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December 26

Latin Title

May someone translate this title for me, please: Insigniores orbitae cometarum proprietates. Omidinist (talk) 08:34, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Notable properties of comets' orbits"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:02, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, in spite of the question mark. And happy holidays! Omidinist (talk) 09:28, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

After Bugs' comical attempts to translate German on the Miscellaneous desk, it's amazing that he stumbled into a mostly-correct translation using Google Translate; "Particularly Notable Properties of the Orbit of Comets" would be more literally correct ("insigniores" is a comparative adjective, "more notable", "very notable", etc). I assume this refers to the book by Johann Heinrich Lambert. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:30, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The OP liked where my answer led, so apparently it's you that's the comic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:54, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please, no resentment in this season of merrymaking. Omidinist (talk) 12:00, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Christmas isn't Christmas without gift-wrapped resents. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:24, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Which language easy or hard to learn base on first language

I see many list which language easy or hard to learn (example http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty) but always for people who first language is English. Where are lists for other first languages? Example I think if your first language is Korean then easier to learn Chinese and if your first language is Punjabi then easier to learn other Indian languages like Hindi or Tamil. --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 17:01, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Korean and Chinese are not at all closely related genetically or typographically; the first being polysyllabic with verbal endings, the second being essentially monosyllabic and having at least four distinctive tones, but no real grammatical endings (with the minor exceptions of er and men, depending on how one analyzes them). Instead, I have read that in many cases Korean and Japanese can often be translated into each other word for word as if they had almost identical grammars, but different vocabularies.

Likewise, Hindi and Tamil are related in the way Korean and Chinese are, with geographical proximity and interborrowing of words. But Hindi is much more closely related genetically to English than to Tamil. Tamil is agglutinating, with a very large number of word endings (for example, three noun cases, compared to a(n artificial) minimum of eight in Tamil. Tamil and the other Dravidian languages are not demonstrably related to Hindi, which is Indo-European.

To find languages easy to learn, look for genetically related languages (language family) with close geographic and cultural relationships, such as German, French and Spanish for English speakers. See Sprachbund and Standard Average European.

μηδείς (talk) 00:19, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think that μηδείς's "typographically" is a typo for "typologically". -- Hoary (talk) 13:38, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at Language family and the linked lists. Basically, the more closely related a language, the easier it will be to learn. I needed to learn a couple of bantu languages while working in Africa. The first one was quite difficult, as it was totally unrealted the English. The second one was much easier, because it was fairly similar to the first one I had learned. Wymspen (talk) 11:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If your first language is Tamil, which is a Dravidian language, then easier to learn Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu which are also Dravidian languages. I think I understand that part. Then how to know which languages (from different language family) are harder? Example, if your first language is Russian, then Arabic or Chinese harder to learn? The list says Tagalog harder to learn than Malay if your first language is English. But Tagalog and Malay are Austronesian languages so why? --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 13:10, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If Russian is your sole first language and you speak no second language, then acquisition of either [any variety of] Arabic or [any variety of] Chinese is likely to be tough. But there's no formula by which one can estimate language difficulty. (In particular, straightforward and major differences do not necessarily pose any major problem. As an example, a monoglot speaker of a language whose standard (or obligatory) order is subject–verb–object is not likely to be confused by the subject–object–verb order of another language, or vice versa.) -- Hoary (talk) 13:38, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a couple of pages for Japanese speakers (in Japanese)[1] [2] and one for Koreans (in Korean) [3] Siuenti (talk) 18:53, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If we are just looking at Russian, Arabic and Chinese, any speaker of one would have a hard time learning the other; none has a proven genetic relation to another, and all have quite different scripts. But Russian and Arabic share alphabetic type writing systems, polysyllabic roots, inflection, and lack distinctive tone, which it is hard to pick up as an adult. Chinese would be the most distant outlier. Observations like this can't be made without a lot of study of comparative linguistics and familiarity with the languages involved.

μηδείς (talk) 02:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But Russian and Arabic share alphabetic type writing systems, polysyllabic roots, inflection, ... -- I don't agree on any of these three points. Russian script includes the vowels, so you can read aloud a word even if it doesn't make any sense to you. Arabic script doesn't include the vowels, so you have to know the word to be able to read it aloud -- which is kind of similar to the use of Chinese script. Arabic roots aren't "polysyllabic" -- the consonants are part of the root, and the inserted vowels make up the "inflection". This transfix-based inflection is entirely unnatural to a Russian (or, for that matter, any Indo-European) speaker, who is only used to continuous affixes, attached to a continuous root. --212.235.66.73 (talk) 09:50, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are making an irrelevant objection, 212, perhaps based on my use of the word root. But "to read" has forms that indicate person and number as well as gender and perfect versus imperfect aspect in both Russian and Arabic, each in their own ways, and each involving differences in prefixes, suffixes, and vowel "ablaut" in a wide sense. The forms are quite distinct, but the notions of conjugations are entirely alien to Chinese.

