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June 24[edit]

Lee Sung Jin’s name in the Korean alphabet[edit]

I’m only barely cognizant of the Korean alphabet, so this might be an obvious thing, but I noticed that the Korean spelling of Lee Sung Jin is 이성진, but my understanding is that ᄋ in an initial position is an indication of no initial consonant (since a Hangul syllable cannot begin with a vowel). So I’m wondering why 이 is rendered “Lee.” Is that how his name would be pronounced in Korean or is the added initial L a sop to Western expectations who would find a family name of I or Ee to be too short? D A Hosek (talk) 02:02, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's a bit more info at Lee (Korean surname). There's still in principle a consonant "ㄹ" at the beginning of the syllable, but Korean phonetics don't pronounce this sound in initial position. The practice in South Korea is that this type of phonetic rule should be reflected in spelling, so it's written "이" instead of "리". In North Korea the spelling is "리" and the name is also transliterated as "Ri", as in Ri Sol-ju. So it's not entirely made up for Western expectations. Other names are also affected by related phonetic rules: for example, Roh Moo-hyun's family name is written "노" in Korean. The same root Chinese character does have an "ㄹ" when it's not at the start of a word. --Amble (talk) 03:14, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

June 26[edit]

Verb for an enlisted man leaving the US Merchant Marines[edit]

Part of me thinks I'm wrong here. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:16, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Part of you is right. You can only be demobilized from the armed forces. Delisted doesn't sound right either (unless you fell off a tilting ship). I'd go with "resigned", "quit", "left the service" or simply "left". Clarityfiend (talk) 06:22, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Demobilization" usually refers to a whole unit being disbanded, at the end of a war or such, not a voluntary individual resignation. AnonMoos (talk) 07:14, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Several dictionaries disagree with you and say that it can be used for either a unit or a person.[1][2] Clarityfiend (talk)

As I remember it from Robert Graves' Good-bye to All That (where he had a rather strange post-WW1 demobilization experience), an individual soldier can "be demobilized" (in the passive voice) to end his wartime service (even if his unit didn't disband), but it wasn't used in the active voice to indicate an individual soldier resigning for reasons that were unrelated to an overall decrease in the size of the military. Usage could have changed since that time, of course... AnonMoos (talk) 13:49, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So the Hulk was right about being wrong twice. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than search for a more appropriate single word (that might not exist), why not substitute a phrase, such as (but not necessarily) "left the service"?

Incidentally, my understanding is that the organisation is properly called the US Merchant Marine (sing.) and that its personnel are mariners, not marines, although not all sources stick rigidly to these forms. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.226.178 (talk) 18:12, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Demobilized" suggests that the person was "mobilized" or conscripted in the first place, which seems not to have been the case here (I'm not sure that anybody could be conscripted into the merchant service). Also agree that a merchant seaman or mariner is a better description than marine which usually means a naval infantryman. Alansplodge (talk) 11:18, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, everyone. It turns out "left" was the right word all along. For a dockworker, a mariner or anything. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may be thinking of the act of paying off a sailor at the end of a voyage (possibly more used in a UK/Commonwealth/naval context: see also Ship commissioning#Decommissioning), which did not necessarily indicate a change of career. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 18:20, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

June 27[edit]

Pronounciation of "Archangel"[edit]

Courtesy link:Archangel

In the article, someone changed ɑr|k|ˈ|eɪ|n|dʒ|əl|s to ɑr|tʃ|ˈ|eɪ|n|dʒ|əl|s. Is this a valid pronounciation or a mixup due to words like archbishop? Should it be changed back? --Echosmoke (talk) 19:12, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts sorted by particularity (increasing), and therefore by pragmatism (decreasing):

I don't really think a pronunciation guide is required for that article.
Both pronunciations scan as valid in modern English.
The oldest use of the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in Latin-script alphabets like English is actually to transcribe the Greek ⟨χ⟩, whence archangel ← ἀρχάγγελος. So, the most etymological pronunciation in English is with /k/, not conflated with the later but now more ubiquitous use of ⟨ch⟩ used to write /tʃ/.

