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June 4

Harappan Seals Website

I would like a Sanskrit scholar to evaluate my website, Harappan Seals, to determine whether my partial decipherment of Harappan could be valid.

http://harappanseals.piczo.com/?nsrc=none&g=42827102&pg=y&cr=2

Thanks in advance, S. M. Sullivan -- 02:03, 4 June 2010 User:S. M. Sullivan

It could be considered quite problematic to try to connect such signs with Brahmi script letters, since there's no real evidence that Brahmi script predates the Persian empire's adoption of Aramaic as its official administrative language ca. 500 BC (which would have been the first time that there had been significant use of alphabetic writing in areas very closely adjacent to the areas of Indian civilization). What was happening between 1500 BC and 500 BC that would have allowed any kind of continuous tradition to be maintained for a thousand years connecting fallen Harappan civilization with future alphabets? AnonMoos (talk) 03:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Brahmi isn't an alphabet, it is a syllabary writing system, as are most Indian writing systems. It's very unlikely that a syllabary evolved from an alphabetic system, what usually happens is that you have a system with pictograms, which simplifies into a syllabary, which develops into an alphabet over time. What was happening in Harappa 1500 BC - 500 BC? Supposedly the Indo-Aryan invasion took place c 1500 BC, but DNA evidence does not support this. People did vanish from Harappan towns during this time period. Since Assyrian power reached a height around 1200 BC, I'm guessing the Assyrians took the Harappans away as slaves. They had a habit of doing this to their neighbors. While you are not a Sanskrit scholar, I see from your user page that you know Arabic. Would you take a look at the seals and see if you recognize any Semitic names? They could be personal or place names, as I am finding. (I should really ask an Assyriologist, but since you responded, maybe you can help.)

One more thing, before you reply again, please read the whole site. You will find many photos of the seals in question toward the end. S. M. Sullivan (talk) 02:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

According to the best modern linguistic criteria, Indic writing systems are NOT considered syllabaries, since in a true syllabary, the syllables KA, KI, and KU, for example will be written with completely distinct glyphs, so that it's not possible to separate out any common visual "K" grapheme from these three written signs (and similarly, it's not possible to separate out any common visual "U" grapheme from the three written signs "KU", "TU", "PU"). Take a glance at my previous remarks on Talk:Baybayin, and look at the article on the Japanese kana writing systems to see what a real syllabary looks like. Furthermore, to get at the Indus valley, the Assyrians would have had to conquer Iran, which intervenes between Mesopotamia and the Indus -- and there's no evidence that they ever did so. In any case, the rise of Assyria occurred after the downfall of Indus valley civilization. And the problem with trying to find Arabic names is that Arabic phonology is heavily-dependent on distinctions involving emphatic consonants, guttural consonants, and a number of other contrasts which are unlikely to be represented in any writing system devised to represent a Dravidian language -- which means that it would extremely problematic to use resemblance to Arabic names to try to support an incomplete and insecure decipherment. Also, the evidence is that during the second millennium BC, Arabs were pretty much confined to Arabia... AnonMoos (talk) 10:59, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying to think of an example of a syllabary which developed into an alphabet, and I haven't been able to find one. It wouldn't surprise me if you can find one, but I don't think your "syllabary, which develops into an alphabet over time" is valid as a generalisation. --ColinFine (talk) 22:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

As far as we have semi-solid evidence, there's no real reason to believe that the principle of alphabetic writing was invented from scratch more than once -- when the slightly peculiar Egyptian writing system (not particularly a syllabary) influenced the creation of a consonantal alphabet used to write a Semitic language, probably before 1500 B.C. All subsequent alphabets (even if the letter shapes were completely new, as in Ogham and Hangul) were invented by people who knew about the existence of other alphabetic writing systems... AnonMoos (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Since you do not know any Sanskrit, and evidently have not read the site as I asked, please let someone else take this query.S. M. Sullivan (talk) 05:07, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I actually know a little Sanskrit (mainly that which is most directly relevant to the linguistic reconstruction of certain features of Proto-Indo European), though I'm not sure how important that is in the current context. More pertinent is that I have enough general linguistic and basic historical knowledge for several of your assertions to raise red flags. And the more that you indulge in fanciful pseudo-history (such as the Assyrian conquest of Mohenjo-Daro), the less is my desire to carefully read through your site... AnonMoos (talk) 13:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Afination?

Is there such word as afination or affination in English? As in the tuning of an instrument.. Thanks for any help 188.81.143.212 (talk) 17:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

There's this word [1] to do with purifying and separating.87.102.32.39 (talk) 20:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

... and the Wiktionary entry, but no mention of tuning instruments. This is usually just called fine tuning, but the term "afination" does seem to be used occasionally, especially for guitars. Is it borrowed from another language? (I thought it might be French but they don't have it in Wiktionnaire.) Dbfirs 22:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

In Portguese it's 'Afinação' and probably similar in a few other latin based languages... I'm living in Portugal now which is what sparked my interest.. Thanks for the help 188.82.154.246 (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Đ & Ð

Looking at MediaWiki talk:Edittools, I was surprised to see that there's a discussion about having different buttons for these characters. When I link to them, I see that Đ is a D with a stroke and Ð is an edh; however, I can't quite imagine why we distinguish them. Why don't we just say that Serbo-Croatian and Icelandic use the same character with somewhat different miniscule forms and significantly different pronunciations? Nyttend (talk) 17:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Because Unicode distinguishes them. Capital D with a stroke is U+0110 and capital edh is U+00D0. They may look alike to the human eye, but they're semantically different and so to computers they're as different as D and E. If you do a Google search or a word search in Microsoft Word for a Croatian or Vietnamese word written with capital edh, or for an Icelandic word written with capital D with a stroke, you won't find it. And Serbian and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias automatically switch between the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets - they know to switch between capital D with a stroke in Latin and Ђ in Cyrillic, but if you use capital edh, the software won't know what to do with it. +Angr 18:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, there's a third one: Ɖ is U+0189, capital African D. One reason for keeping the three separate may be that their lowercase equivalents all look different: lowercase d with a stroke is đ, lowercase edh is ð, and lowercase African d is ɖ. So if you want your software to convert capital letters to lower case, you have to keep the three capitals distinct so the software knows which lowercase letter to convert it to. +Angr 18:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, that's the same matter as distinguishing Latin Oo, Cyrillic Оо, and Greek Οο. --Магьосник (talk) 01:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

But why was Unicode programmed this way? Nyttend (talk) 01:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The fact that they have separate lowercase forms was probably the most important factor. There are explanations of the reasons why Unicode "lumps" some things and "splits" others on the Unicode site itself... AnonMoos (talk) 10:32, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Since you brought up the African D, I read Voiced retroflex plosive and listened to the sound sample. How is this type of consonant different from the "D" as used in English? Peter Isotalo's sound sample sounds identical to the "D" that I use in my American English speech. Nyttend (talk) 01:18, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The place of articulation is a little different. The English d is a voiced alveolar plosive, which means the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge. In a retroflex sound, the place where the tongue tip touches the roof of the mouth is further back, closer to the top of the hard palate. The t's and d's of a stereotypical Indian English accent are retroflex rather than alveolar. +Angr 12:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

June 5

on grammatical reference

I am lost. What are the grammatical references that this sentence is to be correct? Or is the sentence incorrect?

The children are being very naughty. Mr.Bitpart (talk) 04:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Who's saying it's incorrect? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean by "grammatical references"? Anyway, as Bugs says, there is nothing incorrect about this sentence. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:50, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

There may be many other definitions or a precise definition on ‘reference grammar’. But what I meant about by the ‘grammatical reference’ or ‘reference grammar’ is the descriptive grammar in morphosyntax that can describe the correctness of a sentence in term of its classes, constituencies, elements, etc.

