Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Talk:*Kóryos

Dacian draco - wolf motif in standards - analysis by Mircea Eliade

I think this should interest you: Wolves in folklore, religion and mythology#Dacian2804:14D:5CE7:8E72:418E:773C:3A69:EE6A (talk) 02:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Alcaios (talk) 09:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Xavier Delamarre argues that, in Celtic compund names, the word "wolf", pertaining to the wildness and lawlessness of the Indo-European warrior, has been replaced by dog/hound names, such as in Cu Chuláinn. Delamarre, Xavier. "Affranchis, chevaux sauvages, libérateurs et mercenaires: le mot gaulois pour «libre»". In: Etudes Celtiques, vol. 41, 2015. pp. 136-137. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/ecelt.2015.2454] ; www.persee.fr/doc/ecelt_0373-1928_2015_num_41_1_2454 179.218.212.120 (talk) 15:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kouretes/Curetes and Korybantes/Curibantes - a possible Indo-European connection?

I'm leaving here some links to the subject of Kouretes/Korybantes, which you couldn't find before you launched the Koryos article: 179.218.212.120 (talk) 01:21, 29 June 2020 (UTC) Rūmniece, Ilze. "ANCIENT "CURETES" AND THE WESTERN BALTIC TRIBE OF "KŪRI" (SOME SUGGESTIVE PARALLELS)." Rivista Di Cultura Classica E Medioevale 55, no. 2 (2013): 587-92. Accessed June 29, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/23972385.[reply]

Belt Buckle of Finglesham Man - possible visual remnant of the animal-like warrior?

An excavation in Finglesham (UK) yielded a piece of archeological evidence with a very interesting imagery: a naked figure (possibly male), wearing only a belt and a horned helmet while holding two spears, one in each hand. The imagery appears close to the Torslunda plates of a similarly dressed figure and a bipedal creature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FingleshamMan1965Buckle.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Finglesham_Buckle_at_the_Ashmolean_Museum.jpg

179.218.212.120 (talk) 00:00, 30 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting indeed! I will look into that, thank you Alcaios (talk) 14:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some more historiography would be nice

From reading the article, I do not have a good sense of how the concept was developed in scholarly circles and what its reception was then and is now. I think that's something in this article that could use some improvement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.71.97.185 (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. This article says nothing about how this concept was developed. Gold333 (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did the kóryos actually exist, or is it a hypothesis?

The lead says it is "hypothesized" and "theorized", but the article text makes some very specific assertions (e.g., the beginning of the "Rite of passage" section). What's up? CohenTheBohemian (talk) 14:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

