Wiktionary talk:Votes/2019-08/Abolish the Old Latin header

Rationale
There is no reason to distinguish any previous stage in that level already, any more than there is a reason to have a “Vulgar Latin” aside from “Latin”, or “Modern Latin”, for the grammar is the same; on some places different sounds are used, or there might be more variation, but proper templates can be used to mark chronolects manifesting in the forms, and nothing at all might be used if dated quotes are present. It is rather misplaced if the only thing marking the Old Latin as Old Latin is the L2 header, like in dacrima.

But the most pressing reason is that people do not even know what needs to be put under it; which is one reason why that language header is hugely unpopular and contains only 26 lemmas after more than five years, most of them already present before as Latin without adjectives, some redundant. There isn’t a vote on it in the list of all votes I see, but there is only a discussion about Old Latin inscriptions and after “A proposal to treat Old Latin as a separate language from the other chronolects of Latin” a change has been made which has escalated the concept in a way that people now understand anything prior to Cicero as to be treated as a separate language, implying that Cicero could not understand Terence, while in the original interpretation as given by in the first discussion and henceforth always handled thus, Plautus is not a different languages from Latin. Newbs now contend that “Plautus is Old Latin” like in.

No, if something is a different language one should be able to see it from afar without anyone telling you. If you wouldn’t know that certain works are from Plautus or anyone you couldn’t add anything from them because you do not know the date except upon closer examination, but even then not because texts are often not long enough and people like Sallust intentionally used archaic forms. Or did Sallust write “Old Latin” while his contemporaries didn’t? Absurd results. What to do with all the normalized texts? Nobody intended an argument on whether Plautus’ comedies as they have come upon us “attest Latin”, but yet this will continuously be debated if a vote does not stop it. Is a text like the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus unquotable if you do not have the original “Old Latin” wording? For me, not even the Carmen Saliare is a different language. Its not being wholly intelligible does not change the qualification – much in the Digests too is incomprehensible. Intelligibility is when much context is lost. But formally these are all the same languages. Most of the alleged differences are so minute that they are to be ignored on the level of normalization. Like in the given example SOKIOIS where the classics have sociīs – should we collect all spellings with K instead of C, or instances where -ois is attested in addition to classical īs? It is all unspectacular, and such a quote can be given in the entry socius – highlight as much as is needed. Nor is Latin being written in the Etruscan alphabet a reason to clip off a language, it is for using. One says simulating a different language “simplifies the treatment of inflection tables” but those different endings like in can likewise be put under a “Latin” header – it would only be done occasionally anyhow, like “Old Latin” entries are only created occasionally. There is nothing less tidy about it: it is like having tables for how the verb goes without the 1918 spelling reform in Russian inflection sections like and. The redunancy of having “Old Latin” vos beside Latin vos on the other hand is untidy – if you want to point out early attestation, a quote is the way to go. I would have never requested a new language for any Latin inscription. Any peculiarities peculiar enough to need mention can use templates like, ,. But seemingly the system of these wasn’t even there that much in 2014 when the “Old Latin language” has been invented on Wiktionary. Fay Freak (talk) 15:50, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

All Latin is Old Latin
At least, that's a very simplistic statement. --Gibraltar Rocks (talk) 07:14, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? I see complications everywhere and now you tell me I make a simplistic statement. While people else complain that I am verbose. Fay Freak (talk) 19:55, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * TBH, your last message was TLDR. My message was just my uninformed opinion --Gibraltar Rocks (talk) 20:30, 15 August 2019 (UTC)