On the example above or on this example He was being careless, the rests of the sentence are simple and clear, except the word ‘being’. The confusion here is the grammatical conjugation of the verb ‘be’ and its emphasis. So what is the nature of conjugation if it is a verb or verbal? Mr.Bitpart (talk) 15:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It's a present participle. Continuous and progressive aspects#English may help. Deor (talk) 15:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is correct in these cases. So what are the explanations, the grammatical references in which the both circumstances can be distinguished, as to a stative verb to conjugate for continues aspect that is otherwise rare? Mr.Bitpart (talk) 18:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The use of "being + adjective" is common in English to describe certain kinds of behavior. In these cases be is not being used as a stative verb; rather, the whole "being + adjective" phrase is more or less a lexicalized activity-type verb. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought that only the imperative form can denote a lexical aspect; a finite form that expresses the temporal sequences (aspect) of meaning (lexical) in present, progressive, and future (in contrary to a specific time as in grammatical aspect).

Also, I thought that a verb that denotes action cannot take subject complement. But there are some points in the previous edit, which is of a difficult explanation. Mr.Bitpart (talk) 00:26, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you're a bit confused with your terminology. Imperative is a mood and has nothing to do with aspects (the imperative is what you use for making commands or suggestions, as in "go to the store now"). Lexical aspect, also called aktionsart, refers to the way that the event denoted by a verb (or verb phrase) unfolds over time, and it is not simply a combination of the terms "lexical" and "aspect". There is no "continuous" lexical aspect (continuous/progressive/durative/habitual is a grammatical aspect). And both lexical and grammatical aspect can be expressed regardless of mood (for instance, in English we can have an indicative continuous like "I am eating peas", or an interrogative continuous like "Are you eating peas?"). I don't know what you mean by "subject complement" but verbs denoting actions certainly can, and almost always do, have subjects. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

In term of its tense, it is a simple one but I did not get it first. However, according to the www.britishcouncil.org, the reason why the sentences are correct is because the be is used to describe an action and not a state.

Thanks for the inputs.-Mr.Bitpart (talk) 15:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

That is what I said at 20:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC). rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:40, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This is how you do it

How do you say "this is how you do it" in Latin? I guess it should be something like "sic <verb>", but what grammatical conjugation should the verb be in? "To do" is facio, IIRC, but what is the correct conjugation??? I know the words, but very little grammar, unfortunately, as I tried to teach myself Latin back when I was an undergrad but never had time to take Latin classes... Thanks in advance, --Dr Dima (talk) 05:51, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Simplest possible translation would be "Ita fac". This could be elaborated to taste... AnonMoos (talk) 10:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Or "ita fit" or "sic fit". Adam Bishop (talk) 13:07, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

To clarify: AnonMoos's translation is imperative "Do thus" (assuming that you are addressing one person), and Adam's two both mean "Let it be done thus". All of them assume that some sort of instructions or demonstration will follow. Is that what you were looking for? Deor (talk) 13:54, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Adam's two mean "It is done thus". "Let it be done thus" would have fiat rather than fit. +Angr 14:02, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

And I need to have a morning cup of coffee before visiting the ref desks. Deor (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I used an imperative as a simple way to retain a connection with the 2nd. person pronoun and active voice verb in "how you do it". The plural imperative would of course be facite... AnonMoos (talk) 01:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys! Sic fit is what I was looking for. --Dr Dima (talk) 05:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

"Sic facies" ("Thus shalt thou do" - future indicative rather than imperative) is another alternative. --ColinFine (talk) 22:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Translation from Hungarian

This query is about a commemorative plaque on a house where Franz Liszt used to stay in Paris between 1823 and 1878. A photograph of the plaque may be found here on Commons. The plaque contains a quote in Hungarian:
Hírhedett zenésze a világnak,
Bárhová juss, mindig hű rokon!
These are the opening lines of Liszt Ferenchez, by Mihály Vörösmarty, as quoted here on the Hungarian Wikisource. One website I found translates Liszt Ferenchez as "Ode to Liszt", and the two lines as "Renowned musician, known throughout the world, faithful kinsman, wherever you may be!" Is this translation correct? There are also two other words at the bottom of the plaque, Huszár and Szobrász. What do they mean in this context? - Mu (talk) 12:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

After looking at the picture, and after finding out that szobrász means sculptor, I would say Huszár is the last name of the guy who made the plaque. Rimush (talk) 12:40, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

From the info at Hungarian noun phrase, I deduce that Liszt Ferenchez is the allative of Liszt Ferenc and therefore simply means "To Franz Liszt", with no word for "ode" present. +Angr 12:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Damning praise

I heard the expression the other day. I looked here, at Wiktionary and at dictionary.com and also tried the Google search "damning praise" and idiom and did not find it. Is it a stock expression? If so, can you tell me what it means? Is it sort of like a "backhanded compliment"—ostensibly praise but couched in a way that it's really intended as an insult?--162.84.129.123 (talk) 13:02, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It's usually "damning with faint praise", for which we conveniently have an article. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:04, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

In religion, "damning praise" can mean improper praise of God, means of worship which are sinful. Something in Amos about drinking to God with wine bought with fines levied against the congregation.

I recall faintly also it being used for praise from someone you wouldn't want praise from. If the KKK sincerely praised a politician as being the kind of leader their country needs, that would be damning praise. — kwami (talk) 13:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The 'damn with faint praise' article was somewhat helpful. Thanks ever so much.--162.84.129.123 (talk) 13:26, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Just kidding, it was very helpful, I was just testing out the expression through an attempt at application:-)--162.84.129.123 (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Better yet: "Thanks for trying to help. You did the best you could, no doubt." :-) Marco polo (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Somewhere I recently read a description of someone "praising [someone else] with faint damns", but I can't remember where now. +Angr 13:46, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I found it: it's in Murder Must Advertise. +Angr 05:52, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Japanse sentence help -- contraction?

あしたの会議に出られなくなっちゃった。 ("It seems I won't be able to attend tomorrow's meeting.")

I'm OK with this up to なっちゃった. I'm guessing that this last part is a contraction? Is it something to do with the verb なる? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.161.87.30 (talk) 13:52, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a very common contraction. The expression is using the modal verb しまう to express regret, and the full un-contracted form would be なってしまった. Another way to contract it would be なっちまった. Paul Davidson (talk) 14:48, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It's Tokyo dialect. Shitesimau→Shichimau→Shichau. Looking at the sample sentence solely, native ja speakers would think it a young female's talk. But males use it too, especially native Tokyoites. Takeshi Kitano often uses it. Itteshimatta (行ってしまった) would be icchatta (行っちゃった) and katteshimatta (買ってしまった) would be kacchatta (買っちゃった). But it's not always expressing regret. Oda Mari (talk) 14:55, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It's written in the article Kansai dialect. See the third paragraph. Oda Mari (talk) 15:28, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Is it considered Tokyo dialect? Here in Nagoya where Kanto meets Kansai, everyone uses it — but only the shortest form, 〜ちゃった. ちまった I only read in books, usually set in Tokyo. Paul Davidson (talk) 05:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Sorry that I cannot provide RS right now. But it's a common knowledge among Japanese. See ja:東京方言 and ja:名古屋弁. Japan has been getting smaller through TV, shinkansen, etc., you know. Oda Mari (talk) 07:01, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• Got it. Thanks guys. 81.159.78.44 (talk) 20:18, 5 June 2010 (UTC).

