Welcome to the language section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/L

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

June 2

Children learning multiple languages

Are there any studies about how many languages it is possible for a young child to learn more or less as "cradle tongues"? I know of two children who have spoken three languages (French with their mother, Spanish with their father, Tagalog with their nanny) and then who learned English at nursery school. Is there a known record for children up to, say, 5 years of age? Bielle (talk) 02:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Berlitz supposedly spoke eight languages by the time he was an adolescent, due to his father's instructions that everyone in his family speak to Charles in a different language. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your question intrigues me very much, but I am not ready to spend much time in searching for answers on the World Wide Web at this time. Nevertheless, I recommend the following result from my Google search for "multilingual children record": The #1 Language Ingredient For Raising Multilingual Children | Multilingual Living. If you ask again after a few months, I might make a more thorough search or I might have already found the desired information. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Multilingualism and Category:Multilingualism and Alexander Arguelles. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See also bilingualism and intelligence. There was a scientific study that showed that infants can recognise the differences between languages they haven't learned, but toddlers lose this ability. ~A H 1^(TCU) 23:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there not a word "firmen"?

There is harden, straighten, tighten...Why not "firmen", to make something firm?

I really need to use it in Scrabble.

Keepscases (talk) 17:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bit of a guess here, but "hard" "straight" and "tight" are all from Old English, "firm" is from French. The "en" suffix is Old English in origin, so may not "want" to associate with a foreign word. BTW, there is "firman" - a decree, which is handy in Scrabble. DuncanHill (talk) 17:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is correct. Straighten, harden, tighten all entered the language when Old English and Old French were still somewhat separate languages. "Harden" entered the language about 1200CE, but the other two were later. "Tighten" entered in 1727CE. In general, Germanic and Latinate roots tend to use their respective affixes. See List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English. - Andrew Keenan Richardson 05:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, good to know, but I don't have an A :) Keepscases (talk) 17:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That and your opponent would be quite annoyed with you for waiting 20 minutes for an answer from us. Googlemeister (talk) 18:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The word "firm" (wikt:firm) is also a verb (without a suffix added) like "narrow" and "yellow". -- Wavelength (talk) 19:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A better comparison is to the word "warm". -- Wavelength (talk) 20:03, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man"...

-- AnonMoos (talk) 20:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Affirm" also means, in one sense, "to make firm", no? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:07, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's the word hymen which ends in en as well. --TylerDurdenn (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

June 3

English to Japanese

What are the Japanese words for spacetime, gene, and antimatter? --75.25.103.109 (talk) 01:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Based entirely on interwiki links, I found this. Gene: 遺伝子（いでんし） Antimatter: 反物質（はんぶっしつ） Spacetime 時空（じくう） -Andrew c ^[talk] 02:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And if you want the romaji, it would be idenshi, hanbusshitsu, and jikū respectively (my japanese is a little rusty so my romanization could be a tad off. I'm sure someone will correct me). -Andrew c ^[talk] 02:20, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No corrections needed, Andrew. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What does Celine Dion say?

May I disturb you. In this video, what does Celine Dion say following having performed the song? It's French, and what I grasp is part of the song's title "amour existe encore." Thank you so much.

124.121.186.8 (talk) 09:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The part in question is at around 5:20 in the video, and from what I can hear she said "Votre amour existe encore. Merci Beaucoup!"; or in English "Your (plural) love still exists. Thank you very much!". --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One interpretation is that she's saying in effect, "You still love me (your love [for me] is still there)," thanking the audience for their enthusiastic applause. --- OtherDave (talk) 13:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Correct capitalization for surnames

There are some surnames (such as that of Joran van der Sloot) that begin with lower case letters, as opposed to capital letters (in his case, the "v" and "d" of "van der"). Thus, when such a name is used within a sentence, the "v" and the "d" are not capitalized. When the surname is the first word of the sentence, however, does it then become capitalized? Or does it retain lower case letters (due to it being a proper noun)? In other words, in the following example, which would be the correct form of the sentence and why? (A) Van der Sloot was arrested on June 3. (B) van der Sloot was arrested on June 3. Thank you. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 19:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC))[reply]

