Talk:Style of the Scottish sovereign

Re: Deletionism

No surprise to see you two love bunnies deleting content on a topic you don't have a scooby about without justifying it on talk.

Restoring Kenneth MacAlpin, since the excerpt calls him 'ri Alban' ("King of Scotland")

How long does wiki have to put up with you two disruptive editors? That statement just reafirms you don't have the foggiest what you're talking about. Michael, if you'd payed the slightest bit of attention to the stuff you'd supported the deletion of you'd notice a big bunch of the others had that title. There's actually a big source problem here, but since you two are such experts I'll let you tell us all about it. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hypocrisy

It's funny how a bunch of Scottish editors have consistently refused to allow monarchs after 1707 on the English list (which, after all, only reflects reality - as Deacon admitted), but get themselves all in a huff when the same principle is applied to the Scottish list with regard to the Pictish kings. Nationalist politics always trumps truth, it seems. TharkunColl (talk) 15:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with nationalism. You know, there are editors on wiki who can have opinions independently of such simplistic motives. Some editors like ... for instance ... truth. Anyways, you should be justifying your attempted deletions, not casting aspersions on good faith editors. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

So why don't you apply your high principles to the English list then? Can't be bothered is a good summary of the reasons you gave the other day. TharkunColl (talk) 15:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The Pictish monarchs don't belong on the Scottish list. Why? you ask? The Kingdom of Scotland didn't exist until 843, one can't be the King of a no-existant Kingdom. If they were Scottish monarchs, then they wouldn't be called Pictish monarchs. Tharky's correct, we don't add British monarchs on the end of this or the English list therefore we don't add Pictish monachs (or for that matter Norman Dukes at English list). Pictish line is just one of the Scottish monarchs predecessors. Feel free to 'create' a new article called List of Pictish monarchs. GoodDay (talk) 16:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but the 843 tale is medieval fantasy utterly rejected by modern historians; it survives in some dubious popular accounts as the debris of such fantasy, much like the ... I dunno, the way most people think medieval people thought the world was flat. There is in reality no way to distinguish that called by moderns the "Kingdom of Scotland" and that called by moderns "Kingdom of the Picts". They were the same kingdom. So the only non-POV thing to do is leave the evidence on its own and let the reader judge. The titles used speak for themselves. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The 843 tale is certainly medieval fantasy - the true Scottish state was not created till Alba merged with Strathclyde. However, because 843 is traditional, I am willing to allow the list to begin there. But let there be no doubt about this - it is a concession to tradition. Please don't try and impose your POV on others. TharkunColl (talk) 16:41, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

the true Scottish state was not created till Alba merged with Strathclyde

This is your point of view only. The annexation of Strathclyde was just a number of annexations that expanded the Picto-Scottish kingdom. It's subjective. The only non POV thing to do is leave the list of titles in continuous order and let the reader decide. It's not up to us to force a particular opinion on anyone, not even the rejected traditional one. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

No, that is your POV. The NPOV thing to do would be to go with the traditional list. That is already a compromise. TharkunColl (talk) 16:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a rather bizarre opinion. How do you work those things out? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there an English version of this article? That I can check up on? Also, I stand corrected, both the English & Scottish monarch lists have linkages to British monarchs. GoodDay (talk) 16:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

There's Style of the British Sovereign which even has a section on the Scottish ones, albeit small. England doesn't appear to have its own and I don't think it needs one either. TharkunColl (talk) 16:59, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

If Scotland has its own, England must have its own too. England was once a Kingdom itself. When one is created, it will have to omit the Wessex monarchs (aswell as the Essex monarchs, Mercians etc), assuming we leave out the Pictish & Strathclyde monarchs from this article. GoodDay (talk) 17:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, in that article you'd have all titles which claimed overlordship over England, no matter who made them, because it's about the history of styles, not a kingdom. Anyways, I don't know how often I'm gonna have to repeat ... Scotland can not non-POVedly be said to be the result of any merger. Alba and Pictland weren't parts of Scotland, they were the same kingdom. The modern notion of Scotland is a creation of that state, and the word Scotland itself is not of any significance to that process; England was pre-conceived an ethnic area that was unified. And Pictland/Alba/Scotland had roughly the same territory in 1000 it had in 750. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Similarly, Wessex didn't "merge" with mercia. It annexed it. The West Saxon state is the same as the English state. That it expanded to cover the ethnic area of the English is simply a result of its having "won". TharkunColl (talk) 17:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but Wessex is conceptually different ... very different ... from England. Pictland/Alba/Scotland are the same. It didn't need to annex anything. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