French translation

In French, does "Retour à l'état sauvage" mean "return to the wild state" (as in a being in a condition that is not tamed/domesticated), or does it mean "return to the wilderness"? Brambleclawx 18:22, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It could be either - like a lawn that has not been cut or an untended garden, or just a natural wilderness. What is the context? Adam Bishop (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me like the first option is a more likely translation, but, as Adam says, more context is needed to be sure. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I was hoping to use it as an eco-tourism company name for schoolwork. If it doesn't work, I could think of another one. Brambleclawx 20:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Add I don't want it sound like tourists are going to become wild, I want it to sound like tourists are "returning" to the wilderness. Brambleclawx 21:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

That seems fine. You could also say "l'état naturel" but that would not necessarily be "wilderness". Adam Bishop (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Assistance is needed from someone who can read Indic script

At wikipedia.org, the native name of the Bishnupriya Manipuri language has been given as follows:

বিষ্ণুপ্রিযা় মণিপুরী

The English Wikipedia article Bishnupriya Manipuri language, however, gives the following as the native name:

বিষ্ণুপ্রিয়া মণিপুরী

The Bishnupriya Manipuri interwiki of that article has the following title:

বিষ্ণুপ্রিয়া মণিপুরী

The latter two are identical, safe for the detail that when I copy and paste each one of them at MS Word, the space between the two words in the text copied from the Bishnupriya Manipuri Wikipedia is about twice as wide than it is when copied from the en.wp article. But the text of the Wikipedia main portal link to bpy.wikipedia.org is different from the others in two things. Firstly, the fourth copyable character of the first word is যা rather than য়া; and secondly, there's the character ় which is absent in the other two cases. I feel I am not knowledgeable enough to report that at meta:Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template. Could anyone corroborate whether there is a mistake, and report it if so? Thanks. --Магьосник (talk) 20:02, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The only problem appears to be that the first one contains a diacritical mark that is not being attached properly, for some reason; that is, the dot with the outlined circle is not a separate character, and because it is set off like that it looks like there is an extra space. Otherwise everything looks exactly the same to me. I have no knowledge of this language so I can't be of any further help, but the issue is simply typographical. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:34, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think this could be a spelling error, so I have raised it at meta:Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template#Possible bpy spelling error. Hopefully, someone who knows the language will come by and say for sure whether this is an error or not. Astronaut (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It may not be quite clear from what Adam Bishop says that যা় appears to be a (possibly faulty) way of rendering: য়া. The dotted circle is not a character at all: it just shows that the dot (which is the only real bit of that glyph) is to appear underneath the character: taken together with the preceding undotted character it is supposed to represent the dotted য়া. But whether it is legitimate in this language to analyse the character as a base and a diacritic, I don't know.

According to Bright & Daniels ("The World's Writing Systems"), the character with a dot is /j/ whereas the one with a dot is /d͡ʒ/, so it would appear that the second and third form is correct. The first form may be a mistake, or it may be an acceptable way of encoding the text which however is not being rendered correctly. --ColinFine (talk) 23:02, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

June 6

Please help with a Middle (?) English expression

Hi,

while looking into the history of the Lambton Worm, an English dragon legend, I came across a "curious entry [...] in an old MS. Pedigree" which reads Johan Lambeton that slewe ye Worme was Knight of Rhoodes and Lord of Lambton and Wod Apilton efter the dethe of fower brothers sans esshewe masle. The MS. itself isn't old, the entry might be copied from an older source. First, can anybody tell me when this spelling might actually have been used? Second, is my "translation" correct? "J.L. who slew the Worm was Knight of Rhodes and Lord of Lambton and Wood Appleton after the death of four brothers, without any (other) male left/ without eschewing any male." (meaning all of his brothers had died and John was the only male left...) The original sources are Surtees 1820, p. 171 and/or Surtees' letter (draft) to Sir W. Scott (Nov. 1809). --Jonas kork (talk) 08:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It would be "without male issue" (meaning without male children), not "without eschewing any male". DuncanHill (talk) 08:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Would you say its Middle English oder rather Early Modern E.? --Jonas kork (talk) 09:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Not an expert on the division between the two, but Early Modern to my eyes. DuncanHill (talk) 09:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, you've been a great help! Jonas kork (talk) 10:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

To me, the spellings seem to predate the establishment of the Chancery Standard in the late 15th century, and the passage suggests the survival of Anglo-Norman (note the position of the adjective masle after the noun esschewe) and yet the passage uses brothers rather than brethren or brether, which did not become the dominant form until the 17th century (though it existed earlier), so it is no longer clearly Middle English. So I would guess that the passage comes from the eve of the establishment of the Chancery Standard, probably from the mid- to late 15th century. Marco polo (talk) 13:26, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Not an expert but I've always believed that "ye" meaning "the" was a sign of someone trying to write in "ye olde Englisshe" in later years. Wasn't it a mistaken rendering of the OE Thorn (letter) "þ"? Alansplodge (talk) 14:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Y instead of Thorn was "used by early printers when the obsolescent letter "þ" was not available", as the disambiguation page tells us. Rimush (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes; quite right. Alansplodge (talk) 16:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers! John Lambton is mentioned in the will of his mother (1439) and brother (1442), but the information given in the quoted entry isn't correct (it seems he never was Lord of Lambton), so I would have expected the quotation to have a certain "temporal distance" to him (allowing for the inaccuracy). I also think it is entirely possible (but not necessary) that someone tried to write in archaic spelling... Jonas kork (talk) 07:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Latin language

why did latin die? I thought it simply evolved into other romance languages and ceased to be used in the former provinces of the Roman Empire, but then wouldn't Italian be almost purely descended from latin? Why do we call latin a dead language if "Modern Latin" still exists in the form of Italian? thank —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.209.138 (talk) 14:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Latin didn't die; as you say, it simply evolved into the modern Romance languages and thus stopped being peoples' everyday "please pass the salt" language. Italian is certainly descended from Latin, but not to a significantly greater degree than other Romance languages, so it doesn't have more right to the title "Modern Latin" than French, Spanish, Romanian, etc. And anyway, Modern Latin refers to something else - to the modern use of Classical(-style) Latin, primarily for writing (for example, the Latin Wikipedia is written in Modern Latin). +Angr 15:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Then why did people stop using latin 15:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.209.138 (talk)

Because it is no longer a cast status or inherent quality of the intellectual elites as it was? -Mr.Bitpart (talk) 15:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)They didn't feel they did. The language just changed over time, and it changed differently in different areas to such an extent that the results had to be considered separate languages, because they were so different from each other. Each generation's spoken language was only slightly different from its parents' generation's language, but over time the differences added up. Meanwhile, the written language was staying largely the same (not exactly the same, but close enough), so that while people were speaking a very progressive form of Vulgar Latin that could be considered the earliest form of Spanish, French, Italian, etc., they were still writing (at least, the few of them were literate were still writing) a relatively conservative variety of Latin that Cicero would have recognized as a form of his native language. Later still, people began writing some things their everyday language while still writing other things in Latin, so that the modern Romance languages developed literary standards of their own that were separate from Latin. +Angr 15:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Languages change very quickly; I can even notice that it has changed from the language that my grandparents and parents speak. Which of these changes will stick? That's the million dollar question. Over a thousand years, it is very unlikely that any language, even the one you are so comfortable with, will be easily (or at all) understood. It seems odd, but nobody makes the choice (okay, some people do, but as a rule) to make a change from the language that their parents spoke, but it just happens naturally. That is why I do not speak to thee with the specially-designated second person singular pronoun in typical conversation. I use "you" instead, which I hate, because my ancestors for some reason stopped using "thou" (and it was not a conscious decision on their part). Falconus^{p t c} 17:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It's been said "A language is a dialect with an army and navy". One way to view what you're asking is "Why are Italian/French/Spanish viewed as separate languages, rather than being dialects of Latin?" All languages have internal variation. Even when Rome was at its zenith, vulgar Latin and classical Latin coexisted, much in the way that there is American English, Indian English, Australian English and even regional variants of English within England. The romance languages started out as vulgar Latin - literally, the Latin of the common people. As time progressed various regions developed progressively greater differences from "official" Latin. After Rome fell, these regions became separate, and their speech became wrapped up in cultural and ethnic identities of the groups speaking them. At some point (and the changeover was probably gradual), they were claimed as full and separate languages in their own right, rather than being "mere" variants of Latin. I don't know the details, but would guess that the distinction was done primarily for ethno-political reasons. -- 174.24.203.234 (talk) 17:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Part of what makes the difference of whether a language is called the same thing as its ancestor is political. Old English is still called English, even though we cannot understand it at all (without studying it). Modern Greek and Ancient Greek are both called "Greek" despite the massive differences, I am told. This being said, however, when Latin split into all its different forms, it became known by many different names, and it is not politically correct to call "Italian" "Modern Latin". From a practical standpoint, this makes no sense to me because while with just a little bit of Latin I can already read Italian better than I can read Old English as a native English speaker.

