Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 October 17

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October 17

Equivalents to Basic English/Special English in Spanish, French, and German?

Hi! I noted that Simple English Wikipedia has a basis in Basic English, Special English, two standardized simplified Englishes. Do you know of any equivalents in Spanish, French, and/or German? If so, they could form bases of Simple versions of their Wikipedias - Since I know there are large numbers of Spanish speakers in the United States who may have access to technology through public libraries but are not well educated, I think a Simple Spanish Wikipedia could be very helpful. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Basic English isn't meant so much for uneducated English speakers, but for speakers who have English as a second language, it being the language with the most second-language speakers in the world. French, Spanish and German are all easy to pronounce once you know the spelling rules, while English is a crap shoot in that respect. But none of them takes kindly to having its grammatical desinences removed. μηδείς (talk) 03:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

French? Easier than English, maybe. But it has plenty of stuff you just have to know, especially in terms of when letters are silent and when they aren't. (An old colleague summed it up as "don't pronounce anything in the second half of the word", which works pretty well for, say, prennent.)--Trovatore (talk) 04:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It's true that Basic English was meant for ESL purposes, but Simple English Wikipedia is also trying to target people who are relatively uneducated and children as well as ESL. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

To be honest I don't think SEW has a clear rationale. It was my understanding that it was supposed to be able to treat material that was just as difficult, but using simple language. The problem is, of course, that in practice this is not in fact possible — while it is certainly true that it is a bad habit to use unnecessarily difficult language, it is also true that precise discussion of specialized material requires specialized language.

As a same-level-of-sophistication copy of en.wiki using simple language, SEW is just a flat failure. As a "children's WP" it could possibly make sense, but in that case it probably shouldn't e treated as a "language" WP, but as a different WikiMedia project. --Trovatore(talk) 04:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Would it be fair to say that it is difficult to introduce complicated/precise topics to relatively uneducated people anyway? If they aren't able to understand complex sentence patterns and/or terminology then it would be very difficult to discuss certain things with them. There are languages which by design have great difficulty in discussing things like sciences and modern technology (It can take a long White Hmong sentence to convey what a short English sentence can say) - Because of these two aspects we can have language wikis which aren't/can't be as "sophisticated" or "technical" as say, English and French WhisperToMe (talk) 04:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

“The untrained man reads a paper on natural science and thinks: ‘Now why couldn't he explain this in simple language.’ He can't seem to realize that what he tried to read was the simplest possible language – for that subject matter. In fact, a great deal of natural philosophy is simply a process of linguistic simplification – an effort to invent languages in which half a page of equations can express an idea which could not be stated in less than a thousand pages of so-called ‘simple’ language.” —A Canticle for Leibowitz

French may have a lot of silent letters but there is no confusion over how they are pronounced, nor is there confusion over how the non-silent ones are pronounced. And if one drops the verb endings it is simply no longer French. Those languages are simply not amenable to the same project that English is, for the same reasons I just gave, regardless of the uneducated trying to take advantage. μηδείς (talk) 04:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

There is confusion over whether they are silent or not, and no simple rules for determining that. There are also one-off pronunciations specific to a given word (e.g. the schwa in the first syllable of faisons). --Trovatore (talk) 04:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Getting back to your original question, the only non-English equivalent of a standardized simplified language that I know of is français fondamental. These languages are restricted on purpose; any natural language, including the Hmong languages, can express complicated concepts through loanwords, calques, etc., if the speakers are motivated to do so. I think that the paucity of scientific literature in Hmong is more a product of the social situation of Hmong speakers than of the languages themselves. Also, just so we're clear in this discussion, Basic English and Simple English have nothing to do with pronunciation or spelling reform. Lesgles(talk) 05:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's true that natural languages can adopt loan words, etc. And I agree that the limited natural languages do have to do with cultural/situational issues. But sometimes it can become cumbersome to incorporate and explain all of these loanwords. In some countries people switch from their native tongue to a second or third language just to discuss scientific topics/etc. Anyway, thanks for the tip! I'll review the failed French Simple nominations, and then make a proposal regarding starting a "Simple French" Wikipedia based on "français fondamental"WhisperToMe (talk) 06:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You'll have to give examples, Trovatore. Prennent is perfectly regular in regards to pronunciation for a third person verb and presents no confusion. French spelling may be more complicated than its surface phonetics, but that is not bad given it conveys information you'd otherwise have to gather from context. μηδείς (talk) 05:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I have never lived in France, so I don't really know, but I was taught in high school that prennent is a single-syllable word. I have heard other French speakers say it with two syllables, but the second syllable was at most a little glide. It certainly does not rhyme with, say,maintnent. --Trovatore (talk) 08:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's just a rule you have to learn that the -ent ending of otherwise polysyllabic third person plural verbs are silent. You have to apply grammatical criteria; it's not like Spanish where surface orthography tells you all you need to know. But it's not like prennent has an irregular pronunciation once you know the rules. μηδείς (talk) 18:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