But your argument appears to revolve around the notion that its the same state. So Wessex = England. There can be no getting round it. TharkunColl (talk) 17:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Do I really need to repeat my above point? It sinks your shoddy comparison. If you want to make a comparison between kingdoms and sub-kingdoms, you'd be looking for Fortriu and Pictland/Alba/Scotland; the comparison between Pictland and Scotland would really be ... England and England ... hardly useful. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You talked about Wessex and England being conceptually different. Not as different as Pictland and Scotland. And before you claim that contemporaries thought differently, please provide evidence. TharkunColl (talk) 17:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

What distinction between Pictland and Scotland? There was no distinction. Both were called Alba. Names just changed gradually over time; Pictland and Scotland aren't real names, but exonyms. Siam doesn't become Thailand. It is Thailand. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Alba is a Gaelic word. Please provide evidence that it was ever used in Pictish. TharkunColl (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I never said it was used in Pictish. No-one knows what Pictish was. Alba was just the term that began to be used for Pictland in the 9th century (actually, probably on and off since the 6th). The Picts seem to have called themselves "Britons" and Alba meant Britain. See refs in Origins of the Kingdom of Alba and Woolf From Pictland to Alba. Scotland is just the term that came to be used for Alba later. It really is just a Siam Thailand thing. Scottish "Celts" still call Scotsmen Albanaich! "Scot" is an English word. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yo guys will have to figure things out here. My knowledge of this British Isles time period, is unreliable. GoodDay (talk) 17:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That means that Alba is an exonym too, right? And Gaelic was an alien language to Pictish, even though it later infiltrated the place. The kings from Kenneth onwards spoke Gaelic. What happened to Pictish? We are clearly talking about two distinct ethnic groups here. In short, the Pictish kingdom was taken over - in one way or another - by outsiders, i.e. the Gaels, called Scots in Latin, hence the name Scotland. TharkunColl (talk) 17:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, who knows how alien Gaelic was to Pictish. They were both Celtic languages, perhaps comparable to Scots and English (see Woolf, Pictland to Alba). That's only a side point though. "Scotland" was alien to Scots until they adopted English, which doesn't mean there was no Scotland until that happened. Alba and "Scotland" mean the same thing, as did Alba and Pictavia. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Pictish is thought to be P-Celtic, which is about as similar to Q-Celtic (Gaelic) as say English and German, i.e. a completely foreign and unintelligible. That Alba, originally a foreign word, was applied to both Pictland and Scotland tells us nothing about what the natives called it. What we do know is that Scottish kings after Kenneth called their kingdom Alba, which is Gaelic. And Gaelic is not Pictish. The Picts in other words were taken over by foreigners, and their language eclipsed until it died out. TharkunColl (talk) 18:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Most of that is too simplistic and ill-informed to be worth responding to. I'll just point out that we're talking about the Dark Ages, and there may not even have been a split between P and Q Celtic until that era. So English and German may well be a good comparison ... as they spoke virtually the same languages in this period. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The truth is that the Picts and Scots (Gaels) were two different peoples and are always referred to as such in all the sources. Sometimes they were allies, and sometimes enemies. TharkunColl (talk) 18:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That is correct. How and why the Picts started to call themselves Gaels is anyone's guess ... but there's nothing to indicate it had anything to do with political change. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The evidence that there is - such as it is - indicates precisely that. No evidence exists for your assertion of continuity. TharkunColl (talk) 18:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That's funny. It's likely you haven't been reading a word I've said. There is no evidence for anything but continuity! Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Well apart from the fact that the Picts and Scots are always referred to as two separate peoples in all Dark Ages sources (Gildas, Bede, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, whatever). But you simply ignored that. Oh well. Debating with you is like wrestling with a jellyfish. I don't think I'll bother any more. TharkunColl (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd suggest you make some effort to grasp the idea that words can change in meaning without changing in form, or that people can change. I've you'd grasped that, you wouldn't be making such fatuous points. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)