Take for example (and I don't speak Italian, I am just going with the little that I remember, so somebody correct me if I'm inadvertantly making stuff up):

Latin: "Te amo", Italian: "Ti amo", English: "I love you." Latin: "[Ego] parlo." Italian: "Io parlo." English: "I speak."

Old English: "Hwæt! Wē Gār‐Dena in geār‐dagum þēod‐cyninga þrym gefrūnon, hū þā æðelingas ellen fremedon." Modern English: "Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!"

So I draw the conclusion that the reason that Italian is not considered modern Latin is entirely political. Feel free to disagree with me. Falconus^{p t c} 17:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Modern Italian parlare comes from an ancient Latin form like parabolare (though this was not any kind of ordinary way of saying "to speak" in Classical Latin). The basic way of saying "I speak" in classical Latin was dico... -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You are right; I can't believe I made that mistake... Thanks for pointing that out. I must have gotten it crossed with French "parler." I should have said "dico," I believe, from "dico, dicere" Not speaking Italian, I won't embarrass myself further, but I know for a fact that there are numerous similarities between Latin and Italian, despite the fact that they are way too different to be able to be mutually intelligible. Falconus^{p t c} 17:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

---

By the way, until very roughly ca. 1000 A.D., when many scribes in Romance-speaking areas read Latin texts, they pronounced aloud words of their local Romance vernacular; and when they had occasion to write down spoken words of their local Romance vernacular, they translated into Latin on the fly as they wrote, so that written Latin was kind of in a diglossic relationship with the local Romance vernacular. And many of them assumed that things had more or less always been done that way -- Dante was one of the first to have a clear idea that ancient Latin had been a spoken language very different from the medieval Romance languages... AnonMoos (talk) 17:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Latin belongs to that select group of languages (along with ancient Hebrew and Arabic, Pali, Aramaic, and Sanskrit) which became intimately connected with religious teachings. The real question here is not why Latin died, but rather why Latin was preserved while the languages which people spoke in their daily lives moved on. Latin was preserved because the Christian church had placed most of their teachings in a Latin canon at the height of the Roman empire, and the canon was carefully preserved (along with the ability to speak the language) across he intervening centuries to maintain the authenticity of the documents. --Ludwigs2 19:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

English Wikipedia has Wikipedia:Spoken articles, and Latin Wikipedia (Vicipaedia) has la:Categoria:Paginae audibiles.

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:41, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Note also that the "classical" Latin as used by Cicero, Caesar, Agricola, and the like, is something of an artificial language, in that it was created by retrofitting Greek mannerisms and Grammar onto a common language that was not really a very good fit for it. Vulgar Latin (as mentioned above) was probably a lot closer to modern Italian and Spanish. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:53, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

By the way, Parabolare referred to above is a derivation of a Greek loanword which occurred in Vulgar Latin, but not Classical Latin! Formal written Classical Latin was certainly a somewhat "rhetorified" and slightly artificial form of spoken ancient Latin -- but on the other hand, the evidence is clear that in morphology, for example, all forms of ancient Latin under the republic and early empire were more similar in some respects to ancient Greek than to modern Romance languages, in having a full-fledged set of noun case distinctions, a "synthetic" (single-word) passive verb inflection, lacking an indefinite article etc. AnonMoos (talk) 16:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Japanese sentence help -- 何もかもしよう

Hi there. I appreciate the help I'm getting here with my beginners' Japanese. This time it's:

１人で、何もかもしようと思わないほうがいいですよ。　("You don't have to do everything by yourself.")

I do not know how to parse 何もかもしよう. Is this some kind of fixed expression, or can we break it down into its component parts? I understand the rest of the sentence (with the exception of exactly how the negative verb works with the problem phrase). 86.186.34.190 (talk) 20:01, 6 June 2010 (UTC).

It's 何もかも[2] and しよう(do). You can replace 何もかも with なんでも or すべてを. Oda Mari (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

What Mari said. 何もかも basically means "everything possible". So your sentence means what you put in the brackets - but to put it into a more literal and clumsy translation: "It is better for people to not think they want to do everything possible." - again, the translation you gave is better, mine is just sorta more by-the-word. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. My dictionary says 何も means "nothing", and I originally thought that かも was intensifying this. Is there a logical reason why adding かも should turn "nothing" into "everything" or is it just a case of "that's the way it is"? 86.173.34.182 (talk) 12:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC).

何もかも is a single word. かも is 彼も in kanji. [3] See these examples of 何もかも. There is a similar word. 誰もかも/誰もかれも/誰も彼も and the meaning is everybody. 何も can be "nothing", but with a negative form. 何も聞こえない/I can hear nothing. Other usage is emphasizing. See[4] and [5] Oda Mari (talk) 16:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you use online dictionaries? This one is good. Oda Mari (talk) 16:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks -- and thanks for the dictionary recommendation. I have in the past tried a couple that I found at random via Internet search, but those ones seemed pretty crappy. 86.185.75.250 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC).

"It was about some stuff" or similar...

This is a rather horrible question to answer, I fear, but I'm trying to remember something. Someone (perhaps an actor, or a writer) made a comment along the lines of "It was about some stuff" about a very long work. Does anyone have any idea who said this, and about whose work? Many thanks, and if anyone gets this, they are the king/queen of finding answers to vague questions. 129.67.144.19 (talk) 21:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

You might have better luck at the Humanities reference desk. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

If it helps, I immediately thought of War and Peace when I read the question - I'm sure I've heard it summarised thus. DuncanHill (talk) 10:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I had clicked humanities, but I'd clicked the wrong one. DuncanHill, thanks, that's right! It was Woody Allen, after he took a spead-reading course and read War and Peace in an evening: "It was about some Russians." Thanks muchly! :) 129.67.144.19 (talk) 13:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Chinese character

Hey guys! Does anyone speak Chinese? A long time ago, I saw a really cool Chinese character. I forgot what it meant, but the rmoanization was "ji", I think. I want to use it for a design, but I don't know how to write Chinese. I have an idea of what it looks like in my mind so I can recognize it but I can't reproduce it without looking at it. Can someone help me find what character I'm thinking of? Thanks so much. 68.76.156.93 (talk) 22:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

及 - 季 - 寄 - 急 - 挤 or 济? wiooiw (talk) 22:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

