Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/kelþą

Archived feedback: November 2014
I see there are entries for both *kelþaz and *kelþą. The entry is straight forward, a neuter z-stem. The *kelþą entry is that of a neuter a-stem, but the suggested declension is *kelþaz (gen. *kilþiniz), the neuter z-stem. Is the *kelþą entry an older entry, superceded by the *kelþaz entry, or are there grounds to suggest that *kelþaz and *kelþą were in free variation and we are hedging our bets by suggesting both reconstructions?

Also, if *kelþą is withdrawn, its etymological data should be transferred to *kelþaz.

Although PGmc is not a language I know well, I am simply going through the lemma list checking for consistency. I strongly endorse the project of placing such a list online, and especially the need for promoting a standard orthography for PGmc, considering that each of the major authors 'freezes' their reconstruction at a different time period. Let's rally around Ringe. Dave crowley (talk) 23:59, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In Old English it could have been either, as the plural was cild, or cildru/cildra. Cognates in other languages, namely Old Swedish kolder arent much help either, but Germanic lexicon project gives *kilþiz / *kelþaz, a derivative of *kilþīn "womb" (--sorry for the -n; i dont have the ogonek n symbol on my android). It looks as though the two entries were created independent of each other by 2 separate editors. Leasnam (talk) 00:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The *kelþą entry was originally created as *keldaz, a z-stem...during the move the declension table was never updated. I have done so. I dont know if we need to keep both, but if the possibilty that this was two closely related words that coalesced into OE cild leaving traces of both in the plural i leave that to consensus to decide. Leasnam (talk) 00:51, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * If you haven't already, take a look at WT:AGEM to see what our current standards are for Pgmc entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:56, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

RFM discussion: January 2015–August 2016
Orel 2003 pg. 212 reconstructs *kelþaz as the proto-form. The z-stem reflex of the noun survives into Modern English even to the present day. Note that already a discussion has started on the talk page for *kelþą about there being two conflicting entries for the same word.Nayrb Rellimer (talk) 08:03, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Both pages currently exist as full pages (with different amounts of etymological content), listing the same descendants. This seems inappropriate. Should they be merged? On which page? Pinging Proto-Germanic editors: . - -sche (discuss) 23:58, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * should be merged into . —CodeCat 00:02, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ - -sche (discuss) 00:17, 17 August 2016 (UTC)