On Trovatore's "little glide". Speakers in the South of France have a schwa at the end of prennent, as they do with word-final e. I also recently discovered that some dialects systematically pronounce the -ent ending, and do indeed rhyme prennent and maintenant. It is regarded as very non-standard, a dialectal form rather than an accent. I am trying to find out more, but there is such a stigma attached to non-standard French, people don't like to admit to theses variants. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I hadn't known about the regional aspect. I did know that these syllables come back in sung French.--Trovatore (talk) 00:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I started a Meta page to explore the concept of a Simple French Wikipedia:Meta:Babel#Simple_French_Wikipedia_proposal_based_on_fran.C3.A7ais_fondamental WhisperToMe (talk) 06:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you give a IPA transcription or description of how they pronounce the -ent in prennent, Judith? (BTW, are you yourself Judith, or are you telling Judith it's you?)μηδείς (talk) 03:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Ils prennent. Standard French: [/il pʁɛn/], non-standard French (heard in Sarthe and Mayenne French départements:[/il pʁə.nɑ̃/] I don't know how to get rid of the square brackets (I use the IPA-fr template) — AldoSyrt(talk) 08:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

See the new article "Français fondamental".—Wavelength (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Help with Chinese names

Hopefully quite a simple question: I'd like to use this book as a reference, but don't know how to cite the names of its authors. They're listed by Google as "Dan Yao, Jinhui Deng, Feng Wang, Huiyun Tang"; however the front cover of the book reads "Yao Dan et al", and Feng Wang redirects to Wang Feng. So, are Google's versions reversed/westernised? And if so should we return them to family-name-first per WP:NC-ZH? Thanks! – Arms & Hearts (talk) 01:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• Google probably listed the name in western order. Chinese names#Chinese names in English states that in most situations Chinese people use the family name first. It may help to try to find the Chinese characters of the authors. Deng, Yao, Wang, and Tang are all Chinese surnames.WhisperToMe (talk) 01:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

If you're trying to work out which is which, but are not up on Chinese surnames, it's useful to note that Chinese given names are often (not always) two syllables, while surnames rarely (though occasionally) are. Henry^Flower 04:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes it looks like these names have been re-ordered - so if you are citing them as "Surname, Initial." they would be "Yao, D., Deng, J., Wang, F., and Tang, H." --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(Belated) thanks everyone! – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Linear A and Linear B

I couldn't find mention of this in the articles Linear A and Linear B, but in what sense are they "linear"? Being that Linear A is still unintelligible and that these names were coined before Linear B was deciphered, I assume it must refer to something fairly superficial. Some orthographic feature, perhaps? 129.234.186.45 (talk) 09:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

From Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson: "The term 'Linear' was used not because the signs were written in sequence but because they consisted of lines inscibed on the flat surface of the clay. (...) This writing was quite different from the three-dimensional, engraved images of a third, primarily pictographic Cretan script." ([1])