You also entirely gloss over the fact that I said Russian and Arabic have alphabetic type writing systems, not alphabets, although Arabic is perfectly capable of expressing vowel sounds by various means such as matres lectionis. I am curious if you are familiar with the declination of the word "tongue" язык in Russian, and would like to opine on whether the nominal yuhZICK and prepositional ihzickYEH singular case forms would be easier for an Arabic or a Chinese speaker to grok?

μηδείς (talk) 03:39, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My objection was not so much based on your use of the word root as it was about your use of the word polysyllabic to refer to a root which doesn't include any syllables altogether.

Arabic is as capable of expressing vowel sounds as Chinese is capable of using an alphabetical writing, such as pinyin or bopomofo: it's possible, but outside of certain contexts, it isn't normally done.

As for wikt:язык, its nominative form is pronounced "ih-zick", with exactly the same initial syllable as in the prepositional case. Wiktionary has both the IPA and an audio recording; I have no clue where you pulled your "yuh-zick" out of. --212.235.66.73 (talk) 12:12, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You understood my point about alphabet-like, and are just being contrary; and you have no native understanding of Russian vowel stress and its effects on reduction. You conveniently ignore the fact that the standard nominative form of jazyk has an initial yod, while this disappears in forms with a stressed desinence. I am not interested in debating you. My points are clear. μηδείς (talk) 20:21, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RD is not a place to look for debates, it's a place to look for references. I'd appreciate if you can find a reference confirming that standard nominative form of jazyk has an initial yod, while this disappears in forms with a stressed desinence, which we could then mention in Vowel reduction in Russian. I don't know what you mean by "native understanding of Russian vowel stress and its effects on reduction", but Russian is my first language, and neither my own experience nor any sources available to me confirm your statement. --212.235.66.73 (talk) 07:35, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tagalog is considered harder than Malay because Tagalog has a much more complex grammar. Tagalog has prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, and the verbs are conjugated. Tagalog also uses grammatical particles that indicate how other words are used, just like Japanese does. Malay does not have particles, does not conjugate its verbs, and it seems very straightforward to an English-speaker. Malay is also easier for a Chinese person, for the same reasons. —Stephen (talk) 10:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"floating point data types" or "floating-point data types"?

Should it be "floating point data types" or "floating-point data types"? Context

Similar for "floating point type" vs. "floating-point type", "floating point numbers" vs. "floating-point numbers", "floating point representations" vs. "floating-point representations", "floating point operations" vs. "floating-point operations", etc.

Searching on Wikipedia by a search engine (restricted to en.wikipedia.org) gave examples of both forms (e.g. Data type and Real data type - though not 100% in the same context).

--Mortense (talk) 19:41, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You've seen it both ways because usage varies. Some people feel that expressions of two or more words that form a compound adjective should automatically be hyphenated if it's used before a noun, as it says here, and therefore "floating-point" is required in these examples. Others feel that there is no need for such a strong general rule, and say things like "hyphenate only if the reader will be confused otherwise". See here, for example. The Chicago Manual of Style contains a long list of different situations but the general rule (on page 4 of the PDF) says to hyphenate in this case. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 20:31, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Early on, I usually used the hyphen when editing Wikipedia. The hyphens were generally removed by other editors. I can take a hint: I quit using them. My uneducated guess is that they are old-fashioned. -Arch dude (talk) 02:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably correct that no computer programmer would think that the data types were floating, but Wikipedia is aimed at a general readership. Personally, I prefer to be old-fashioned if it improves clarity, even marginally (though I'd prefer not to be both old and fashioned). Dbfirs 20:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

December 29

Chanukah? Challah?

Why are Hebrew-derived English terms pronounced without the 'ch'? Obviously, it's a different language, but still why do the English names have the 'ch'? Why can't the English terms be hallah or hanukah to reflect the accurate pronunciation? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 20:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When I go to google and type in "han", the first word it suggests is "Hanukkah". Google is your friend. μηδείς (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a case of the Hebrew words being transliterated different in different varieties of English. British English prefers "ch", perhaps thinking of the Scottish (e.g. loch); American English prefers "h". Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Hanukkah#Alternative_spellings for the full story. Also, English spelling sometimes doesn't really concern itself with how the letters sound, look at "knee" for example. Alansplodge (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Words starting with kn used to be pronounced as spelled. The leading k's went silent by 1750. [4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't quite know what you mean by "to reflect the accurate pronunciation". The Hebrew letter ח (cheth) has a sound which does not occur in most dialects of English except for non-English words. It is a different sound from that of ה (he), and a careful transliteration needs to recognise that; hence the common used of 'kh' or 'ch'. for the sound. --ColinFine (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gutturals like the Spanish j and the Hebrew letter are often equated to the trailing "ch" in Scottish words such as "loch". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Choder! μηδείς (talk) 06:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