(A) is correct, certainly in English and, I'm pretty sure, in Dutch. I would even follow (A) in the case of surnames written in lower case for artistic reasons, as in: Lang has won both Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances; hits include "Constant Craving" and "Miss Chatelaine". +An gr 19:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it is important that the reader should know whether the tussenvoegsel (van der) is capitalised or not, it is better to recast the sentence, eg as "They arrested van der Sloot on June 3" Ehrenkater (talk) 20:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A similar question applies to things like eBay and ee cummings. Logically, these are no worse than words like the and he, which are always lowercase but are capitalized at the start of sentences, and should also be capitalized at the start of sentences. What's actually done? I don't know what's most common, but sentence-initial and title-initial results at [1] show both styles in use. None of this answers your question about der, though.—msh210℠ 19:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what Dutch name#Surnames says:

Many Dutch names start with a prefix like van ("of/from"), de/het/'t ("the"), der ("of the"), van de ("of the/from the"), and in het ("in the"). Examples are 't Hooft ("the head"), de Wolf ("the wolf") , van Rijn ("from Rhine"); but some verb-derived names that end in -en that often indicate occupations, like van Bruggen ("of bridges") for a bridge builder.
In the Netherlands, these prefixes are not spelled with a capital when used in combination with the first name or initial, for example Piet de Wolf or R. van Rijn. In all other cases a capital letter must be used, for example, de heer Van Kampen, or when preceded by an academic title as in dr. Van Wijk.
In Belgium, this capitalization practice is not followed; prefixes in most common Dutch names are always capitalized, though occasionally 'Van de' occurs whereas another family may have the otherwise identical name spelled as 'Van De'. Also, prepositions can be merged with the surname (such as Vandecasteele), or can be separate (Van De Casteele), and a few combinations occur (Vande Casteele). These variations indicate different families and not all names exist with several spellings. (More on this under Tussenvoegsels.)

Therefore, Van der Sloot is to be capitalised not only sentence-initially, but in every other case when not preceded by the given name. --Магьосник (talk) 20:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But surely that's the Dutch practice, not the English practice. In English the "van" of Vincent van Gogh is always spelt in lower case unless it starts a sentence. In sentences like "The notable Dutch artists represented in our gallery include the sculptor Brouwenstijn and the painter van Gogh" - we don't suddenly start using "Van Gogh". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would say we do.--Patrick (talk) 07:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have a separate article Tussenvoegsel... AnonMoos (talk) 20:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

btw, what does tussenvoegsel literally mean? Rimush (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary gives it as the Dutch word for infix. It's made up of tussen "between" + voeg "join, put" + -sel (nominal suffix), so literally "something put in between". +An gr 22:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Latin translation / Charles V

I'm preparing on entry for Wikiquote on the alleged Charles V aphorism "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse".

Can anyone translate the two Latin versions giving in Girolamo Fabrizi d'Acquapendente's 1601 De Locutione:

Unde solebat, ut audio, Carolus V Imperator dicere, Germanorum linguam esse militarem: Hispanorum amatoriam: Italorum oratoriam: Gallorum nobilem.

When Emperor Charles V used to say, as I hear, that the language of the Germans was military; that of the Spaniards pertained to love; that of the Italians was oratorical; that of the French was noble.

Ehrenkater (talk) 19:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alius vero, qui Germanus erat, retulit, eundem Carolum Quintum dicere aliquando solitum esse; Si loqui cum Deo oporteret, se Hispanice locuturum, quod lingua Hispanorum gravitatem maiestatemque prae se ferat; si cum amicis, Italice, quod Italorum dialectus familiaris sit; si cui blandiendum esset, Gallice, quod illorum lingua nihil blandius; si cui minandum aut asperius loquendum, Germanice, quod tota eorum lingua minax, aspera sit ac vehemens.