There are over a hundred characters with the romanization ji, and I daresay more than one of them look "really cool":

jī	基 机 几 击 奇 激 积 迹 鸡 绩 肌 玑 饥 稽 圾 姬 讥 畸 缉 叽 矶 羁 唧 跻 嵇 箕 畿 乩 犄 芨 屐 咭 赍 齑 笄 墼 谿 剞 踦 韲 羇 鄿 虀 觭 鐖 鞿 稘 覊 禨 賷
jí	及 即 集 级 吃 急 吉 疾 辑 籍 藉 嫉 棘 汲 亟 笈 瘠 岌 楫 芨 蒺 嵴 佶 殛 戢 鹡 蕺 蹐 脨 踖 谻 蝍 鍓 箿 鞊 趌
jǐ	几 己 给 挤 脊 戟 麂 虮 鱾 掎
jì	记 计 济 技 际 纪 继 既 迹 季 剂 绩 寄 寂 祭 忌 冀 妓 伎 悸 暨 骥 稷 髻 鲫 偈 蓟 觊 霁 芰 荠 鲚 跽 洎 罽 蹟 穊 哜 鯚 臮 蟿 茍 穄 繋 鵋 鰿 鱀

These are mostly simplified characters; some also have traditional counterparts, as in 记/記. You can find even more at Wiktionary (see jǐ, jī, jí, and jì), although all the common ones (and therefore the ones you are likely to have seen) and more are already included in the table above, I think. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

sēn = 森 = forrest. Just a random one i know. wiooiw (talk) 23:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

There are certainly more than those provided by Rjanag in the table above, though they include the most common. I would estimate there are at least 300 characters that could be transliterated as "ji". Chinese is a tonal language, and you have not provided a tone diacritic, which is approximately equivalent to giving an English speaker a word without any vowels. It is akin to me giving you "bt"; I could mean "boot", "but", or even "beauty". There is also the issue of how long ago "a long time ago" was; pinyin superseded Wade-Giles and other romanization methods (in the Mainland, at least) about 20 years before I was born but if the romanization is from before 1958 that is another issue which requires consideration. Intelligentsium 23:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

@wiooiw: 森 alone usually cannot be used as "forest" in English would be used (which correspond to 森林 or a similar construction). 森 certainly implies forest, but if I were to join it to form "森严", it would mean something close to "forbidding". Intelligentsium 23:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

If I have to guess, would it be 雞 (chicken/cock/hen) ? Probably having seen it on something related to the zodiac? Also don't forget, what you've saw might have been written in cursive calligraphy, which may not resemble computer fonts you see here. --Kvasir (talk) 22:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

June 7

Japanese translation

What does "キー" mean, as it's used in the "Other T2 Dopants" section of Dopant (Kamen Rider)? Nyttend (talk) 03:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

kii means "key". 114.160.57.216 (talk) 03:38, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but what kind of key? I was fixing links to key, a disambiguation page, and the link in the Dopant article was the only one I couldn't fix. Nyttend (talk) 04:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Most likely Key (lock), but several others are possible as well. This is just the English word "key" rendered in Japanese pronunciation and script. (It sounds cool.) The normal word for this is 鍵 (kagi).　On further thought, it is a character name, so none of them are very ideal options for linking. 114.160.57.216 (talk) 04:41, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The Japanese words in that section are all simple transliteration. Oda Mari (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the help; I've simply delinked the word. Nyttend (talk) 11:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

on a conjunction in German

Example:

"Der spanische Tennisspieler Rafael Nadal hat zum fünften Mal die French Open gewonnen, während bei den Damen die Italienerin Francesca Schiavone erfolgreich war."

These two clauses seem like that they cannot be connected with the suboridinating conjunction ‘während’ as they are semantically independent. Where am I wrong on this? -Mr.Bitpart (talk) 05:49, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

They're not entirely semantically independent; they're both discussing winners at the French Open. Even in English, it would be acceptable to use while here: "The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal won the French Open for the fifth time, while the Italian Francesca Schiavone was successful in the women's tournament". +Angr 05:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it was "zum fünften Mal" ("for the fifth time") which threw you off. Just to illustrate, if you left it out in the first clause, the conjunction might not bother you as much: "Der spanische Tennisspieler Rafael Nadal hat die French Open gewonnen, während bei den Damen die Italienerin Francesca Schiavone erfolgreich war." ("The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal won the French Open, while the Italian Francesca Schiavone was successful in the women's tournament.") ---Sluzzelin talk 06:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the use of ‘while’ as an adverbial expresses always some forms of causal relations (time + reason) that give prominence to the adjunct clause in a clausal embedment. Like:

Max joined the faculty while Nels was on sabbatical. (causal)

Max joined the faculty when Nels was on sabbatical. (non-causal)

Max joined the faculty A during the Semester 2000, and Nels joined the faculty B. (non-causal)

-Mr.Bitpart (talk) 16:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Like während in German, English while can also be used to express contrast or parallelism—in this case counterposing the female championship to the male championship. Marco polo (talk) 16:39, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe it's not a colon (or is it?)

I was reading the article on the academic quarter, and I came across this guy: Martin H:son Holmdahl. What's with the colon-looking thing in his middle(?) name? Not sure if the language desk is the right one, but here goes anyway Rimush (talk) 13:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

There's mention of this phenomenon at Colon (punctuation)#Word-medial separator. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

In other words, it's an abbreviation for a middle name like Haraldson or something else that starts with H and ends with -son, right? +Angr 14:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The normal way to do this in English is with an apostrophe. Marco polo (talk) 16:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Not for names, I think. I can't imagine a person from an English-speaking country using "H'son" as an abbreviation their middle name. In English, it would just be Martin H. Holmdahl. +Angr 16:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a medial apostrophe is unusual in English names (though not unknown). An initial is the usual way to abbreviate names. What I meant was that the usual way of abbreviating words in general medially in English is with an apostrophe. Marco polo (talk) 17:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

But that doesn't normally apply to human names. Wm. (short for William), Chas. (Charles) et al are not apostrophised. But they are written with a full stop at the end. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

This is used a lot in Swedish, as the link given by Richardrj points out, both in names and in words such as "kyrka" (church) in road signs. See wiktionary, k:a. In names, such as Björn J:son Lindh, I've even heard it pronounced "yeeson" (In this case it's short for Johansson). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's what the Swedish Wikipedia says about the colon (in addition to its functions that are shared by English):

• In certain abbreviations, such as s:t for sankt (saint);
• In ordinal numbers: 1:a, 2:a, 3:e, 21:a, but not in dates or when the ordinal number is implied by the context: Den 5 maj, Carl XVI Gustaf;
• Before extensions of digits, letters, abbreviations and initials: tv:n (definite form), USA:s (possession). Exceptions are abbreviations that are not pronounced letter by letter: Natos, Ikeas.

The titles of some articles of the Swedish Wikipedia: USA:s senat, FN:s deklaration om de mänskliga rättigheterna (the UN declaration of human rights), 2:a världskriget (WWII), S:t Petersburg. The latter two are actually redirects to the articles Andra världskriget and Sankt Petersburg respectively. --Магьосник (talk) 02:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

What would be a good antonym for "simulation"

I'm having a devil of a time trying to come up with a non-clunky word for a non-simulation. Any suggestions? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 19:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Reality? In some situations, Ground truth can be appropriate. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

"The real thing"? It depends on the context, though. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The usage I'm thinking of is more in the technology sector. A device is in simulation mode. When a switch is flipped, it's in _______ mode. ( "run" is too vague ) --70.167.58.6 (talk) 19:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this a specific device? I guess the most common word would be what the device usually does. For example, CD writers work in "simulation" or "write" mode. Jørgen (talk) 20:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

"Production". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"Normal". Or make it "Simulation mode on/off". --Anonymous, 07:16 UTC, June 8, 2010.

