Thread:User talk:CodeCat/*źambas, *zǫbъ/reply (7)

It's not my idea, I just don't have sources to back it up at the moment. It comes from things I have read about Balto-Slavic reconstruction.

But I don't think this should be equated with misquoting. If one source writes a physical equation as E = h ν, another as E = h f, and a third as E = ħ ω, then those are not three different equations that deserve separate treatment, because they express the same mathematical idea, just with different notation. In the same way, źombos and źambas are the same thing, just written differently. The crucial difference between this and the spelling of a real language like Serbo-Croatian is that one is actually used as a means of communication, whereas reconstructed languages are written in an abstract linguistic representation that just happens to resemble a written word (for convenience). But you are probably familiar with the custom of writing h1, h2 and h3 for three Indo-European phonemes, which shows it more clearly. As long as linguists agree on a representation, any will do. If a linguist had decided at one point that what we write as ź is to be spelled as Z or 2 or something else, then that would not have changed the reconstruction; only the way of representing it abstractly. You really can't treat it the same as a real written language, because the spelling of a real language is based only on convention, whereas linguists routinely make up their own conventions when it suits them, and what counts is the idea that underlies the letters, not the letters themselves.

I do agree that we should quote the source accurately, but I don't think that should imply that *źombos should appear in etymology sections alongside *źambas. Instead, the form *źombos should be placed with the quotation in the reference section. Reconstruction:Proto-Balto-Slavic/źombos should redirect to Reconstruction:Proto-Balto-Slavic/źambas if there is any chance that people will come here looking for *źombos.