Thanks. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 19:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed another, who was German, related that the same Charles V sometimes used to say: if it was necessary to talk with God, that he would talk in Spanish, which language suggests itself for the graveness and majesty of the Spaniards; if with friends, in Italian, for the dialect of the Italians was one of familiarity; if to caress someone, in French, for no language is tenderer than theirs; if to threaten someone or to speak harshly to them, in German, for their entire language is threatening, rough and vehement.

Ehrenkater (talk) 20:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant! Thank you. I've updated the Wikiquote page for Charles V, with a credit commented in. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a small correction, "quod" means "because", so it is "because Spanish lends itself towards majesty and greatness", etc. "Blandus" also means "flattering", so I think he probably means he speaks French to flatter people (in the original, slightly pejorative sense). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:42, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And Unde should be "Whence" or "Wherefore" rather than "When". Deor (talk) 02:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've adjusted the Wikisource page a bit. Also, "unde" and "vero" do not need to be translated, because they must be referring back to the previous sentences, which aren't quoted (they are basically punctuation, when modern punctuation marks didn't exist). Adam Bishop (talk) 14:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

quod lingua Hispanorum gravitatem maiestatemque prae se ferat - "because (reportedly) the language of the Spanish exhibits (litt. "carries before itself") graveness and majesty". Iblardi (talk) 10:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Congruent

I've confirmed with the front desk that Monday, June 28th is free and I've booked us for 10 AM. Please let me know if that's congruent with your schedules.

Is the above sentence proper with the underlined word (the email was sent to 2 people in the hopes that all 3 of our schedules would match)? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 19:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a good wording. But it is understandable. Better would be: "Please tell me if your schedule permits that." Or, "...if that fits in with your schedule." Even "OK" is fine, as in "Please let me know if that's OK with your schedules."

I think the problem with "congruent" in that usage is that congruent has a meaning that implies exactness of fit. Either that appointment is going to fit or it is not going to fit, but it is unlikely to fit exactly. Bus stop (talk) 20:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I find no problem with it. --ColinFine (talk) 23:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In American usage that's a bit over-stuffy. we'd probably say "If that aligns with..." or "if that agrees with...". Congruent is a word that's rarely if ever used outside of grade-school geometry here, though I think most people would get the sense of it. it's not improper, but it would have pretty much the same feel as someone saying "Didst thou bring thy iPad?" --Ludwigs2 00:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To revise my response, I think it depends on whether you want to find fault with it or not. In its favor, it is perfectly clear, and it is very brief. I think it has a crisp and solid feel to it. But it is innovative. For "congruent with your schedule" I only find two Google hits. Bus stop (talk) 03:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I understood what was being communicated, which is really the only test that needs to be passed, but it doesn't feel right to me. Congruency involves the comparison of two things (i.e. "Are these two triangles congruent?"), but the things compared don't seem to match. What you should be asking is whether everyone's schedules have a congruent opening to allow the meeting to take place, but the sentence as phrased is comparing the meeting with the schedule. If you had two pairs of pants with holes in them, you could ask if the holes were congruent, but you wouldn't normally ask if the patch was congruent to the hole - you'd just ask whether it covers the hole or not. I think Bus stop's suggestion was best; just use "fits in" instead. Matt Deres (talk) 16:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

loved the "Didst thou bring thy I Pad?"...LOL what makes wikipedia interesting in the midst of such serious exhanges and sometimes angry exchanges too, is the presence of such healthy and sparkling humor... Thanks Ludwigs ... thanks to you I laughed out loud in the Emergency Room today Fragrantforever 04:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Greek and Russian I think

What does the following words mean?

εΛΛHN?N

T?N

Where the ? is 'o' with an underline.