"Live"? Kingsfold (talk) 13:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"Real mode"? 195.35.160.133 (talk) 14:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC) Martin.

I'd use "operational mode" to contrast with "simulation mode". — Lomn 14:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

What language is spoken by this choir?

[youtube singing choir | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywefn5GvpM]

This is a link to a singing choir and I have no clue what the language is.

Can anyone help me identify the language, and also if possible provide an English translation of one or more parts of the song?

Thanks in advance for any help. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 19:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Googling for "AYUBU Choir" (part of the title of the youtube clip) gets the link below as the second google hit (which links to the youtube clip). I'm pasting in the keywords that appear in the google description of the page:

Ayubu

Keywords: gospel muziki injili kwaya choir nyimbo music kenya africa sinza daresalaam ... Babu Ayubu - Safari. Swahili Song. ::Swahili Song. Views: 4850 ...

...which suggest that the language may be Swahili. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

This appears to be the choir of the Naioth Gospel Assembly in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Here are some more of their videos posted on a Tanzanian Christian blog.--Cam (talk) 02:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Since Swahili is the official language and lingua franca of Tanzania and the common language of Dar es Salaam, they are almost certainly singing in Swahili. Marco polo (talk) 12:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Antillean Creole and Haitian Creole

Does anyone know if Antillean Creole and Haitian Creole have much degree of mutual intelligibility? Any rough approximations of their degree of intercomprehensibility (e.g. French and Spanish, Spanish and Italian, etc.)? Thanks!--71.111.229.19 (talk) 19:25, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there is a good amount of mutual intelligibility between Antillean Creole and Haitian Creole. Indeed, those two creoles are much closer to each other than either is to Louisiana Creole. Some of the main differences between AC and HC are a slightly different set of TMA markers and different phonological rules for the definite article, but their lexicons are quite similar. Unfortunately, I can only give you anecdotal information unless/until someone provides a better source: a Haitian Creole-speaking professor once told me he had little trouble communicating with people during his stay in Antillean Creole-speaking Guadeloupe.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

If people have trouble communicating in the basolect, they might veer toward the acrolect, so that could be a complicating factor. — kwami (talk) 06:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help! That's very useful info. Perhaps as a side note: drawing on (though perhaps slightly different) from what Kwami said, I would have to hypothesize that some individuals (whether or not it's true of your professor) who have a wider linguistic knowledge than "average" speakers of either language, e.g. greater fluency in "standard" French or exposure to multiple Romance languages, creoles, etc., might be to intuit the meaning better than those without such greater-than-average linguistic knowledge...--71.111.229.19 (talk) 13:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

June 8

Translation for "Sauglattismus"

I am looking for an equivalent in English. For those who read German, see de:Sauglattismus . For those who don't, I'm looking for an English word, possibly but not necessarily a neologism, used as an expression of cultural criticism. It targets the trend or need for everything to be funny just for the sake of funniness. (something like "for the lulz" in internet-speak). In my particular instance, a music critic is pointing out how a musical group manages to display a sense of humour on their new album without sinking to the level of "Sauglattismus". Any suggestions? ---Sluzzelin talk 12:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

There is no equivalent for this word in English. Probably the closest English word to sauglatt is hilarious. So, the approximate analogous form would be *hilaritism. This word does not exist in English. A similar kind of cultural critique does exist in the English-speaking world, though it doesn't seem to have gained the same degree of traction as in Switzerland, since it can't be summed up in a single, widely recognized word. An example of this kind of cultural critique in English is the book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Marco polo (talk) 12:49, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

This blog, in a post dated October 22, 2004, uses the neologism laugh-trackism referring to laugh tracks. This expression has a very similar meaning to Sauglattismus and makes sense in context, though I can't find any other examples of its use. Marco polo (talk) 12:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Marco polo! Hilaritism coincides with what I had mind. (And thanks for the Postman link too, I hadn't thought of that). Laugh-trackism even captures the tyrannical, LOUD, knee-slapping aspect of Sauglattismus. I was asked by one of the recording artists to translate the review where the underlying context is a (now possibly obsolete) trend in jazz to be silly, mimick circus music, parodize styles, quote all sorts of popular and other songs, just for the sake of quoting them, etc. Of course this can be done intelligently too - it boils down to a matter of taste, I suppose. And the reviewer seems to have had his share of listening to hilaritism and laugh-trackism in music. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"Forced hilarity", maybe? Deor (talk) 13:12, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Infotainment-addiction, maybe? 195.35.160.133 (talk) 14:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC) Martin.

In spoken English, I often find 'wacky' and 'zany' are used in this sense. I think I've seen 'wacky' used this way in written English, but usually it needs additional context when written to clarify that the writer considers it a bad thing. While "How wacky of you" can be spoken in a way that clearly indicates a dim view of your taste, when written it might be mistaken for a sincere use of outdated language. 86.164.69.239 (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep. I've read Douglas Adams (or was it Terry Pratchett, or both?) make bitter comments about the depressing feeling of hearing one's new novel described as "wacky". (Damn, that was a complicated sentence, good thing the OP's used to German.) I notice that Captain Wacky redirects to Australian ex-PM Paul Keating, which is surely perjorative. This link [6] says he was given the nickname by colleague Gary Gray, after "his relationship with Mr Keating broke down". So I think a reasonable translation of Sauglattismus, at least in the context mentioned above, is wackiness. 213.122.69.140 (talk) 04:38, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

That's not a redirect to Paul Keating in my Wikipedia. Which one are you using? It's a disambiguation page that mentions Keating, along with Homer Simpson. I must say I've never heard Keating referred to as this, and I can only assume that Gary Gray copied it from the Simpsons. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

213.122 must be a time traveler. Captain Wacky was a redirect to Paul Keating for about 4 months in 2006, but not since then. +Angr 20:16, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this the ‘contemptuous lol’; a form of ego defense that reduces existing dissonance in pop culture? -Mr.Bitpart (talk) 15:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, everyone. I decided to use "forced hilarity", as suggested by Deor, because it conveys the meaning without distracting by being an unknown neologism. I added a footnote, however, including some of the other suggestions and explanations. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Cyrillic-alphabet text, which language?

On this monument "to the memory of the 29,000 martyrs of the ghetto in Grodno" (according to its Hebrew text):

• What's the language on the lower left?
• Does its text differ from the Hebrew?

Our photo archive records don't indicate where this monument stands; that and any related information would be appreciated. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:31, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

тысяч is the genitive plural of тысяча, the Russian word for "thousand", so I'm going to go with Russian. Despite the location of Grodno, it's not Belarussian, as the inscription uses the letter и, which isn't used in Belarussian. I don't know Russian or Hebrew, so I can't tell you if they say different things, but maybe if you tell us what the Hebrew says, someone else (e.g. Jack of Oz, who knows Russian) will be able to tell us if the Russian says something different. +Angr 14:57, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

P.S. From wikt:thousand I see that the Belarussian word for thousand is also тысяча, so that one word isn't actually sufficient to distinguish the two languages. But I stand by the rest of what I said: it can't be Belarussian because it uses и. The letters for various "i"-like sounds are a good diagnostic for distinguishing Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian. Of the three letters и, і, and ы, Russian (since 1918) uses и and ы but not і; Ukrainian uses и and і but not ы; and Belarussian uses і and ы but not и. +Angr 15:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The Cyrillic text is in Russian. It reads:

ПАМЯТИ
29 ТЫСЯЧ
УЗНИКОВ ГЕТТО -
ЖЕРТВ ФАШИЗМА.
В ЭТОМ РАЙОНЕ В 1941 Г.-1943 Г.
НАХОДИЛОСЬ ГЕТТО.