Remsense诉 19:27, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Neither OED nor my trusty Collins 20th Century have the |tʃ| pronunciation. DuncanHill (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aye. I just mean that I wouldn't necessarily notice if someone used /tʃ/ in the flow of conversation, but I've neglected to directly answer that /k/ is much more common in any case. Remsense诉 20:13, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

People or persons?[edit]

Before a recent edit, SS London (1864) had "Nineteen people escaped on the life boat ... The London took with her two hundred and forty-four persons." (my bold) Both now read as "people". I preferred the previous wording, perhaps because those who survived did so together, while the victims presumably died separately. However I can't revert just on my sense of nuance. Any ideas? Doug butler (talk) 22:27, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think today it's a stylistic toss-up. Merriam-Webster has a discussion on this.

First paragraph:

People should always be used when a collective noun referring to the entirety of a group or nation (i.e., "the French People") is called for. For references to groups of a specific or general number, either people or persons may be used. However, modern style guides tend to prefer people where earlier guides preferred persons, especially for countable groups.OtherDave (talk) 23:24, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To me, "persons" means fewer persons/people than "people". In particular, I've never run across so many (244) referred to as persons. Also, having both "persons" and "people" so close together in the same paragraph strikes me as rather odd. So, for both reasons, I'm a "people" person. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:24, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, much appreciated. Doug butler (talk) 23:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 1[edit]

"Pearl-clutching"[edit]

Where does the expression "pearl-clutching" come from? Lizardcreator (talk) 00:59, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Before looking it up: when one wears a pearl necklace. it rests in a prime position to be clutched if one brings their hand to their neck or clavicle area, which is a common gesture when flummoxed or offended.

After looking it up: yup. Remsense诉 01:01, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply! Consider me impressed. Lizardcreator (talk) 01:30, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This could have been found on Wiktionary: Wiktionary:pearl-clutching#Etymology. --Lambiam 08:53, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I find that it is most often used to describe people who would also be described as "busy-bodies" or "biddies". People whose shock and outrage is more for show than real and is often a hypocritical cover for their own bad behavior. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose that this is inferred by the sort of person likely to wear a string of pearls; Hyacinth Bucket springs to mind. Alansplodge (talk) 16:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also associate strings of pearls with rather vampy, femme fatale types. Hardly a description that applies to Hyacinth. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That said, the stereotype is for ladies of a certain age and social standing, even though some vamps may occasionally wear pearls. That is who the saying applies to. Xuxl (talk) 14:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For me it's Margaret Dumont. —Tamfang (talk) 21:16, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Marry me, and I'll never look at another horse!" MinorProphet (talk) 23:12, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 2[edit]

A super's banner[edit]

In The Inmost Light by Arthur Machen, Mr Salisbury is pondering his friend Dyson, a formerly-impoverished writer who has had a convenient inheritance. "As he walked he speculated on the probable fate of Dyson, relying on literature, unbefriended by a thoughtful relative, and could not help concluding that so much subtlety united to a too vivid imagination would in all likelihood have been rewarded with a pair of sandwich-boards or a super's banner." Now sandwich-boards I am familiar with, but a "super's banner" I am not. Does anyone know what it means? The story is from 1894. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 02:00, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Super is short for supernumerary, basically the stage equivalent of a film extra—someone hired to stand or move about in the background as needed. In some sorts of plays (Shakespeare comes to mind), a super might be a banner bearer. I myself was once a super standing absolutely still with a banner during a ball in a Stuttgart Ballet production of this.

Good story, isn't it? Deor (talk) 03:19, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: Thank you, yes it is. We have an article Supernumerary actor. DuncanHill (talk) 10:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also the related spear carrier, an actor given the most minor role. Alansplodge (talk) 15:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's sort of apropros that a decade later Machen himself, who might well have been described as having "subtlety united to a too vivid imagination", found himself employed as an actor, starting out in essentially supernumerary, nonspeaking roles before getting any lines. He seems to have found it somewhat more interesting than the fate he imagined for Dyson. Deor (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The definition in this article is rather different from that of an "extra", and is moreover in no way supported by the cited source. --Lambiam 19:06, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OED has as one of the meanings of super "A person employed on a casual basis to perform a non-speaking or other minor part in the theatre, a film, or (now more usually) an opera or ballet; an extra", and one for supernumerary "A person outside a regular acting company who is employed to appear on stage in a non-speaking role; an extra". DuncanHill (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Translation issues[edit]