I've added this to the Linear A article as well. - Lindert (talk) 09:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Lindert. I'm not sure I follow the "flat" vs. "three-dimensional" distinction, but the Linear scripts are certainly less pictographic and more... ahem, linear. 129.234.186.45 (talk) 11:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The terms were originally coined by Arthur Evans as part of his various speculations about the origin and development of writing. This is discussed in detail in "The Story of Archaeological Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Linear B" by Maurice Pope (ISBN 0-684-14303-8)... --AnonMoos (talk) 17:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Can someone point to a transliteration of a Linear A text assuming the values assigned to Linear B? μηδείς (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Older versions of the article have such ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Linear_A&oldid=492272596 etc.) AnonMoos (talk) 04:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"They need to see the new 4-84s to make sure it works with their OC"

From Punch-drunk love, what does it mean? Groupask (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't know about 4-84s, but OC usually means "original content". --Viennese Waltz 12:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Or Officer Commanding, Offensive Coordinator, Old Carthusian, etc. "usually", at best, depends on context and at worst a . Many more options on our OC dab page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Given the protagonist's occupation, "4/84s" might apply to a case of 4 times 84 (total of 336) flushable wipes. If you google "case of 4/84s" or even just "4/84s" you mainly get references to Cottonelle fresh flushable wipes. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. That still leave us with the question of OC, as well as the poor grammer of the sentence ... new 4.84s ... it works.--Tagishsimon (talk) 13:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It might not mean anything at all. It could be Hollywood Technobabble; designed to sound like he's saying something that has meaning, but doesn't. --Jayron32 13:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Jayron32. Note that the sentence in question is spoken, not by the Adam Sandler character, but by his sister to her coworker Lena and is clearly intended to relate to their job. In a hasty scan of the film's script, I don't see any mention of what their job actually is, so it's likely that the sentence is just supposed to be generic "job speak". Deor (talk) 16:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Is defer here wrong?

"Dear Cecil: Is it true that, as a class, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals are crazier than average? And that despite their training and experience, they can recognize their own issues less readily than the average nutcase? — Paul Cecil replies: I defer judgment on whether shrinks don’t recognize their problems. On the contrary, there are indications some mental health professionals enter the field because they do recognize their problems and think their work will help them get a grip."

It seems that the author thought 'refer'defer means something else. Groupask (talk) 13:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see an issue. The respondant is deferring his judgement on shrinks, whilst noting that some do know they're nuts. Where do you get your "refer" from? --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree - it looks fine to me -- Q Chris (talk) 13:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant "defer". OK, the author says "I defer judgment", I understand this as "I won't get into it myself", but then goes on "On the contrary", judging it. It seems that the author thought 'defer' means 'deny'. Groupask (talk) 13:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

"Defer" can mean to "put off to a later time", as in "Now is not the time to pass judgement on shrinks, so I'm not going to do that in answering your question" is basically what he is saying here. --Jayron32 13:57, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(EC) I parse it as the repondant saying he defers judgement, but notes that there are some indications to the contrary. None of that seems problematic to me. Certainly not enough to presume that the word used was ill-chosen, such that the substitute changes entirely the meaning of his response. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

But, wouldn't the sentence be better with "on the contrary" substituted for "However"? — Precedingunsigned comment added by Groupask (talk •contribs) 14:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The text you cited has "on the contrary" in it; however, I can see no "however". Lectonar (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The OP asked if "however" could be on the place of "on the contrary." OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Groupask that the passage contradicts itself -- it says that it defers judgement, and then makes a judgement. Looie496(talk) 15:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Only if you're unaware of the differences between indications and proof. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

But what does "on the contrary" refers to? It has to refer to something contrary to what will be said. If you say "I defer judgment about this, but/even if/however there is evidence to it", it makes sense. In the present form, the sentence doesn't make much sense. OsmanRF34(talk) 17:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) There are two different definitions of "defer". From Wiktionary: To submit to the opinion or desire of another in respect to their judgment or authority and To delay, or postpone, especially to postpone induction into military service. If it means the former (i.e., to be deferential to someone else) the speaker wouldn't offer his own opinion. If it means to delay, then the speaker wouldn't give his opinion in the next sentence -- that's not much of a delay! Either way, the speaker contradicted himself. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Or there is a "not" missing somewhere. "I won't defer judgment, on the contrary ..." would be OK. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I think Cecil meant what he said, more or less. "I decline at this time to commit myself to the proposition that shrinks don't recognize their problems. In fact, there is evidence for the contrary proposition." He doesn't commit himself to the contrary proposition either, but says there is evidence for it. He probably didn't choose the best possible wording, but it's not quite a self-contradiction. --Trovatore(talk) 03:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"Doctrine" used in a scientific context?