Googlemeister (talk) 20:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Of the Greeks (Hellenes)", I would assume... AnonMoos (talk) 20:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. των Ελληνων in real Greek Unicode text... AnonMoos (talk) 20:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How about the Russian

ПPAБM

Googlemeister (talk) 21:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That says 'PRABM'. Looks like an abbreviation but I couldn't find any reference to it. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would it make sense if the first letter is Л? I am having trouble deciphering the script. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Googlemeister (talk • contribs) 21:20, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

των Ελλήνων, with all caps ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ, means "of the Greeks". It is the genitive plural form of Έλληνας, "a Greek". The capital letter Ω ω is usually handwritten as an underlined O. However, Googlemeister has given Ελλήνων first and then των. That could make the sense depend on the context, I presume. --Магьосник (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

About the Cyrillic code, I have no idea. Here's the sequence of letters entirely with Cyrillic characters (to copy and use search engines): ПРАБМ in upper case, прабм in lower case. If the first letter is Л, then it's ЛРАБМ in upper case and лрабм in lower case. <OR>ПРАБМ very vaguely reminds me of the Russian word ПРОБЛЕМ (проблем), meaning "problem", where one has misspelt ‹о› as ‹а› (this wouldn't affect the pronunciation), and skipped the letters ле that are essentially the consonant Л and the stressed vowel Е.</OR> Isn't there any further context you could give us? --Магьосник (talk) 22:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a coin or a medal of some sort. The object is pretty beat up, and has 1888 and 2 1/2 on one side and what looks like a heraldic lion on a shield on the other. After a good rinse in water I see ?Ъ?*ИHEHCTO ПPAБM CILIA БЪ*ГAVЯИ, but the writing goes in a circle so I am not sure which word is first. The * look like a mirror image upside down r and the ? are damaged. The back is I think *BБ TOTИHK$ ($ is a backwards K) ИПO*OBИHA. Since there are a couple of letters on this that do not appear in our Cyrillic alphabet, either they are written in an archaic form, or this is not actually Russian but Bulgarian or Czech or something. Googlemeister (talk) 13:50, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

БЪ*ГAVЯИ looks tantalizingly like БЪЛГАРИЯ, supporting the hypothesis that it's Bulgarian. I don't know whether Czech has ever been written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Any chance of photographing or scanning the coin/medal and uploading a pic of it for us? +An gr 14:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey I figured it out! it is a 2 1/2 Stotinki coin from Bulgaria. http://worldcoingallery.com/countries/img7/29-8.jpg Googlemeister (talk) 14:42, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! From where did you get that coin? I'm bizarrely amazed to see it.

The image on the left is actually the back of the coin. The text there says, СЪЕДИНЕНИЕТО ПРАВИ СИЛАТА, "Unity makes strength", which is the official motto of Bulgaria (see the infobox of the article), and also БЪЛГАРИЯ, "Bulgaria". The image should be the coat of arms of Bulgaria. The text on the front side of the coin, on the right, says, ДВѢ СТОТИНКИ И ПОЛОВИНА, literally "two stotinki and a half", and there's the year 1888. Note that the word for "two", which appears on the coin as ДВѢ, or, as it would be in lower case, двѣ, is nowadays spelt ДВЕ or две. This is due to a reform of the Bulgarian spelling of 1945, which included abolishing the letter Ѣ and substituting it with either Я or Е.

And, you have mistaken the section title. That's Bulgarian, not Russian. --Магьосник (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, "From where did you get that" is a rhetorical question that expresses amazement and does not necessarily demand an answer. --Магьосник (talk) 17:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Several countries have as their motto "L'Union fait la Force", if I remember correctly... AnonMoos (talk) 18:58, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese verb form

Hi. I'm having difficulties with:

お金を入れて、...