I'm reviewing Tamara Milashkina over at Talk:Tamara Milashkina/GA1 and there's one sticking point I've been unable to resolve. It revolves around whether Milashkina studied library science or worked as a librarian. We have four examples to choose from so far, one from a German dictionary, one from a recent Russian obituary, the Russian Wikipedia version, and the resulting version on the English Wiki. I will list them in that respective order:

Sie ergriff zunächst den Beruf einer Bibliothekarin[3]
После окончания школы-семилетки она поступила в астраханский библиотечный техникум, занималась в хоровом кружке[4]
Окончила школу и библиотечный техникум. Пела в самодеятельности.[5]
She first worked as a librarian[6]

Did Milashkina "work" as a librarian, or did she study to become a librarian? I am particularly interested in how the Russian obituary entry is translated. On my screen, it says "After graduating from school-semilet, she entered the Astrakhan Library College, studied in a choir circle", which doesn't make much sense, so maybe somebody can help? It looks like she attended library college, which is what we should write, but there's no indication she ever worked as a librarian. Viriditas (talk) 20:59, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The two Russian sentences state that she studied to be a librarian, but do not address whether or not she worked as one. The German sentence says she worked as one. The English I figure you can make out. Xuxl (talk) 01:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given the topic, the Russian reliable sources should carry the most weight. The TASS article states that at Astrakhan Library College she studied in a choir group and that she entered Astrakhan Music School in 1953. Her studying there is confirmed by the website of that school (now the Astrakhan Music College "M. P. Mussorgsky").^[7] Most likely, she was then on the cusp of turning 19. She left the Music School in 1954^[8] and was a third-year student at the Moscow Conservatory in 1957.^[9] This hardly leaves time for a stint as a librarian. By far the most plausible is is that she went straight from the Astrakhan Library College to the Astrakhan Music School to the Moscow Conservatory. --Lambiam 09:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly my position. There wasn’t enough time for her to work as a librarian. Can you take a look at the German source and figure out why they framed it the way they did? Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The German sentence can be translated as "She initially chose the profession of librarian" and interpreted as meaning that she studied so as to be able to later work as a librarian. It does not necessarily imply that she already worked in that capacity. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that’s exactly what I was looking for here. Viriditas (talk) 10:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The German Wikipedia gets its info from the Großes Sängerlexikon. The latter cites two sources. For one source, in the journal Театр, 1961 issue 1, pp. 83ff, I find no more than a snippet view.^[10] The entry in the Großes Sängerlexikon got the name of the author of this source wrong ("Prokowsky" instead of "Pokrowsky"). I don't find any view of the other source, a book, whose title in Russian is a bit longer than suggested in the Großes Sängerlexikon's entry, to wit, Солистка Большого: Тамара Милашкина. --Lambiam 10:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

July 3[edit]

Vote or votes?[edit]