What is the metaphorical/figurative meaning of "doctrine"? I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of this sentence in a peer-reviewed journal:

• Research on symbiosis developed in virtual conflict with the aims and doctrines of the major biological disciplines for most of the 20th century.

The doctrine article suggests: "In some organizations, doctrine is simply defined as 'that which is taught', in other words the basis for institutional teaching of its personnel internal ways of doing business." Therefore, I am guessing that, in scientific institutions, doctrine is simply defined as 'that which is taught', and when used absolutely figuratively, forms the foundation of that particular discipline. I suggest you to google this article and read this abstract. I believe it's written very poetically. 140.254.226.244 (talk) 13:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The term is actually not all that widely used in science, but basically it is as you say, "that which is taught". The only scientific "doctrine" I'm really familiar with is the neuron doctrine, which is a set of beliefs about the structure of the nervous system. (By the way, if you were trying to link to a web page, it didn't work.) Looie496 (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Neither is evolutionism or evolutionist. Apparently, the journal article, The dynamics of symbiosis: an historical overview, does use American spelling, but also amusingly uses the term "evolutionist" as in "microbial evolutionists" or "classical neo-darwinian evolutionists". Another instance, "We so-called higher organisms did not just evolve from bacteria; we were created and maintained by bacteria," imprints an strong image in one's mind. Note how the sentence begins with "so-called" and ends with "by bacteria". With this slight wording, this article tries to imitate the words of a typical creationist but from a biologist's perspective. 140.254.121.36 (talk) 16:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

How about the term Central Dogma of Biology? That's a "dogma" I am quite familiar with. 140.254.121.36(talk) 17:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the sentence you quote, but two other 'doctrines' would be the evolutionary synthesis and the central dogma.μηδείς (talk) 17:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The discovery of Romance

When did people realize that tongues as Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, & cetera were all related? When was the lingual family of Romance languages proposed? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 16:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you check out the Wikipedia article on Romance languages. :-) The Romance languages are related to the Romans; the name Romanin the word stands for something. Those are all Romance languages, because they are derived from the Roman language, which is dead Latin. Latin, despite being "dead", is still being spoken and written and used in many academic disciplines. 140.254.121.36(talk) 17:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that they realised early on, because there is a degree of mutual intelligibility. I once heard a Portuguese friend hold a conversation with an Italian ice-cream man without either being able to speak the other's language. The relationship between French and Spanish is easy to spot once you write it down. In the Medieval period, every educated person would have been able to speak Latin too, so it wouldn't have taken a genius to see the similarities. Alansplodge (talk) 17:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Literate people in the areas where all these languages were spoken never lost consciousness that they were speaking a language which was a modified (they might have termed it "degenerate", "decayed" or "vulgarized") form of Latin. In each region, from Catalonia to Sicily, the question of whether people were speaking a separate language descended from Latin but entitled to consideration and respect in its own right, as opposed to a bad and ungrammatical localized Vulgar Latin, was debated for centuries. --Orange Mike |Talk 17:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

66.190.69.246 -- Up until around the time of Alcuin, people in Romance-speaking areas tended to pronounce written Latin using their own particular spoken vernacular dialect, and were not necessarily conscious that they spoke anything other than Latin. After that, the accumulated phonological, morphological, and grammatical changes became too great for it to remain practical to use Latin writing as a kind of loose spelling system for spoken Romance vernaculars, so that standardized Church Latin pronunciations started to be adopted, and Romance vernaculars started to be written quasi-phonetically. However, most early medieval Romance-speakers were not really aware of long-term language change, and often assumed that the ancient Romans spoke and wrote more or less as they did (i.e. using a written Latin which was very divergent from their spoken language). Dante was one of the first who forcefully and systematically presented evidence for change in the spoken language from ancient to medieval times, and classified the Romance languages into several approximate subgroups... AnonMoos (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Orange Mike and AnonMoos have covered this quite well. To emphasize the point by summing it up in one sentence; it is not the fact that these separate languages were related that was discovered, but the fact that they were separate languages which was discovered. μηδείς(talk) 19:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