December 30

Possessives in names of workplaces

In a phrase like "I work in a florist's" or "There was a gas leak at the dentist's", is the apostrophe normally used? It make logical sense as an abbreviation for something like "dentist's clinic", but it looks wrong to me. I think I intuitively prefer "the dentists", which I guess might be a sort of synecdoche where the building is referred to by mentioning the occupants. Card Zero (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Dentists" is definitely wrong (unless you mean " dentists' ", in which case your bill is liable to be at least twice what it should be). "Dentist's" sounds fine and seems perfectly grammatical to me. "I work in a florist's", however, sounds a bit odd. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:55, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This issue comes up from time to time (see Arnos Grove). Some companies have made a point of restoring the apostrophe (see Sainsbury's), some haven't, pointing to possible problems with typing in the name of the website. 92.8.220.149 (talk) 14:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is one example of dropping the possessive apostrophe. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These examples from 92.8 and Bugs refer to corporate names, but the original question is about generic phrases. As the original poster surmised, expressions like "at the dentist's" and "in a florist's" are just short for expressions like "at the dentist's clinic" and "in a florist's shop", and are correctly written as possessives. Another example of this construction is when you refer to the house of the Kerr family as "the Kerrs'", meaning "the Kerrs' house"; in this case it's a plural possessive because you are talking about more than one person named Kerr. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Last time I mentioned "the Joneses' house" here, I got a few funny looks. But we're both spot on. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What accent do Bob's Burgers characters use?

I'll ask this here instead of at Entertainment since it's a dialect question. I'm sure someone could narrow it down better than me (um, Great Lakes? Davenport?) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article List_of_Bob's_Burgers_characters#Linda says Linda has a thick New York accent (and multiple sources on the internet agree). In an interview the guy who voiced her said: "It's a voice that I've always had--you know, my mother, and my aunts are all from Brooklyn, so I've always done that voice really naturally since I was a kid. ". I wouldn't assume all characters have the same accent, or to the same degree. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 01:43, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is a (typically working-class white) accent from Brooklyn or some parts of Queens. Think of Fran Drescher in The Nanny (from Flushing, Queens) or Jean Stapleton in All in the Family (from Astoria, Queens). μηδείς (talk) 19:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Words that are technically one language but that we anglophones pronounce as if they were another language

How many words do anglophones use of this kind?? We have:

maraschino (Italian, German)
forte [in the sense of a strong point] (French, Italian)

Are there in fact many words of this kind?? Please restrict this category of words to those where the second question's answer is not English. Georgia guy (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See 100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:06, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Most comment ones in my experience are bruschetta (Italian, pronounced as if it's German) and chorizo (Spanish, pronounced as if it's Italian). Then, not quite on topic, there's the horrible pronunciation of French lingérie as if it were spelled langeré, that seems to be gaining ground. --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your second example is not valid, because ch in Italian is always before e or i. Georgia guy (talk) 23:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's the z that's pronounced as if it's Italian - chor-itz-o or chor-eetz-o, rather than chor-eess-o or chor-eeth-o. --Nicknack009 (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Most any foreign word is liable to be pronounced differently in English than in the language it comes from. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:55, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you really not understand that the question is about distortions not required by the differences between English and [source language] phonologies? —Tamfang (talk) 20:37, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hyperforeignism is relevant here; most of the examples given here are already mentioned in that article. --Theurgist (talk) 07:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two more:

pistachio: from Italian (actually spelled pistacchio in Italian), but the ch is pronounced "sh" as if it's French
machete: the ch can be pronounced "ch" as in the original Spanish or "sh" as if it's French

--Theurgist (talk) 07:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a half-example:

jalapeño: People generally know enough to pronounce the j correctly, as h, but they generally don't know enough to pronounce the ñ correctly, so it comes out as /halapeeno/. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:26, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And then people hypercorrect habanero, assuming that since it's jalapeño, and a pepper, it must also be habañero. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 16:00, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not another example - but a correction to the ones in the original question. Forte is not a French word which we pronounce as if it were Italian - it happens to be a perfectly good Italian word as well. The French pronounce it with one syllable, the Italians with two - but the meaning is the same. Wymspen (talk) 11:09, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As a musical term, it's an Italian word that we didn't change the pronunciation of. But in the sense "this is not my forte" it's a French word we pronounce as if it were Italian. Georgia guy (talk) 12:44, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

... and spell as if it were feminine! Dbfirs 12:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We pianists are prone to uttering drolleries such as "the piano is my forte". ") -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 13:14, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

January 1

How do you say "Happy New Year!" in your ancestral or second tongue(s)?

Szczastliwy nowy rok! μηδείς (talk) 05:14, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proscht Neijohr, e Brezel wie e Scheierdohr, e Kuuche wie e Oweblatt, do werr mer all mitnanner satt. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 05:43, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nizhónígo Nináánááhai Dooleeł. —Stephen (talk) 08:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Esengo na mbula na sika. Wymspen (talk) 13:00, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No ancestral input, but here are a few dozen [5]. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic police baton

What is the common English name for this type of striped baton, used by traffic police and road patrols to stop cars? Thanks--93.174.25.12 (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]