Hi hi. I'm working a bit on Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Party_of_Revolutionary_Communism, a question here that I'm unsure of is the use of plural or singular on 'vote'. If there is a group of people, with each individual possessing one vote, is it correct to say 'ten delegates with decisive vote' or 'ten delegates with decisive votes'? I feel that in the latter case its implied that delegates could cast more than one vote each. -- Soman (talk) 13:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Ten delegates with decisive vote" is not standard English, at least for me. Votes are typically one per person per election; where that's not the case (such as when you can select multiple choices for things like city council or whatever), the details are usually described specifically. However, the full situation you're working on is already unusual; you're using "decisive" to (I think) only refer to those votes that were actually counted towards the result, in contrast with what you're calling "consultative votes". I don't know the details of what you're describing, but it sure seems odd: the whole point of voting is for it to count towards the result. It might be better to re-word the section to explicitly describe the situation. In standard English, all votes count towards the decision, so the term "decisive vote" means a special case where the results are tied and it's up to a small number of people (usually one) to cast the "decisive" vote that makes the decision. Matt Deres (talk) 14:21, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the context, some delegates only have an "advisory vote"; the regular votes of other delegates are called "decisive votes". I don't know how advisory votes are counted, if at all; in any case, the term "decisive vote" usually has a different meaning. ("Senator John McCain of Arizona, who just this week returned to the Senate after receiving a diagnosis of brain cancer, cast the decisive vote to defeat the proposal, joining two other Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in opposing it."^[11]) --Lambiam 19:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lenin allowed voting??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have the impression that it took some time for Lenin to fully consolidate his power. There weren't really any meaningful popular votes, but intra-Party votes might have been important for a while. It's not my field; maybe someone who knows more about it could weigh in. --Trovatore (talk) 21:10, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What does Lenin have to do with the issue? --Lambiam 22:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issues relate to the Party of Revolutionary Communism of 1918–20, which subsequently merged into Lenin's Bolshevik Party, the leading but far from only Party participating in governing Russia (soon to become the Soviet Union) at that time. Intra-party factions and splits, and inter-party disputes and merges were rife, and it was all done by committees, so votes in various contexts could be very important. Lenin was not an all-powerful dictator from the outset. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.226.178 (talk) 02:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd stress here that the words for 'vote'/'voice' are the same in many languages. And the terms 'decisive vote' and 'consultative vote' where used in the English-language materials of the Communist International. The statues of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union allowed candidate members to participate in party meetings with consultative vote, not decisive vote ([12]). And so forth. But my question was, should it be 'ten delegates with decisive vote' (vote in singular) or 'ten delegates with decisive votes' (votes in plural)? --Soman (talk) 12:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Soman: You're forgetting the articles; so is your question "should it be 'ten delegates with a decisive vote' (vote in singular) or 'ten delegates with decisive votes' (votes in plural)"? As a British English speaker, I'd go for the first (singular) version if you're treating the ten voters as a group (for example, they belong to a political grouping). If you're simply talking about ten unconnected people who each happen to have a decisive vote, then probably the second, although it looks a bit strange as I can't envisage how that would happen. Bazza 7 (talk) 12:58, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note that "decisive vote" does not mean what it usually means. The meaning in this context is more like "first-class". Some delegates have first-class votes; these carry more weight than the votes of other delegates. So would you say, 'ten delegates with a first-class vote' or 'ten delegates with first-class votes'? I think the latter, also if these delegates belong to the same political faction. --Lambiam 14:53, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 5[edit]

Japanese place names outside Japan[edit]

Assaí is a Brazilian municipality whose name is derived from the Japanese word 朝日 Asahi. Are there other instances of place names (villages, towns, cities, provinces etc..., not street names or restaurants) outside of Japan (modern and historical, thus excluding, for example, Karafuto] with a Japanese etymology or with an outright Japanese name? I'm particularly curious about South America, with its large Japanese diaspora. Thanks! 82.48.30.149 (talk) 14:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's Okinawa Uno, Bolivia. Nardog (talk) 12:50, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 6[edit]

Questions[edit]

Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has a phonemic contrast between close-mid and open-mid vowels?
Is there any dialect that pronounces the P in word psychology? Several other languages pronounce it.
Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has /z/ or /v/ phoneme?
Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has a /b/-/v/ distinction?
Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) where j / soft g is a coronal sound, rather than velar?
Is pronouncing the T in words tsunami and tsar more common that pronouncing P in psychology?
Why letter S is silent in viscount? Silent letters don't typically appear at the ends of non-initial syllables.
Are there any words in English with coda /sl/?
Are there any words in English that have a consonant cluster containing an affricate?
Are there any words in English that have affricates or /h/ in complex onsets?