More interesting would be to ask: when exactly did all these people realized that they were not speaking Latin anymore. OsmanRF34(talk) 23:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

At least as early as the Strasbourg Oaths, in the case of French. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Are the dh's in adiudha and cadhuna meant to represent edh (ð)? The text from the oath from our article:

[Old French:] “Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun saluament, d'ist di in auant, in quant Deus sauir et podir me dunat, si saluarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per dreit son fradra saluar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon uol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.”

μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes:[2][3][4]--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

If you really want more detailed analyses of this kind of issue, I will refer you to the articles Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache,dialect continuum, and post-creole continuum. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

"A(n) historic event" in American English

What fraction of American speakers say "an historic event" rather than "a historic event"? Is this regionally based? Duoduoduo(talk) 17:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you'd find hard evidence, but I would guess it's a very small fraction of American English speakers who speak thus. It's not all that uncommon in print, but consonant sounds following "an" are unnatural in American speech. When I see this in print, I imagine a Cockney accent: "an 'istoric event." Given that this makes more sense in British English, I would guess you'd see it more among people who are pretentious, linguistic prescriptivists, and/or New England aristocrats. --BDD (talk) 18:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See also H-dropping, which reminds me of another concept I was trying to get at: hypercorrection. --BDD (talk) 18:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

What led me to ask this question was that inthis article, the University of California-Berkeley scientist Geoff Marcy, who according to our wikibio is an American who got both his graduate and undergraduate degrees in California, wrote in an e-mail This is an historic discovery. He's probably not a New England aristocrat or a hypercorrecter. Duoduoduo (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm from New England, but very much NOT from an aristocratic background, and I use "an historic" and "a historic" somewhat interchangably. Both sound perfectly natural, so long you don't aspirate the "h" in the first. I would say /ænʔɪstɔərɨk/ for the first an /eɪhɪstɔərɨk/ for the second. The first sounds more casual, while the second is what I would say for emphasis; the distinction is like the distinction between pronouncing "the" as /ðə/ or /ðiː/, I would use "an historic" in the same contexts as I would use "/ðə/" and "a historic" in contexts where I would use /ðiː/. --Jayron32 18:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting, Jayron. My accent is mostly Buffalo, NY-based, and I always say /ʌhɪstɔərɨk/. So unlike you I use the casual pronunciation /ʌ/ before the /h/. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Buffalo's native dialect is Inland Northern American English, while New England has a different dialect: New England English. Of course, I have developed a somewhat peculiar idiolect since my childhood. My New England accent, which was full-on before I left New England at 18, and still creeps back when I get around the right kind of people, has been tempered by living away from New England for the past 18 years. I now speakGeneral American or fairly close to it, so I was only offering the above as a single data point. --Jayron32 22:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Even as a kid, I followed American politics. And to this day I remember a cover of TIME about the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro as Walter Mondale's VP running mate in the United States presidential election, 1984: it read, "A Historical Decision". SeeTIME's archived front cover pic. (Erm, and yup, I got the "remembered" caption wrong.) --Shirt58 (talk) 09:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

This was discussed just last month [5] and many times in the past [6][7]. μηδείς (talk) 18:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't know about percentages ('a historic' is in the majority I think) but it's probably going a bit far to think only a tiny aristocratic segment use 'an'. I usually use 'an historic', but then again my speech has always been a bit on the pretensious (in the US at least) side - I'll often use words such as 'quite' instead of 'really' or 'perhaps' instead of 'maybe'. AlexiusHoratius 20:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• I think it's a learnèd affectation. I will say /æn hɪs'tɔrɨk/ or /ænɪs'tɔrɨk/ /ʌ hɪs'tɔrɨk/ in free variation, (and /eɪ hɪs'tɔrɨk/ as a citation form,) but I remember remarking to myself that "an historic" was odd when I first encountered it in elementary school in the Delaware Valley. The nunated forms are acquired secondarily so far as I am concerned. μηδείς (talk) 00:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

In my personal writing style, the rule is simple: an before a word stressed on the 2nd syllable, and a before a word stressed on the 1st, 3rd, or 4th syllable.

