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Scope edit
@Yngvadottir: Care to comment on this edit and this discussion? There is a dispute over the purpose of this page. Srnec (talk) 16:01, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
- In the edit in question (a repeat of changes the same editor made in October), StarTrekker removed all names except those spelled Rognvald in the blue link, and replaced the information about Old Norse, including the variant spellings listed at the start, to leave only two names and to state that it's a Norwegian name. This is incorrect. Looking at the two names left in the article, while Rognvald Eysteinsson was from Møre, Rognvald Brusason was presumably born in Orkney, and his article is actually at the spelling Rögnvald Brusason and on the version of Norwegian Wikipedia that has it, Nynorsk, at Ragnvald Brusesson; they note that in the Old Norse sources his name is normalized to Rögnvaldr Brúsason (which can also be rendered Rǫgnvaldr). It's the same name spelled different ways, and the English word Norse does not mean only "Norwegian"; for some of the people listed here from Ireland, Poland, etc., we don't even know their ancestral origin, whether within modern Denmark, modern Norway, modern Sweden, the isles, or possibly modern Schleswig-Holstein, modern Finland, modern Russia, modern Ukraine ... the Vikings got about, and spoke a common tongue with many different ways of transliterating a name like Rǫgnvaldr (including where the source on the same person was written down: Denmark, in Latin? Iceland, in Old Norse? Norway or Sweden, with different sound changes in the Middle Ages and different spelling changes in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries? Or even different academic works in English, with different publisher style manuals (drop the -r or retain it? ǫ or ö or avoid diacritics where possible?) Inconsistent spellings creep into the text of our own articles because there are so many valid options. One of the purposes of these disambiguation articles is to help a reader find where we have placed the article they are looking for; some are actually at different spellings from those linked here, like Rögnvald Brusason, illustrating that the same name can be spelled multiple ways. (I checked to see that nobody had created Ragnvald Ingesson at a different title without making a redirect, but the Swedish Wikipedia article, which I've interlinked here, has no interwikis.) We could have multiple interlinked DAB pages, but readers would still find we listed someone under a different spelling from what they'dlookedup, and it would still be the same underlying Old Norse name. Srnec was right to revert the changes the first time, and I will revert them now. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
- No one but super dedicated name fans understand would care about any of this, and none of it was mentioned remotly in the original "article". I don't endorse merging Isabel or Isabella either just because Mid-Ev people spelled peoples native names differently sometimes, but since I'm clearly outvoted here sure do whatever you want, but if we're going to insist its all the "same name" just because people in the old days always localized everything, then shouldn't the oldest known variant of the name be the one used for all of them instead of Rognvald since clearly that isn't the oldest or most used version?
- StarTrekker (I presume the above was you): I'm not following everything you say—the point of a DAB page like this is to assist a reader who may be looking for an article but not sure what spelling we use for the article or whether it's the same person, so it's probably a bit random whether Rognvald or Ragnvald is the best title, but an Old Norse title is less likely to be what the reader types in—but I thought the wording at the top was pretty clear about the many variations in spelling and why they're the same name (Old Norse)? And note the footer, which has modern names derived from Rǫgnvaldr (you didn't remove that; notice how much they vary). I'm a bad philologist, so I'm going to ping Berig here as an expert; he's better able to check whether the summary is inaccurate or can be made clearer, or whether I've misstated anything. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
- Yngvadottir is correct in stating that there were several variations of the name. Rǫgnvaldr is a form where the -v- has influenced the pronunciation of the first vowel. Usually such forms are considered to be "more standard" based on the fact that they were typical for Old Icelandic where this kind of umlaut was most common, and Old Icelandic is the de facto standard form of Old Norse.--Berig (talk) 20:09, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
- StarTrekker (I presume the above was you): I'm not following everything you say—the point of a DAB page like this is to assist a reader who may be looking for an article but not sure what spelling we use for the article or whether it's the same person, so it's probably a bit random whether Rognvald or Ragnvald is the best title, but an Old Norse title is less likely to be what the reader types in—but I thought the wording at the top was pretty clear about the many variations in spelling and why they're the same name (Old Norse)? And note the footer, which has modern names derived from Rǫgnvaldr (you didn't remove that; notice how much they vary). I'm a bad philologist, so I'm going to ping Berig here as an expert; he's better able to check whether the summary is inaccurate or can be made clearer, or whether I've misstated anything. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
- No one but super dedicated name fans understand would care about any of this, and none of it was mentioned remotly in the original "article". I don't endorse merging Isabel or Isabella either just because Mid-Ev people spelled peoples native names differently sometimes, but since I'm clearly outvoted here sure do whatever you want, but if we're going to insist its all the "same name" just because people in the old days always localized everything, then shouldn't the oldest known variant of the name be the one used for all of them instead of Rognvald since clearly that isn't the oldest or most used version?