--40bus (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for 8, "hassle" etc, if you're willing to accept syllabic L. AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for 6, many people pronounce "tsar" as if spelled "zar". I don't think there's much initial /ts/ except in Tsetse fly. AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for 7, presumably borrowed from French after the amount of silent consonants in French had increased... AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I figured it might have been a later "etymological spelling", such as isle or debt. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely from Old French.[13] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for 9, if medial clusters are allowed, there's "judgement". AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are accents where 'tree' is pronounced "chree" and (I think) 'dream' is "jream". And of course many people still pronounce 'which' as "hwich". Also 'hue'. — kwami (talk) 08:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The /b/–/v/ contrast in Spanish is reported in the US, northern Mexico, and Puerto Rico (Exford 2018). Nardog (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has a phonemic contrast between close-mid and open-mid vowels?[edit]

Spanish phonology#Realization_of_/s/:

In Eastern Andalusian and Murcian Spanish, word-final /s/, /θ/ and /x/ regularly weaken, and the preceding vowel is lowered and lengthened:[157]

/is/ > [ɪː] e.g. mis [mɪː] ('my' pl)

/es/ > [ɛː] e.g. mes [mɛː] ('month')

/as/ > [æː] e.g. más [mæː] ('plus')

/os/ > [ɔː] e.g. tos [tɔː] ('cough')

/us/ > [ʊː] e.g. tus [tʊː] ('your' pl)

A subsequent process of vowel harmony takes place so lejos ('far') is [ˈlɛxɔ], tenéis ('you [plural] have') is [tɛˈnɛj] and tréboles ('clovers') is [ˈtɾɛβɔlɛ] or [ˈtɾɛβolɛ].[158]

I guess that is phonetic rather than phonemic. --Error (talk) 00:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Numerals[edit]

Do numerals constitute a distinct part of speech in English? --40bus (talk) 21:04, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They're not usually considered to do so. AnonMoos (talk)

In general, cardinals would be nouns, and ordinals would be adjectives. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Finnish, it is a distinct part of speech. Even words like sata (100) and tuhat (1000) are definitely numerals, and not nouns. --40bus (talk) 06:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Grammarians may label some word as a distinct part of speech, but is this reflected in its actual use in the language? The word sata can be inflected just like a common noun such as utu, so it can function as a noun, just like an English numeral such as hundred, which can be qualified with an adjective ("the happy hundred") and has a plural ("hundreds of people agree with me"). What makes cardinal numerals distinct from common nouns, though, at least in some languages, is that they can be used as determiners of nouns ("the first hundred years"). You can substitute the noun "lot" for "hundred" used as a noun ("the happy lot"; "lots of people agree with me"). You cannot do this with "hundred" used as a determiner (*"the first lot years"). That is IMO enough reason to assign cardinal numbers their own part of speech, but an alternative is to assign several parts of speech. Wiktionary classifies Finnish sata as only a numeral but English hundred as both a numeral and a noun. The English word some is classified as a pronoun, a determiner, and an adverb.

Rather in general, grammarians do not agree among themselves on which parts of speech there are and which ones should be assigned to given terms. The common assignments are also a matter of what is conventional, rather than theoretically sound. --Lambiam 08:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Parts of speech are to some extent subjective. There are different kinds of noun that might be considered different parts of speech, and to some extent it's just tradition that they're not. English numerals, if you want to call them nouns, behave differently than other nouns. In "two [dogs] bark", "two" is not your typical noun. It doesn't take the plural, yet counts as a plural for the verb. (That's different than "I wrote four twos", where it does take the plural and does behave as a typical noun.) It's attributive ("two dogs bark"), yet can occur without the main noun ("two bark"), which is also odd. There's lots of behaviour like that that would be odd for a noun, so you could say that it's not a noun. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Back in 2017, Zompist had a post on the syntax of mathematical sentences (e.g. "two plus two equals four"). Double sharp (talk) 09:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 7[edit]

Loans from Welsh in Old English[edit]

Were Welsh words with /ɬ/, /r̥/, and /n̥/ loaned into Old English (possibly also early Middle English) with /hl/, /hr/, and /hn/? What about loans in the other direction?

(Somewhat inspired by 40bus' question about h-clusters.) Double sharp (talk) 09:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if there were enough Celtic loans into Old English for us to know.