To wit:

Stress on First Syllable	Stress on Second Syllable	Stress on Third Syllable	Stress on Fourth Syllable
a heartthrob, a hardcase, a history, a habit, a hero	an historic occasion, an habitual offender, an homogenous culture, an heroic act	a heterogenous mixture, a homozygous genotype	a heterosexual man

Some people today consider this practice somewhat dated, but I find that it still tends to make quite an impression! Pine (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese help: How is this read?

• File:Beijing SLS Flags 4515.jpg

The storefront says "双隆盛旗亚" - The characters would be Shuāng Lo?ng Sheng/Cheng? qí yà - What would the second and third characters be read as?

Also how do I say Category:Shops in Beijing by product in Chinese ?

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

From Googling around it appears to be Shuang1 Long2 Sheng4 ("Double Abundance"?). Note that the fifth character is actually 业/業 (ye4).--Cam (talk) 02:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the easiest way I know of for people (like me) who don't know Chinese is to put it into Google Translate, make sure the Ä toggle is on, and look below to find the pinyin: "Shuāng lóngshèng qí yà". Not foolproof, though, since sometimes a character can be pronounced two different ways and Google may not always divide the words properly. Lesgles (talk) 15:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's 双隆盛旗业 (Shuāng lóng shèng qí yè, if Google Translation's transcription can be trusted). The last two characters, 旗业, are the description of their line of business - "Flags Industry /Flag Manufacturing" (formed on a common pattern seen e.g. in 林业 "forestry" etc.). Shuāng of course is "double", while 隆 and 盛 both appear to me as some of those several characters with a nebulous good meaning of sorts ("grand", "prosperous", "flourishing", "abundant", etc) - members of the same family of characters that you often see in company names, along with e.g. 丰,兴,喜,博,福， etc. Think of the entire title as "Double Acme Flags Inc." :-) -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Here's that company's website (also in English): http://www.slsflag.com/

Language issue on the Mathematics Refdesk

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics#"The" calculus. The question is why does "the calculus" take an article but other branches of mathematics such as algebra, geometry or trigonometry don't. Roger (talk) 20:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's because 'the' calculus is specifically the integral and differential calculus (the Major-General was very good at it) - 'calculus' without the article used to have a much wider range of meaning. Nowadays the article is often dropped - but the Lambda calculus keeps it, as do other more specific topics such as the binomial theorem (...lot o' news...) AlexTiefling (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That was asked a number of weeks ago. The answer at least in part has to do with the fact that 'calculus' means 'reckoning'. Hence, "the reckoning". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

That makes no sense at all. How does that distinguish the calculus (meaning a particular collection of mathematical methods initiated by Newton and Leibniz) from, say, the propositional calculus? As far as I can see, no one has given a remotely plausible answer to the "why" part of the question, and many of the participants simply refuse to acknowledge the descriptive basis of the question at all (the fact that "the calculus" as a fixed phrase has this particular meaning). --Trovatore (talk) 03:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The intro of our article calculus says Calculus has historically been called "the calculus of infinitesimals" . So maybe (speculation here) everyone was calling it "the calculus of infinitesimals" and calling other things "the propositional calculus" or whatever, but 99% of references to "the ... calculus ..." were to "the calculus of infinitesimals", and finally people just dropped "of infinitesimals" because they thought it was obvious which calculus they were referring to? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

