Talk:Open sesame

Galland and all that

Ali Baba is VERY probably an "originally in Arabic" folk tale - albeit it was "collected" by a French speaker - I think we have to assume (even without confirmed documentary proof) that the phrase "Open Sesame" did exist first in Arabic. There are SO many folk songs, stories etc, in every culture on Earth, first written down (at least so far as we know) after a very long period of oral transmission. In any case it is WP:OR for us to make contrary assumptions - otherwise it would never end... --Soundofmusicals (talk) 10:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not trying to say the phrase didn't exist in Arabic, but that we don't know whether it was necessarily "افتح يا سمسم". Also, why did you revert my other change? There are three possibilities as far as the Arabic source goes: there was a written Arabic source that was lost, there was only an oral Arabic source, or there was no Arabic source. My change was meant to have a NPOV for all three possibilities, while yours, by writing "(written)", seems to dismiss both the first and third options. --- Wikitiki89 (talk) - 19:13, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

There are actually only two possibilities. The first is that Galland was telling the truth about Ali Baba being a story he collected in the middle east, the other that he was lying, and either made it up himself or collected it somewhere else. The first possibility is the only one we can have here (more WP:OR than WP:NPOV perhaps?). Not that it's so fantastic that Galland might have jazzed up the collection with a few tales of his own, just that saying he actually did so would be speculation etc, because that's not the current literary consensus. We have no real reason to doubt him, in other words. Given this - we CAN say that there is no known written Arabic source - "known" and "written" being important qualifications here - although there must have been (at least) an orally transmitted (spoken) source. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Trying very hard to craft a sensible version we can agree on here - but you CAN'T talk about an original ORAL version "existing" before there were any means to record one. There may or may not be an original written version - although one has never been found. Speculating on the existence of one is just that, speculation - we can't do it in an encyclopedia. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

There ARE mysterious questions here - I appreciate how a bare "we don't really know" might seem unsatisfactory, but I really think we are stuck with it. What's wrong with a little mystery in life, anyway? The important thing is that we don't try to say what is "likely" unless in doing so we are reporting scholarly consensus (and can back it up with a source, of course. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:12, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

You are making no sense to me. An oral version does not imply a recorded version. All I am trying to say is that we don't know whether there was a source, although, since Galland says there was, it is likely that there was. Further, we don't know whether the source was written or oral. Oral does not mean recorded. That is all I am trying to point out and your contradictory statements make it unclear what you are trying to prove. --- Wikitiki89 (talk) - 02:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit summary: "An original "oral" version could not have existed before Edison invented sound recording - to say a written one "probably existed" is WP:OR." I think the editor misread the article. It doesn't say that an oral version was recorded, just that it existed. Most literature for most of the history of humanity has been oral literature which has been neither recorded nor transcribed. The word "original" here is, however, problematic. I think it means the version that Galland recorded; but it doesn't mean that it is the Ur-version! --Macrakis (talk) 04:14, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

An oral version is ephemeral and ceases to "exist" in any meaningful sense from our point of view here - unless it is recorded (either by being written down or "recorded" in the modern sense). Anything we might say about an "oral version" is therefore Inadmissible speculation. I really can't see what is hard about this. The "Ur-version" in the sense of the oldest version we actually have is of course Galland's! That is why the original French version of the phrase (Sésame, ouvre-toi) has such a prominent place (in fact otherwise we wouldn't mention it at all, not in the English Wikipedia!!). All known existing (written) Arabic versions are translations of Galland's French. BUT, unless Galland was telling porkies about where he got the story (and we have no evidence that he was) the story is an Arabic folk tale. Again - to make statements about the likelihood of an original Arabic version is speculation - we have to assume that there was. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course an oral version is ephemeral, but it may still be documented without being recorded. You can imagine a list of stories, or an account of the story being told ("Old Abdullah told the story of the thieves' treasure in the cave opened by a magic phrase."). But in any case, we have none of that for this story. --Macrakis (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

@Soundofmusicals, Assuming is speculation. At least I want to make this assumption explicit. --- Wikitiki89 (talk) - 18:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That's just the worst kind of assumption - we can get away with an implicit one now and then, once we're "explicit" and out in the open it is just not encyclopedic at all!! --Soundofmusicals (talk) 03:33, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Either make the assumption explicitly or don't make it at all. Implicit assumptions are basically censorship. --- Wikitiki89 (talk) - 18:59, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

English source

I'm removing the uncited Origin entry: A minced pronunciation of the words "Open says me". First off, there is no citation. Second, this makes no sense. The oldest written source is in French, with a possible Arabic oral history as the source of that. Thus it is extremely doubtful the English phrase "Open says me" is the source of original text "Sésame, ouvre-toi". --Dan East (talk) 22:00, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• Still, it is worth saying in the article that there is no evidence, despite popular culture, that it is a variation on "open, says me". 2600:1003:B462:5385:1027:6FB1:14E0:1028 (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

  It only works if you say it like Super Mario though. 180.150.38.68 (talk) 05:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 16 November 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved I put the dab page at Open sesame (disambiguation). (closed by non-admin page mover) Wug·a·po·des​ 03:10, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

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Open Sesame (phrase) → Open sesame – Since "Open sesame" is a phrase, it should probably not be capitalized. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 02:30, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS. This is clearly not a proper name.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:17, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:35, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support. No other articles called this. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:08, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.