Talk:patriclan

patriclan
rfv sense: "A group which claims common ancestry through the male line, but cannot prove the lineage."
 * I have already added the sense that seems to be the common one according to references: a patrilineal clan. The RfVed sense is taken from a single source which has added the qualifier of provable lineage. I doubt that many many antropologists use the term that way - though evidence could prove that doubt misplaced. DCDuring TALK 20:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Both of the senses given look highly fictional to me, and they may be based on computer games. For the original meaning of the word, look . From that the word has become to mean an aristocrat in general. More details can be found in any good dictionary. Hekaheka 19:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * patriclan is abundantly used in anthropology - not that I knew that before b.g.c. search. The author of the cite seems to have taken the usual sense and specialized it so he could distinguish between patrilineal clans with certain descent and those without, apparently meaningful in the societies he was studying. If someone who knows anthropology happens to know that this has been done at least two additional times, then we can include the more specialized sense. If not, then we stick with only the more general sense, which seems to be how dictionaries and works of anthropology usually define it. DCDuring TALK 20:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)