That rings true to me. Not sure how to check it, though. --Trovatore (talk) 19:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I hope it's understood that "the calculus" is pretty much archaic nowadays. Mathematicians almost always just say "calculus".Looie496 (talk) 15:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Mathematicians don't talk about calculus much at all, except as an annoying class they have to teach :-). I wouldn't call the calculus archaic, exactly, at least not in the usual non-linguist's understanding of that word. More like "dated"; carries a sort of a classic feel that can come across as an affectation if used outside extremely formal contexts. --Trovatore (talk) 18:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

caisse

Someone can record the pronunciation of the word caisse with a Quebec accent please ? Fête (talk) 21:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You already asked this, and were given good answers. Please, go to YouTube and find videos of Quebecois politicians discussing appropriate topics.AlexTiefling (talk) 22:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Record in Wikimedia. Fête (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't be so hostile, Alex. User Fête may not understand the IPA. Do you understand the International Phonetic Alphabet, Fête? The answers I gave above imply it is pronounced to rhyme with English case or to sound like cah-ess run together almost as if it were rhyming with General American "goddess" with a silent "d", or close to "kice", similar to the way you described your own username vowel being pronounced on my talk page. Tiefling's suggestion that you search Youtube is a good one. Perhaops he can find a link to offer you, rather than telling you to find one on your own? μηδείς (talk) 22:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand IPA either. That's why I thought the YouTube suggestion was smart. But that wasn't my suggestion - it was made in the thread which is still visible further up this page, which the same OP started, asking the same question. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

My bad, that was Clarityfiend, might try their talk page if my explanation isn't clear enough. μηδείς (talk) 23:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

fête

Why Quebeckers pronounce "fight" for the word fête ? Fête (talk) 23:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See Quebec French phonology. --Jayron32 23:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See below: OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Nous t'avons deja dit beaucoups de fois que <<fête>> se prononce [faɛ̯t] ou [fei̯t] en francais quebecois. Tu dis que tu entends l'IPA. On ne peut pas dire pourquoi c'est vrai. C'est simplement vrai que se prononce comme ca. Il faut lire http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonétique_historiqueμηδείς (talk) 00:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

What μηδείς said. And when <e>'s put on little party hats, it's a festival time in anyone's (strictly speaking, mostly inRomance languages) language.--Shirt58 (talk) 11:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Diphthongs

Why Quebeckers make diphthongs. Fête (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Language change? OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See above. --Jayron32 23:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

extrême

Why the word extrême cannot pronounce as /ɛk.stʁaɛ̯m/ in Quebec French ? Fête (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The circumflex here is purely orthographic; it does not indicate a long vowel in Quebec French. See this chapter for a discussion of this and other exceptions, which I hope will satisfy your thirst for knowledge about long ê. Lesgles (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Now that's a weird one. Why would there be a circumflex there? I don't know of any extresmus or extresmo in Latin or any neo-Latin language. --Trovatore (talk) 18:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Accent of Gaspésie

I want to listen the accent of Gaspésie ? Fête (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Listen here. I get about one word in 25; in Montreal, I get three out of five. Bielle(talk) 04:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Céline Dion

Céline Dion is French ? Fête (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Canadian. See Celine Dion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by88.104.5.244 (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Ethnically, she is kinda French. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

That would make me kinda Viking, since I have ancestors from Iceland? No, she's Canadian, specifically Quebecoise. Not French.Mingmingla (talk) 01:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't the term, Canadienne? Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:51, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Only in French. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 04:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

But then, in French, adjectives are not capitalized, even if derived from proper nouns, so Céline Dion est canadienne. —Kpalion^(talk) 14:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) She's French Canadian. Note that that article says French Canadian or Francophone Canadian (also Canadien in Canadian English or in Canadian French).... Presumably for a female the English synonym Canadien becomes Canadienne (?) Duoduoduo (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Luc Bourgeois

Luc Bourgeois is French or Quebeckers ? Fête (talk) 01:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Il est québécois, fr:Luc Bourgeois. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Fete, did you read the box which is heading this page? it say "You can search first. Please do this".

