Talk:Amber
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I'm not sure how to handle the "folklore" stuff. Certainly it's all nonsense (aside from being badly written), but if it's nonsense that some specific group of people believe, there's no reason not to report on that belief. I suspect that all of this comes from a single source, so that source should be named. Otherwise, there's no way to know whether this is actual folklore or just one man's ramblings. --Lee Daniel Crocker
- yes, Lee - see my entry on Corvus's page. I think it's from a source. If Corvus is capitalizing this way himself, he's an exception. --MichaelTinkler.
What makes you say it's badly written?
No, it's not from one source, it's from several years' worth of research and study, and I wrote it myself --corvus13
"...leading to the general formula C10H16O": shouldn't this be "empirical formula"? Dweir
Might want to separate the Amber (fantasy world) section from the Amber (fossilised resin) stuff. Are we going to have entries for fictional countries such as Oz, Narnia, Middle-Earth, Lilliput, Brobdingnag, etc? Might have to decide on qualifier for the name "Amber" (eg. Amber (fictional country) ). I'll leave it in the hands of a Wikipedia expert. Michael Green - mfg@mfgreen.net
The Baltic Amber is old resin from Pseudolarix amabilis.
Etymology
English people usually call burnstones “amber”. Etymologists suggest the Arabian word anbar = Ambre gris, describing the secretions of a sperm whale, may be the source for a great number of amber-like words in modern languages, but with “burneability” in our minds another Latin word "Amb-urus" = "the burning (stone)" may be much more suitable for explanation.
The Latin verb amb-uro, ambussi, ambustum is related to combustion and is translated into the English word “to burn”. The word “amburus” in the sense of “Amber” did belong to vernacular language and will not be found in Latin scriptures. Historic documents are using the Germanic word “Glaesum” instead.
The etymology of the verb „amburo“ is rather complicated. Amburo sources from the Latin verb “uro”:
Latin: uro – ussi - ustum,
1. to burn something or somebody,
2. to dry up, to scorch
3. to passion
Besides uro also buro developed in time, eg. in comburo, bussi, bustum, translated: to burn / to scorch or to bust.
In contrast we find also de-uro, translated: to burn down, indicating the original core must be read "uro" and not "buro".
Maybe/Probably the English verb "burn" sources from "buro".
The word amber is spread accross a great number of people and modern languages, like French (ambre jaune), Italian (ambra gialla), Spanish (el ambar). Unlike the British sailors they certainly were not familiar with walefishing and some early language, maybe Latin, must have provided the word.
Originally the adjective “amburus” in Latin accompanied the male word “Lapis” (Stone) and checking the gender in languages we do not find any discrepancies.
See for complete details:
English Version:
http://www.joannesrichter.homepage.t-online.de/Androgyn/SpellingTUI.pdf
German/Deutsche Version:
http://www.joannesrichter.homepage.t-online.de/Androgyn/DasBuchTuisco.pdf
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Sorry, these were my contributions. I just forgot to log in
Johannes.Richter 07:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Gdansk/Danzig
I actually think that it's reasonable to mention "Danzig" in this article, since there are many connections from historical Danzig to amber. E.g. the famous Amber Room, built in 1701, was created by ethnic German amber artisans from Danzig (as they presumably would have called it, and as Wikipedia policy calls for it to be named at that point in time). The entry for "Gedanite" may not the best place to mention it, though; perhaps the paragraph which mentions the amber room could mention that some of the amber workers came from "Danzig (now Gdansk)". Noel (talk) 19:35, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Royal Prussia was an integral part of Poland, and so the proper name is Gdansk not Danzig. Space Cadet 20:47, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)