An approximate translation would be the following:

IN MEMORY
OF 29 THOUSAND
GHETTO PRISONERS -
VICTIMS OF FASCISM.
IN THIS AREA IN 1941-1943
THERE WAS A GHETTO.

Is this much different from the Hebrew text? I don't understand it, but I notice that there aren't any dates mentioned, and the words that the Hebrew Wikipedia has as interwiki links of the articles on fascism and ghetto, פשיזם and גטו respectively, don't seem to be there. --Магьосник (talk) 16:50, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

According to one document I found, the memorial is located on Ulitsa Zamkovaya 7.[7] -Sluzzelin talk 16:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

No, the Russian is not a direct translation of the Hebrew. The Hebrew starts "To the memory of 29000 of the holy." I think it continues "from the Ghetto in Grodnah", but I'm unsure of a couple of letters - "me-" in "mehageto" seems odd, and I'm guessing the first letter on the last line must be "ב", though it looks like "כ" to me. The letters of "from the Ghetto" are spaced out, presumably for emphasis: I first thought they were an abbreviation. --ColinFine (talk) 19:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

OP adds: what's between the double-quotes in the first line, above, is my idiomatic Hebrew>English translation of the Hebrew-language inscription on the monument. (קדושים, literally "holy" [m.pl.] is "martyrs" in this context.) Soviet monuments to slaughtered Jews characteristically omit the ethnic identity which the cognoscenti would derive from the word "ghetto" while understanding that the perps called "fascists" (and sometimes "bourgeois") are actually Nazis and their henchmen. -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

So the fourth line reads מהגטו and does contain the word "ghetto". I misread it as מהכטו or מהבטו, and deduced incorrectly that there was no mention of ghetto in the Hebrew inscription. --Магьосник (talk) 19:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Just a small comment on the usage of fascism: It is true that, in English, a narrow definition of fascism refers to a political movement in Italy led by Mussolini, while a wider definition can include just about anything (for example, my American spouse often refers to the Swiss as fascists because they don't embrace libertarianism quite the way Americans do). Yet post-Soviet states traditionally refer to Nazis as Fascists. Quite recently, I witnessed several Victory Day events in a former Soviet Republic, and the Nazis were usually referred to as фашисты (fascists). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:37, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Just on this post: It is an inferential anacoluthon while identity politics or ideological politics have powerful ‘shotgun drive’ in concealing the question in context (or epistemic realm)? -Mr.Bitpart (talk) 15:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I can appreciate the mocking of my poor syntax, but fail to understand what your last twenty words mean. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, for the misunderstanding. No--I do make lot of mistakes, but your syntax is optimum and the contributions are very good qualities. -Mr.Bitpart (talk) 20:53, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

...and the OP adds: For the sake of enhanced understanding in our collaborative discourse here: I'm intermittently working on translating to English the texts that appear on memorial monuments (in Europe and elsewhere) to victims of the Holocaust. My aim is to render these faithful to the source, with whatever contextual details are available in our archives' registry and what our limited research resources can add at this time. Understanding does require relevant knowledge of the sociopolitical matrix of the time and place involved; this we must, for now, leave to the reader. Indepth queries are welcome on my talk page. -- Deborahjay (talk) 05:57, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

History of "the"

Our article on Middle English, while discussing the shift from Old English to Early Middle English, states that "But most ... case endings disappear in the Early ME period, including most of the dozens of forms of the word the." Were there really dozens of forms of the and what kind of function did they have? In context, it doesn't seem that the article is referring to different genders (as with modern German die, der, and das), which in any case would only account for a mere handful, not dozens. So what's the story? Matt Deres (talk) 16:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's over a dozen forms of the word "the" in Old English. I don't know if that's what you are looking for. I know you specifically linked to Middle English, but the only thing I can figure out (and I have not had a chance to study the older forms of English much) is that it is referring to the phasing out of the Old English case variations for the word "the." Falconus^{p t c} 17:18, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Hm, that's funny. There are roughly 20 demonstrative pronouns related to "the/that/those" listed in Introduction to Old English by Peter Baker. A lot of the forms overlap, so the actual forms are around 12. There are also roughly 20 demonstrative pronouns related to "this/these" listed in the same book. A lot of them overlap as well, so the actual forms are around 12 here as well. In any case, I wouldn't call 12 or 20 "dozens of forms, and I think it would be wrong to include "pronouns related to this/these" when counting "pronouns related to the/that/those". --Kjoonlee 17:20, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I changed the article to say "roughly one dozen forms of the word the" and linked it to the same place (Old English "the" forms) that I put in my previous post. If anybody comes along here and decides that I was wrong to do that, change it however you see fit. Falconus^{p t c} 17:31, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the linked article on Old English declension, I find a maximum of 11 forms of the word the in any single variety of Old English, e.g., 1) se; 2) Þæt; 3) sēo; 4) Þā; 5) Þone; 6) Þæs; 7) Þǣre; 8) Þāra; 9) Þǣm; 10) Þām; 11) Þȳ. Some of these forms have more than one grammatical function. For example, Þā is not only the plural nominative and accusative form (for all genders), but also the feminine singular accusative form. Some of these forms have other variants that would be in use in a different variant of Old English, but from this chart it seems that no variant had more than 11 discrete forms. So "roughly one dozen" sounds okay. Marco polo (talk) 17:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info and the correction. I think it's awesome that there's someplace you can ask a question about Old English declensions and get multiple thoughtful and helpful answers in less than an hour. And just think of how many replies this would have gotten if they used Old English in Family Guy or hardcore porn! Matt Deres (talk) 17:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I call rule 34 on Old English. +Angr 18:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Does Flen flyys count as Old English porn? (Okay, Middle English...) Adam Bishop (talk) 20:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

So "ye" instead of "Þe" is just plain stupid and not some printing replacement, because there was no "Þe"? Rimush (talk) 20:34, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

See Ye_(pronoun). According to that page, "ye" was the Middle English word for "you (plural)", and "ye" was also used to replace "Þe" because they did not have "Þ" on the printing presses. The word "ye" never meant "Þe", it was just the approximation on the press. At least that's how I'm understanding it. Falconus^{p t c} 20:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but according to the list of Old English determiners above, there was no "Þe". Did the word "Þe" show up in Middle English? I always for some reason believed that Thorn wasn't used in ME anymore. Rimush (talk) 20:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

That depends on the printer/scribe and the dialect. Thorn lost most of its use in the Early Middle English period, but its use continued strongly in Northumbrian, for example, and a lot of scribal work, as did yogh and wynn. Steewi (talk) 01:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there was a "þe"; however, it was more of a complementizer (if I understand what a compartmentalizer is); it had the sense of "that" or "which". The account of Ohthere of Hålogaland has a comment about the funerary practices of the Lapps: "...ealle þá hwíle þe þæt lič biþ inne", which is basically equivalent to "...all the while that the body is inside". Nyttend (talk) 01:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thus my point - that's Old English. Thorn was only used in the Middle English period in Northumbrian, for the most part. Steewi (talk) 01:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

This is the opening of the article "Ye": "Ye (IPA: /jiː/) was the second-person, plural, personal pronoun (nominative) in Old English as "ge"." Is part of the sentence missing because I am not seeing how the phrase "in Old English as "ge"" fits in the sentence. Rmhermen (talk) 02:29, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that something is missing. In OE, the sound of "y" as "ye" was spelled with a "g" ("y" was exclusively a vowel), so the force of this part of the sentence is "spelled 'ge' in Old English". Nyttend (talk) 19:23, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The phrase entered the article on 13 May 2008 as part of a merger from another article. I can't find "ge" by itself in the May 2008 versions of that article, so this was apparently a typo on Sonarpulse's part. Nyttend (talk) 19:28, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

able to

Hi, I'm not a native speaker and I've got a question concerning the acceptability of the following constructions:

1. I was the last person able to do it.
2. I was the last person to be able to do it.
3. I was the last person being able to do it.