There is a search box on every single wikipedia page. happy searching! --Lgriot (talk) 11:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Pourquoi croyez-vous que ceci est un question juste pour un lieu qui discute les langues? AlexTiefling (talk) 11:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

accent of Quebec City

In Quebec City, the word fête is pronounced /fɛːt/ or /faɛ̯t/ ? Fête (talk) 11:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Pourquoi repetez-vous ces questions si similies? AlexTiefling (talk) 11:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, this user was banned from the French wikipedia for similar obsessive behaviour, including on the ref desk. --Xuxl (talk) 13:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

...and according to his page he is living in Quebec!!! a local expert you might think. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

C'est pas surprennant, ça. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

accent of Quebec City

I want to listen accent of Quebec City. Fête (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Might I suggest you take a stroll down to the shops and listen to the folks chatting. You are in a good place to here a quebec accent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by86.4.182.75 (talk) 19:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Angela Tong

Angela Tong speaks French with an Quebec accent ? Fête (talk) 16:19, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Pourriez-vous expliquer pourquoi vous, qui êtes québecois et francophone vous-même, nous avez demandez plusieurs questions comme ça?AlexTiefling (talk) 16:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Est-ce qu'on peut tutoyer? Je ne crois pas que Fête a dit qu'il parle français nativement dans sa page user. On ne sait pas que soit sa langue maternelle. μηδείς (talk) 20:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Toi, Medeis, je peux tutoyer, je crois. Nous ne sommes pas toujours d'accord, mais nous nous comprenons assez bien. Ce type-ci, alors, je ni connais ni comprends point. Je ne le vais pas tutoyer, sinon je recois un reponse, un mot, qui signifie q'il a lu ce que j'ai ecrit. (Et je suis desole, mais cet ordinateur n'a pas les accents si faciles que l'autre.) AlexTiefling (talk) 22:16, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Il faut lire ce qu'il m'a dit dans ma page user, Alex. Je le pense bon type. J'espere sa reponse maintent, mais je crois de ce qu'il m'a dit qu'il parle nativement le cantonais. Par ce que je ne sais pas aussi utiliser les accents avec mon ordinateur, il faut que je vous prie pardon de tout le monde, mais je n'essayerai pas de les utiliser. μηδείς (talk) 23:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Belgian accent

In Belgian French, the word caisse is pronounce /kɛs/ ou /kɛːs/ ? Fête (talk) 00:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I know that you are blocked from editing French Wikipedia, for whatever reason, but I assume you can read French Wikipedia. All of the phonological questions you are asking can be answered by reading the articles on French Wikipedia, fr:Français de Belgique has information on the pronunciation of Belgian French. Similar articles exist on French Wikipedia for other varieties of French, so you can get more answers that way before you have to ask here. --Jayron32 01:14, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

fête

In American English, the word fête is pronounced /feɪt/ or /fɛt/ ? Fête (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Both, according to the Merriam-Webster New Collegiate Dictionary on my desk. Deor (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

muffin

In American English, the word muffin is pronounced /ˈmʌfɪn/ or /ˈmʌfən/ ? Fête (talk) 14:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It could be pronounced either way, or /ˈmʌfn/. These questions are getting pretty annoying. Looie496 (talk) 15:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you look things up in the obvious place (in this case, a dictionary)? I propose that everyone just ignore these questions that the OP could have looked up for himself. Duoduoduo (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

expresse

In Quebec French, the word expresse is pronounced /ɛkspʁɛs/ or /ɛkspʁaɛ̯s/ ? Fête (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Look it up in a dictionary. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I haven't Quebec French dictionary. Fête (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say that we won't be able to supply you with one, one word at a time. Have you considered responding to the many, many attempts at interaction that people have made with you further up this page? It's very frustrating to deal with a person who makes repeated demands for information, but won't answer questions themselves, or provide clarifications when asked. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Rather than criticizing, can we not perhaps search for a dictionary for the user? Here is a book at amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Pronunciation-Canadian-French-Douglas-Walker/dp/0776645005 and here are various other resources at Google forCanadian Pronunciation. Rather than telling Fête to look things up, perhaps we can tell him where? μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

A fair point. I'm more thinking of the interaction side of using the Reference Desk, rather than the actual answer to the question. More flies with honey and all that. I've only ever been to Quebec on two very brief occasions, and made myself understood with my English schoolboy French. I believe you as both a North American and a more accomplished linguist than I am may have a better idea of where to look for practical help for Fete.AlexTiefling (talk) 23:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)