Disputatio:Hamilton (Ontario)

De fontibus desideratis

Disputatio a Disputatio Usoris:Andrew Dalby mota.

Hi, Andrew! Do we have any principles constraining the use of the formula {{fontes desiderati}} ? If not, the strategy exemplified by Hamiltonium + {{fontes desiderati}} is probably OK. But then, I surmise, the path will be open for Barkingium et Dagenhamium + {{fontes desiderati}}, or Entrepierresium + {{fontes desiderati}}, and thousands of cases like that. As I understand it, we're not supposed to give norms for extravicipaedians. Yet I have a funny feeling that the {{fontes desiderati}} strategy may be at least crypto-normative in character, giving free rein to ready-made entries, very easy just to pick up and put into use, though there might be other possibilities worth considering. Neander (disputatio) 06:13, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

I consider {{fontes desiderati}} a temporary step, a stage in a process. This is how I use it, anyway, and especially on two specific occasions, on which I encounter a Latin name that appears to have been made up:

1. if I need the name to be verified because I want to create a category (categories can't be moved as simply as pages can, so at that stage it really matters)
2. if I have found an attested name which I think preferable to the one we are currently using as page name

Usually, once I have inserted {{fontes desiderati}}, if no source has been offered when I next come to the page (and assuming I can't find one myself) I then take action to get the pagename into accord with our general rules: either moving to an alternative-but-attested name, or moving to the native name (because I don't know any acceptable Latin name) or occasionally, if VP:TNP clearly permits us a newly devised name in this case, changing the {{fontes desiderati}} to {{convertimus}}.

Less usually, if lots of us have been using this name for years and years, I start a discussion about the move before going ahead and doing it.

I think this process works OK. As for Hamiltonium (Ontario), I don't remember ever having looked at the page. That being the case, if I do now look at it and notice that "Fontes desiderati" has been on it for a reasonable time, and if I have a moment to check whether I can independently confirm "Hamiltonium" or not, I would then adopt my usual process (above) to get the pagename into accord with our general rules. And that's what I would encourage others to do. "Fontes desiderati" means "there's something wrong here: let's put it right". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:47, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see now, it's a new page. I have occasionally myself done what Donatello did there, if I thought it really likely that a source would turn up. The result should be the same: "fontes desiderati" marks a fault that needs correction and we should aim to correct it soon, either by supplying a source or by moving the page. Notice that Donatello didn't invent this name, but took it from the existing pages Canada and Hamiltonium (discretiva). I think it was quite reasonable to start the page under this name, just in case the previous Vicipaedian who first wrote "Hamiltonium" had a source for it after all. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:56, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

Contra nostram paginam discretivam, the British name Hamilton is attested in Latin as Hamiltonius, not Hamiltonium, so it's reasonable to expect that all the Hamiltons will be Hamiltonii, not Hamiltonia. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:20, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

Francis Glass, A Life of George Washington, in Latin Prose, ed. J. N. Reynolds (Novi Eboraci: Harper & Brothers, 1835), pagina 139; vide Alexander Hamiltonius.

Vide etiam William Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha, vol. 1, hic.

That's a useful attestation -- great -- but I'm not sure your argument about the place names follows Latin usage. Roads and colonies got a feminine adjective from their male creators' names. So you might argue for "Urbs Hamiltonia" or "oppidum Hamiltonium" ... or you might go on praying for an actual attestation of a Latinized place name :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:26, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

As I suspected, "Hamiltonius" has been treated as an adjective (like a Latin gentile name). Google will find you a tombstone for "Domina Isabella Hamiltonia nobilissimis Parentibus nata" and, elsewhere, the phrase "gente Hamiltonia". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:31, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

That sort of thing isn't uncommon in gender-loving languages, is it? In Poland, Mr. Nadolny's wife will be Mrs. Nadolna. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:51, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explication! In the case of city names ending in -ton, one would reasonably expect some uniformity. Lexintonia might provide a pattern. Neander (disputatio) 16:49, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

An Anglican bishop who resides in Hamilton, Ontario, just now reminds me of en:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/452_Hamiltonia: "452 Hamiltonia is an asteroid. It was discovered by James Edward Keeler on December 6, 1899, but was then lost until 1987. Its provisional name was 1899 FD. The asteroid is named for Mount Hamilton, the site of Lick Observatory where Keeler was working when he discovered the asteroid." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:54, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

Actonia, Bostonia, Princetonia, Tivertonia, Trentonia, Vasingtonia, Vellingtonia, etc. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:09, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you two want to look for uniformity in the Latin conversion of English names ending in -ton, you'll find some, though far from 100%. If you additionally want to urge a new rule for Vicipaedia, I'd suggest the best place is Disputatio Vicipaediae:De nominibus propriis rather than my talk page! But, since it was raised here, I will just add that I'm against adopting any such rule :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:58, 10 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

This is my last in this thread, I promise. What I was out for is not urging new rules but constraining what I suspected to be a possible loophole, exemplified by Hamiltonium, in the use of {{fontes desiderati}}. "Hamiltonium" seems to be out of the blue: no source, not even a principled precedent pattern. If a Latinate form is to be provided for the entry, "Hamiltonia" + {{fontes desiderati}} would've been at least a better guess because of those inductive examples brought forward by Iacobus. I now realise that I should've opened this discussion in the "Hamiltonium" page. Please, accept my apology! Neander (disputatio) 10:58, 11 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

No need at all for apology, Neander -- I'm glad you asked me, because I was able to suggest it isn't quite out of the blue, though indeed it appeared to be. I agree, it does want correction (of whatever kind) within a short time.

I'll copy all of this to Disputatio:Hamilton (Ontario) now, because, if by any distant chance a rule about translating -ton is adopted, Hamilton will be affected! Reflecting further on the application of what we have seen to this specific case, "Kingstonium" (see Kingstonium ad Hullum and Kingstonium ad Tamesim) shows that you could convert to a neuter as well as a feminine form: possibly because you were thinking of an oppidum rather than an urbs? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:25, 11 Iulii 2013 (UTC)

I might as well add here (and this could all be copied to Disputatio Vicipaediae:De nominibus propriis if necessary) that I have made some observations on this -ton business while developing pages on places in southern England, as I am now gradually doing. It appears to me that -tonium and -tonia were moderately popular among Renaissance Latinists: why they sometimes chose one and sometimes the other I don't really know, but I don't think I have ever yet seen -tonius as a name for a town. By contrast, medieval authors were more reluctant than their successors to convert names of small places to Latin: hence in early printed texts of medieval histories you will see English place-names in black-letter (Gothic), standing out from the Latin text in Roman. Where a conversion is made, in medieval texts it is -tona (a very easy switch from Old English -tuna and Middle English -tone), not -tonia or -tonium. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:59, 11 Iulii 2013 (UTC)