Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indo-European smith god

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect‎ to Proto-Indo-European mythology#Smith god. (non-admin closure) Alpha3031 (t • c) 09:39, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indo-European smith god

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The page boldly asserts proto indo-europeans had a smith god in their pantheon, but this goes well beyond the sources. The first source cited actually says, "The argument for a single mythical prototype is not strong." (West, 2007:156). As the page notes, there are many smith gods in the daughter linguistically-defined groups that speak indo-european languages, but it failed to mention what the sources say, that smiths are also found in most non indo-european cultures too (I have added that now). One major issue that this page fails to grapple with is that proto-indoeuropean culture is a proto culture that groups descend from, going back well before the iron age, and in some cases to before the bronze age (copper age). It is not clear that a smith god associated with iron (the magic of removing metal from a rock in very high heat) would be in any way related to a god of bronze or copper working. The fact that there is no commonality of gods in daughter cultures lends strength to this reasoning. Yet if there were a god, there is almost nothing that can be said about it, and so a wikipedia page is not possible. This is already fully covered in [1] and I am not convinced a redirect is required as it doesn't seem like a plausible search term - but I don't object to redirect if others feel it is. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, History, and Mythology. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to the proposed target. Not implausible as a search term IMO and it leaves the article history intact in case there is anything useful to merge. (Edit: I considered a rename to something like "Indo European smith god hypothesis" but it does not seem to be notable even as a hypothesis/theory and there is very little info on Google Scholar). (t · c) buidhe 08:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Buidhe. Srnec (talk) 21:16, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect or delete per the nomination and buidhe. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:27, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.