, Barefact 19:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're confusing two things here. 'Samoyed' is a term for a group of languages, not any particular language. In the same manner, Germanic is a term for a group of languages, even though no Germanic people calls their language "Germanic". Now, there is no alternative term for the group of Samoyed languages. As to your idea that 'Nenets' and 'Samoyed' are synonymous, this is as incorrect as saying that English and Germanic are synonymous. Nenets is just one of the Samoyed languages, and the Nenets people just one of several Samoyed peoples.--AAikio 06:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point(s) :-). But examples serve a bad example: you can always come up with a counterexample. In case of English, the Nenets/Samoyed analogy would be English/Pommie-Bastard, not English/Germanic. It is a derisive exoethnonym that is out of place, not that Nenets language after 1000 years of derisive domination was finally studied and found to contain a variety of flavors or sub-languages, and not whether the name of the language family should differ from the name of its main body. In that respect, the question is: "what was the term you discovered in the literature in the native language(s)? As a scholar on these languages"? If you discovered that Nenetses call their language group "Samoyed(ic)", a reference will do. If you have discovered that Nenetses call their language group "Nenets", it becomes a choice, a choice between deference and derogatory appelation. Barefact 20:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I cannot really understand your comment. It still seems that you do not understand that Samoyed is a group of several totally distinct languages. Nenets is in no way "the main body" (whatever that means) of Samoyed languages, it is just one of several Samoyed languages. And to repeat: there is no alternative term for the group of Samoyed languages used in any English publication, or in any other language on which scholarly publications on these languages have been published. We simply cannot invent any new terms here on the Wikipedia, because that would original research. Your idea that Samoyed languages could be called "Nenets languages" remains incomprehensible: to say that e.g. Selkup is a "Nenets language" would be on par with saying that Swedish is an "English language".--AAikio 07:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, group should have different name than a single language so the group could be Nenets-Selkup languages or Nenetsian languages, surely something derived from 'Nenets' as over 90% of speakers of this group are Nenets.Warbola (talk) 00:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Samoyed" is not currently the word used in Russian, it is "Samodiysk" (Самодийский язык/народ). The widely accepted origins of the term "Samoyed" is "Samae-edne" - or "land of the Saami" in Saami (and related languages). I'm not sure what the origin of "Samodiysk" is - though it very likely also an ethnonym related to the "Saami" root (perhaps AAikio knows). Nor do I know why the formerly widespread "Samoyed" has been dropped. It is very very remotely possible that this is related to the potential (though unlikely) offensiveness of the folk-etymology: "Self-Eaters". It is a fine name for a people, considering some others that are bandied about (e.g. German - немец - in Russian comes from the word for "dumb-mute" or "mutterer"). In any case, the common English term has no meaning, is in no way offensive, and should not be changed, any more than Turkey needs to be renamed because it is a potentially offensive homonym of an ungainly, though spirited, North American fowl. -- Best, Eliezg (talk) 08:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
PS. Does anyone know what language the so-called "Samoyeds" in the Golden Compass movie were speaking? If it was really a Samoyedic language, that would be quite a coup of hyper-verisimilitude...

Do you REALLY find "Self-Eaters" more close to "Turkey" and "nemtsy" than, say, Bug Eaters, Camel Jackers, Harbor Bombers, Jesus Killers, Sheep Fuckers, Spear Chuckers, Tunnel Diggers, Wagon Burners and other similar two word ethnic names ?

And how do you call cognitive process of interpreting word like "sheep fucker" (derogatory name for Scottish) as someone who copulates a domestic animal Ovis aries ?? Looks like you guys like to call it "etymology". Perhaps so, I am not a linguist. Anyway, there is absolutely no difference as identifying "samoyed" as "self eater", it is the literal meaning of that Russian word. Warbola (talk) 05:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]