this entire submission lacks any legitimate academic writing and has no basis in material facts. Why is this page approved? 2603:7000:801:1143:F842:3EB8:92BA:975C (talk) 13:27, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
More thoughts on issues with the page (as of 17 August [1]):
1. WP:NPOV: The lead states that kóryos is hypothetical, but not all the article reflects this, especially Rite of passage and Wolf-like behavior. Nor is there any discussion or criticism of the idea. This is a bit surprising given its obvious weaknesses.
2. WP:WEIGHT: The Historiography section is too brief for something that is ultimately a historiographical artefact. Moreover, its history of Nazi and alt-right associations and rehabilitation by contemporary science seems pretty important.
3. WP:UNDUE/WP:SYNTH/WP:OR: The supporting evidence – all the Attestations section and large parts of others – is much longer than the sections on the kóryos itself. Also, the implications are that this evidence explains why archaeologists support the idea, and that these groups are descended from a common PIE ancestor, but this goes unsaid. The importance of the linguistic evidence is also unstated.
4. WP:INTEGRITY: The citations often link several sources together, which weakens text-source integrity and makes them difficult to check. For instance, the first line of Rite of passage reads
"The kóryos were composed of adolescent males (presumably from 12–13 up to 18–19 years of age), usually coming from prominent families and initiated together into manhood as an age-class cohort."
There are three or four claims here supported by four sources, but which supports which? The specific ages are probably from Kristiansen et al, but that's OR (see point 5). Note that weasel word "presumably", too; there are a few of these.
5. I haven't been able to check most of the citations, but at least some are unreliable. For example, the Historiography section has three paragraphs with five citations.
The first paragraph is fine.
The second cites Nordvig to support the claim that there is "new evidence supporting the existence of such brotherhoods of warriors in early Germanic and other Indo-European cultures"; the chapter says that "The last three decades of archaeological research has yielded strong evidence for the aristocratic warband theory from the Vendel Era" (550-800AD, not PIE period), but describes thought on Männerbunde as split into two camps, and older warrior fraternities as "highly theoretical".
The third also uses Nordvig to support Kershaw's book as being "influential", but the article does not judge the book at all. There's another cite for a source I couldn't check.
So, of four cites I can judge, two are fine, but so far as I can tell, one is partly right at best and one is completely wrong.
Another example: the Rite of passage sentence in point 4 cites Kristiansen et al., which includes this:
"They describe, as a typical feature of these societies, the formation of warrior youth bands consisting of boys from 12–13 up to 18–19 years of age, when they were ready to enter the ranks of fully grown warriors. Such youthful war-bands were led by a senior male, and they were often named 'Black Youth' or given names of dogs and wolves as part of their initiation rituals."
But the previous sentence reads: "It [Indo-European expansion] gains further support from later historical sources from India to the Baltic and Ireland." The "12–13 up to 18–19" is not describing PIE koryos at all, but common themes in later Indo-European societies. Confusing PIE and later societies is also linked to the OR issues in point 3.
To be fair, I haven’t been able to check most of the sources, and plenty of those I could find were fine.
6. WP:BESTSOURCES: It's odd that the "standard" book (McCone) is cited three times in the article, and the other book mentioned as notable (Kershaw) 11 times, but the papers by Anthony & Brown and Sergent are cited 15 times each.
7. There's nothing in the main article about physical evidence for this, which seems like a big issue and is apparently what the Anthony & Brown paper is about. There's a lot of emphasis on conclusions but less on evidence.
8. The first line of Wolf-like behavior describes the kóryos members as "shape-shifting", which is at least careless writing.
I am not sure how to proceed, but hopefully someone who has access to more sources than me will be able to deal with these issues. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 13:59, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with all the above. Somebody went… wild, with this article. Volunteer Marek 03:12, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Really, both the hypothesis and this article look like a molehill made into a mountain. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have to admit I did contribute to the article... but only on the etymology part, since there are philologists and experts in the many Indo-European languages who do find the "*koryo-" word in the languages they respectively study, e.g., "Corio-" in the Celtic branch.
If I may have a say, perhaps the etymology part, with the attestation in the ethnonyms, can be moved to the article about Indo-European vocabulary as just that, without going to the minutiae of what they represent. KHR FolkMyth (talk) 22:43, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That seems like a good idea to me, as it's not directly relevant to the article. Worse, I think that sort of material (not just etymological) is conflating armed forces with this specific hypothesis and creating OR (possibly careless scholarship in the sources, too). CohenTheBohemian (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The sources referenced in the article all focus on the same topic: the hypothesis of a rite of passage in Proto-Indo-European culture involving young men in arms. This reconstruction, like any attempt to understand Proto-Indo-European culture, is open to criticism. However, this topic is well-established within Indo-European studies. Numerous monographs address the concept of the Indo-European "Männerbund," which some scholars reconstruct as *kóryos in the proto-language.
Additionally, this subject holds broader significance because the idea of the "Männerbund" was appropriated by Nazi propagandists in the first half of the 20th century to justify German conquests in Central and Eastern Europe. This is not a fabricated topic; there is extensive scholarly discussion on it. The reconstruction is based on cultural similarities observed among historically documented Indo-European-speaking peoples. While the reconstructed concept can be criticized, it is not a fringe theory, and many respected experts have discussed it.
Cebrián, Reyes B. (2010). "Some Greek Evidence for Indo-European Youth Contingents of Shape Shifters". The Journal of Indo-European Studies. 38 (3/4): 343–358. ISSN 0092-2323.
Daryaee, Touraj (2018). "The Iranian Männerbund Revisited". Iran and the Caucasus. 22 (1): 38–49. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20180104. ISSN 1573-384X.
Falk, Harry (1986). Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des vedischen Opfers (in German). Hedwig Falk. ISBN 978-3-925270-00-0.
Kershaw, Priscilla K. (1997). The One-eyed God : Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Männerbünde. Monograph Series. Vol. 36. Journal of Indo-European Studies. ISBN 978-0941694742.
Sergent, Bernard (2003). "Les troupes de jeunes hommes et l'expansion indo-européenne". Dialogues d'Histoire Ancienne. 29 (2): 9–27. doi:10.3406/dha.2003.1560.
McCone, Kim R. (1987). "Hund, Wolf und Krieger bei den Indogermanen". In Meid, Wolfgang (ed.). Studien zum indogermanischen Wortschatz (in German). Institut für Sprachwissenschaft. pp. 101–154. ISBN 978-3-85124-591-2.
Petrosyan, Armen (2011). "Armenian Traditional Black Youths: the Earliest Sources". Journal of Indo-European Studies. 39 (3/4) (2019 ed.): 155–164. 2A01:E0A:969:1590:BCC0:C600:7231:88D (talk) 17:34, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming of the article