Welsh ll came in later as fl, at least in 'Floyd' and 'flummery'. — kwami (talk) 10:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have a List of English words of Welsh origin, which as — kwami says above, are remarkably few considering that the English and Welsh have lived together for more than a thousand years. Alansplodge (talk) 11:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish words of Finnish origin are of a similar magnitude... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:20, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was afraid of that. :( But surely names of Welsh people and settlements must have been recorded by the English? Double sharp (talk) 11:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They were and are recorded and used, since Welsh is a living language, but they did and do not generally give rise to words in the vocabulary of English. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.226.178 (talk) 15:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes of course. I was thinking of the period when Old English still had those consonant clusters.

So, just thinking of a prominent Welsh person from the medieval period whose name would've contained /ɬ/: surely Llywelyn the Great must've been mentioned in some contemporary English texts? How was his name spelled in those texts? Double sharp (talk) 15:31, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, Rhyl gives some examples of how Middle English writers tried to represent Welsh /r̥/ around 1300: Hulle, Hul, Ryhull. But I'm not sure if Middle English had already lost /hr/ by then. Those examples are referenced to Owen and Morgan's Dictionary of the Place-names of Wales (2007), so that might be a good place to start researching this question. Now if only I had a copy. Double sharp (talk) 15:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gerald of Wales, writing in Latin in 1191 (for a French-speaking English audience) in Itinerarium Cambriae or Journey through Wales, for example has Llanddewi Brefi as "Landewi Brevi" and Llŷn as "Lhein". Not sure if this helps. Gerald was presumably able to speak Welsh, but English was not the language of geographers or historians at this time. Alansplodge (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're looking for something earlier. Presumably Old English would've maintained the distinctions that were available to it. The problem is attestation: the surviving Old English corpus is quite small (a single person can -- and does -- study the entire thing!), so it's possible that such names do not occur, or occur with such low frequency that we can't be sure if the surviving tokens are representative. — kwami (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing to do with Welsh, but proto-Germanic "hringaz" was borrowed into Finnish as "rengas"... AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Brittonic words for 18[edit]

And continuing the Celtic theme of my previous question: what's the history of the factor-names for 18? I'm referring to Breton triwec'h "three sixes" and Welsh deunaw "two nines". Cornish etek seems to be regular additive 8 + 10 instead, and English Wiktionary tells me that Breton and Welsh both have (presumably rarer? they're not on the main Wiktionary page listing translations of wikt:eighteen) regular alternatives (even if we restrict ourselves to the traditional vigesimal system for Welsh). Double sharp (talk) 16:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The book "Lingo" by Gaston Dorren has a brief discussion of the irregularity of Breton number words, where 78 + 59 is three-six-and-three-twenty plus nine-and-half-hundred. He also says that Welsh (unlike Breton) has regular forms for calculating with, as opposed to the irregular forms for counting. Some modern languages of India also have a rather complicated system of sub-100 number words... AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sino-Xenic toponyny[edit]

What are some factors that have traditionally played a part in determining whether places in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam use native toponyms or Chinese-derived toponyms? Primal Groudon (talk) 18:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seoul traditionally had no Chinese characters corresponding to its name, unlike many other Korean placenames of any importance... AnonMoos (talk) 18:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although the names of Japanese places like Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Nagasaki are written in Japanese with kanji (福岡; 熊本; 長崎), the names themselves are generally Japanese. The characters for Nagasaki are read in Chinese like Chángqí (Hanyu Pinyin romanization). --Lambiam 09:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Hokkaido, we find place-names like Sapporo 札幌 or Furano 富良野 which are originally Ainu, but were adapted phonetically into Japanese and then given kanji with the appropriate sound. Double sharp (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 8[edit]

Individual conjecture[edit]

Journalist Nesta Roberts wrote in 1971 about the later so-called 27 Club members: "In what proportion drink, drugs, and desperation respectively contributed to those deaths is a matter for individual conjecture." I'm not sure what exactly she means with "individual conjecture": Is it "We can assume the proportion was different for each of those individuals", or "Everybody may make his own assumptions on this topic."? --KnightMove (talk) 15:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely the second option ("Everybody can do their own guessing")... AnonMoos (talk) 16:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that that is what she did write, but is it what she actually meant to write? Why should anyone (including myself) care about what I think caused Jimi Hendrix's death? It seems to make more sense to state that each case must be assessed individually, and I suspect that she just formulated this poorly. Of course there's no way to know for certain. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]