Are all of these correct, or is one/are some awkward/unacceptable/wrong? Thanks in advance -- 87.123.209.91 (talk) 18:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

1 and 2 are both correct (I tend to think 2 sounds a bit better, but it depends a bit on the context). 3 is not. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! -- 87.123.209.91 (talk) 18:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say 3 is wrong precisely, merely that it's awkward. Don't use it. (Compare "I was the last person walking", which is correct and not awkward.)—msh210℠ 19:22, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say that 3 is wrong. No native speaker of English would utter such a sentence, and I think that all would recognize it as a mistake. I don't know if it violates any formal grammatical rules, but it certainly violates standard English usage. Marco polo (talk) 19:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

My preference is #1 - it sounds the best to my central North Carolinian ear. #2 is by no means wrong, just a little wordier. #3 sounds pretty nonstandard; I agree that it should not be used. Falconus^{p t c} 20:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"I was the last person who was able to do it" would also be acceptable usage. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

1 and 2 are both correct (I prefer 1), but three is absolutely not correct and sounds like a foreigner. Evangeline (talk) 01:23, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Though you do sometimes hear "I being the last person able to do it," as the end of an explanation. "They all looked at me, I being the last person able to do it". So you might also get "They all looked at me, because I was the last person being able to do it," but it's tortuous. It might be an unusual tense, actually. 213.122.69.140 (talk) 05:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Not an unusual tense, it's an example of a participial verb. That kind of usage can't be a standalone sentence, though, it can only be a modifier attached to another sentence. (And technically, I think in that usage it's "supposed" to be me rather than I, although that may be changing.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:23, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I fixed your link, Rjanag. --Магьосник (talk) 05:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that you can have a clause "I being the last person able to do it" parenthetically within a sentence. However, it is not standard English usage (and I think not part of the repertoire of native speakers) to say or write "[because] I was the last person being able to do it." In the latter case, the correct options would be either 1) omit the verbal form altogether as in 1) above; or 2) use the form "to be" as in 2) above. Marco polo (talk) 12:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

June 9

Jump meaning in Japan

I always see Asian food with the word Jump in the name, such as "Jump Chicken". Is this the same kind of Jump that is in the title Shonen Jump, a Japanese manga magazine? What does it mean to Asians that I'm, an English-speaker, not getting? Thanks!  ?EVAUNIT^{神になった人間} 06:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Jump is jump in Japanese. I've never heard of "jumping chicken". If you mean odorigui or "jumping shrimp", see these. [8], [9], and [10]. Oda Mari (talk) 07:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"I always see Asian food with the word Jump in the name" - where? I've never seen it.　The only thing on my Google search (ジャンプ　チキン) remotely connected was this dogfood. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if it's related at all, but the cooking term "sauté" is derived from the French word for "jump". (Because with the "proper" technique, the food in the pan "jumps" when sautéing.) -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 17:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I live in Oswego, New York, and Asian restaurants do this frequently, adding Jump to the into the names of Asian dishes. I assume it has nothing to actually do with the act of jumping. I figured it meant something to Japanese speakers. ?EVAUNIT^{神になった人間} 09:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Extravagances and extravaganzas

An extravagance is usually considered something undesirable and worthy of criticism. It's wasteful and immoral. Right?

But an extravaganza is something that attracts the positive attention of many people, whether as contributors, participants or spectators. It "may more broadly refer to an elaborate, spectacular, and expensive theatrical production". It's a good thing, if not something we would necessarily be involved in every day.

So why do we have these very similar words to mean things that carry very different moral charges? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:43, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The "enjoyable but not sinful excess" is an example of "enough is enough, and too much is plenty," maybe. I found a reference giving the origin as extravagari, referring to "unclassified papal decrees," which conjured up the image of endless rolling hills of parchment back in the 14th century. Compare with "over the top," a phrase that can be also used as a criticism or an accolade ("Jack often uses an over-the-top manner of writing."  ;-) ) --- OtherDave (talk) 13:13, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"Extravagari" means "wander beyond" or "outside" (in the sense of the papal documents, they were ones that didn't fit into any particular category like letters, bulls, canonical decrees, etc, but it could literally mean walking somewhere far away or wandering around without any purpose). "Extravagant" and "extravaganza" both mean something excessive, and since the latter comes directly from Italian, I guess Italians don't think excess is immoral! Adam Bishop (talk) 14:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The key defining feature of "Extravagance" is it's over-the-top nature; it wouldn't be extravagant if it wasn't far beyond what is "normal". An extravaganza is also over-the-top, spectacular, etc.Riffraffselbow (talk) 14:06, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

From Latin nouns ending in ntia, English has some words via French and ending in nce.

(Exceptions are Vulgar Latin stantia [unattested] and Old French influence.)

• extravagance (definitions and etymology)
• stance (definitions and etymology)
• cadence (definitions and etymology)
• credence (definitions and etymology)
• influence (definitions and etymology)

From some of the same Latin words ending in ntia, English has other words via Italian and ending in nza.

• extravaganza (definitions and etymology)
• stanza (definitions and etymology)
• cadenza (definitions and etymology)
• credenza (definitions)
• influenza (definitions and etymology)

English used extended meanings of those Italian words when it adopted them. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Japanese sentence help -- 宿の件

Hi... any clues about this one?

宿の件ですが、わたしの家にとまれば、いいですよ。

I want the sentence to mean something like "There's an inn (i.e. an inn nearby), but you are welcome to stay at my house", but does it? I can't quite get my head round 宿の件. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.34.56 (talk) 19:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"宿の件ですが、" means "as for the/your lodging". "There's an inn nearby" would be "近くに宿もありますが". Oda Mari (talk) 19:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I cannot quite understand how "...の件ですが" means "as for". Is it possible to dissect that phrase or should I just treat it as a unit? Also, would "宿は、..." mean the same thing? 81.151.34.56 (talk) 20:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC).

件 means 'business' or 'matter', so the phrase "...の件ですが" would mean 'as for the business of...' or 'as for the matter of...,' and can be shortened to 'as for'. As for your last question, "宿は、..." does mean more or less the same thing, but is more abrupt. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:16, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry to bang on about this, but I would like some more advice on ですが. In other sentences I've encountered, ですが always means "is but". For example, "東京は、おもしろいですが、ぶっかがたかいです。", "Tokyo is interesting but the prices are expensive". In this case we would seem to have, paraphrasing, "There is the matter of the lodging, but you are welcome to stay at my house". Is that how it works? 81.151.34.56 (talk) 22:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC).

ですが is just a casual way of introducing a topic. Japanese has many topic markers, of which は is only one. Also, が doesn't necessarily mean "but". You have to look at the context. If I were to translate your sentence into natural English, it would be "Regarding lodging — you should stay at my house." Paul Davidson (talk) 00:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Basically you could put it that way. ですが is very often used when introducing a topic which is thought of as some sort of problem or is troubling in some way or another. You could think of it as "I'm sorry to bring this up, BUT...." Alternatively, you could just think of it as 'as for', as said above. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:02, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks KageTora, I think I see it now. 81.151.34.56 (talk) 23:12, 9 June 2010 (UTC).

The Simpsons in Catalan

According to this article, The Simpsons has been dubbed into Catalan, but have DVDs ever been released with the Catalan audio tracks? LANTZY^TALK 23:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)