In response to the criticisms on this page, I have renamed the article to "Männerbund," the term historically used in scholarly work to describe this concept. Scholarly critiques of the Männerbund have also been incorporated into the article. A move request should be submitted at Wikipedia:Requested_moves. Some of the content removed by Volunteer Marek should be reinstated in the future. Scholars have reconstructed the Männerbund concept using later sources from Indo-European-speaking cultures, a reconstruction that has been criticized by other experts. This should be clearly stated in the article when the deleted content is restored. Regards, Alcaios (talk) 18:19, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

the stuff I removed was mostly NOT about *Proto* Indo Europeans. Volunteer Marek 21:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not against re-naming the article "Männerbund". But maybe we should use a more general term like "Indo-European war-band"?
Also, I don't think the article claimed that later Celtic and Germanic warbands were *Proto* Indo-Europeans. It only presented them as possible *survivals* and evidence that a Proto-Indo-European *koryos had existed. That's how they should be presented in the new article. – Asarlaí (talk) 10:41, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Volunteer Marek: this is how scholars reconstruct Proto-Indo-European culture. However, this method has been criticized by other scholars. For example, Zimmer writes: "Such groups may well have been part of [Proto-Indo-European] social life and may be postulated with good reason, but this assumption can in no way be considered probable, as the sources simply are insufficient to bear the weight of argument needed." Editors have criticized the article for this reason, noting that scholarly critiques of the method were not mentioned in the article (this is no longer the case). The content you removed was supported by sources relevant to the article's subject. For instance, regarding Ancient Greece, the reference was Cebrián, Reyes B. (2010). "Some Greek Evidence for Indo-European Youth Contingents of Shape Shifters". The Journal of Indo-European Studies. 38 (3/4): 343–358. ISSN 0092-2323.. Alcaios (talk) 17:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The intro to this section (renamed **Proposed** attestations) now states: "Scholars have drawn on the following examples from documented Indo-European-speaking cultures to reconstruct the concept of the Männerbund. However, this approach has been criticized by other experts like Stefan Zimmer, who argues that the sources reference various distinct institutions from different time periods, all loosely connected to the general concept of a 'war band'". It's clear to the reader that some scholars have used those later attestations to reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European concept, and that some other scholars have criticized their method. Alcaios (talk) 17:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think of those clarifications/explanations are present and if the source itself links these to *Proto* Indo Europeans then the material can be added in. Volunteer Marek 00:21, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As the author of most of those critiques, the name of the concept is not really relevant. What's relevant is that:
  • The page is written as if a hypothesis were settled fact
  • There's lots of unimportant but easy to find information (e.g. historical linguistics) and elaboration of peripheral details (e.g. attributes and proposed attestations)
  • There's not much core information (e.g. history of the idea, its status amongst historians)
  • The sources are tricky to check.
I do appreciate your changes, and the point that the attestations are how scholars reconstruct this. But there's still work to be done. I can go through and rephrase things as "The koryos may have been...", but I don't know enough to do more. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This concept is a scholarly reconstruction that has received extensive attention in Indo-European studies. You may find a detailed article on it in the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (link). While one could insert "may have" or "possibly" into each sentence to emphasize the hypothetical nature of the reconstruction, the introduction—referring to a "theoretical" Proto-Indo-European brotherhood and noting that scholars have proposed the Männerbund based on "later Indo-European traditions and myths"—already makes it clear that this is a cultural model developed by researchers. The article now also includes critical perspectives from other experts in the field (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*K%C3%B3ryos#Cultural_reconstruction_and_criticism). Alcaios (talk) 02:01, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Quelle: Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:*K%C3%B3ryos