This is the start of a sentence; the rest of the sentence doesn't matter. The translation is "Put in your money, ...". As far as I can figure out, 入れて is the て-form of the potential form of 入る, but I don't see how that could amount to the instruction "put in". Is this an idiom of some sort, or have I misunderstood the verb form? 86.184.236.103 (talk) 22:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

I haven't checked this, but I think it is the て-form or the transitive verb 入れる, meaning "insert". --ColinFine (talk) 23:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are absolutely right. I looked up 入れる in the dictionary but couldn't find it. Now I realise that this is because it is pronounced いれる. I assumed, by anology with 入る, that it was はいれる. Thanks! 86.184.236.103 (talk) 00:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

There's the issue - those pesky transitive/intransitive similar verbs in Japanese, in this case 入る/入れる. Steewi (talk) 01:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Especially since there are actually two intransitive forms, one pronounced はいる and one pronounced いる. Paul Davidson (talk) 05:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And the fact that 入れる　（はいれる） also exists as the ~~shorter colloquial form of the~~ potential form of the verb doesn't help us non-natives much either. However, context would usually sort these problems out. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that 入る（はいる） was a "u"-verb, and that 入れる (はいれる) was the standard potential form, not a shortened colloquial form. Am I getting confused? Are you saying that the full form is 入られる（はいられる)? 86.135.29.18 (talk) 13:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

You are right. 入れる(はいれる) is the standard potential form, not a shortened form. 入られる(はいられる) is used as a respectful form, but cannot be used as a potential form. Oda Mari (talk) 14:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. My mistake. It's Friday. :) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks OM. 86.185.79.56 (talk) 19:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Chinese pronunciation

I'm reading a rather old work from 1946 that, in part, discusses the way speakers of different Chinese dialects are prompted to recognize words as the same even if pronounced differently:

"When a man from Peiping says pien⁴ 'throughout' and a man from Nanking says p’eĩ⁴ for what both agree to be the same (general) word, they say that they pronounce them differently. But if the latter said peĩ⁴, then they would say that they pronounce the word 'alike', except for some slight difference in local accent which they cannot and do not care to describe."

I'd like to add this example to Wikipedia, but I'm not sure about the transcription, particularly the number, which I assume indicates tone somehow. Anyone know how to convert them to IPA? — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If that's Wade-Giles, then I guess it would correspond to Pinyin biàn, pèi, and bèi, but I don't know what that tilde means... ? rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(I suppose it might be something specific to the Nanjing dialect and not noted in any of the orthographies for putonghua...) rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since tilde in one dialect's forms seems to correspond to an "n" consonant in the other dialect, I suspect it would mean nasalization of the vowel... AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One of the characteristics of Nanjing dialect is that it's quite nasal. Part of that is that they don't distinguish between -n and -ng. So yes, the ~ is referring to nasalisation. The apostrophe refers to aspiration. So pian4 = PY bian4, and p'ei~ = IPA [p^hei~]. I suspect the context of the quote is referring to differing qualities of aspiration determined by tone between dialects. Steewi (talk) 01:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you're referring to Yuen-Ren Chao, he was a very influential linguist with a worldwide reputation, but was known for inventing many different transcription systems... AnonMoos (talk) 00:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is Chao. Does the number 4 correspond to a low tone in Chinese, then? — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, for Mandarin at least, it usually corresponds to the falling/departing tone (51). rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thank you. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:31, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

There's this word [2] to do with purifying and separating.87.102.32.39 (talk) 20:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

... 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. +An gr 18:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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. +An gr 18:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. +An gr 12:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. +An gr 12:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

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

I found it: it's in Murder Must Advertise. +An gr 05:52, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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"? Bramble claw x 18:22, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. Bramble claw x 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. Bramble claw x 21:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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). +An gr 15:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

(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. +An gr 15:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(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)[reply]

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)[reply]

(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)[reply]

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)[reply]

(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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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).[reply]

It's 何もかも[3] 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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).[reply]

何もかも is a single word. かも is 彼も in kanji. [4] 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[5] and [6] Oda Mari (talk) 16:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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).[reply]

"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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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". +An gr 05:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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? +An gr 14:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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. +An gr 16:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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 T M A 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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 [7] 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. +An gr 14:57, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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. +An gr 15:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Okay, I call rule 34 on Old English. +An gr 18:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

able to

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

I was the last person able to do it.
I was the last person to be able to do it.
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]