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June 10

English translation of German word Burlebübele

The word appears in the title of a film, 'Das Burlebübele mag i net', but I can't get a translation in google, bing, microsoft, yandex, etc. For context, the film is an autobiographical account of two lesbian activists who fought for political rights in the 1970s and 1980s - one in East Berlin and the other in West Berlin, so it might be slang? Thanks to anyone who can help. SusunW (talk) 16:24, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like from a southern German dialect. I'd guess "Burle"="Bauer"=farmer, and "Bübele" is definitely a diminutive of "Bube", boy. So my translation is "I don't like the farmer's (little) boy". —Kusma (talk) 16:28, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it seems to be from a Swiss folk song, Es Burebüebli mah-n-i-nit (No farmer boy for me, Mama!). Es Burebüebli mah-n-i-nit, words and tune.  Card Zero  (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both. That makes sense. SusunW (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Resolved

June 11

Hebrew text from otherwise English 1926 US film

Can you please transcribe the following Hebrew-script text (and maybe even translate it)?

It's from the American silent film Raggedy Rose (1926). Full video file of the public-domain film for context: it appears at 11:58.

Online OCRs have repeatedly given me "שיוו בת" ("Shivu Bat" according to Google Translate) but I think this is wrong, since I can find virtually no Google results for that phrase. PseudoSkull (talk) 23:46, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Could it be Yiddish, considering one of the main actors/ roles is an ashkenazi Jew? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 06:23, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

It also looks somewhat like a reversion of Bathsheba, which could be a coincidence. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 06:30, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I suspect the first word is related to שיווי‎ shivúy meaning something like "equality", and that the whole expression may refer to the balance (bottom line) in accounting.  --Lambiam 11:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I thought of Hebrew numerals, but that doesn't really help. I think the last letter is chet, not tav.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

And the one-but-last a kaph, making the combination –שיוו כח–‎. The term כח‎ kóach can mean "value", which goes together with the accounting theory.  --Lambiam 19:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The combination שווי כח‎ has some currency and appears to mean "net value" or "equivalent value".  --Lambiam 19:45, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The word שיווי occurs in he-wikt only in the phrase שיווי משקל, which means "equilibrium"; but I've found it in Segal and Dagut's English Hebrew Dictionary. Representing שֵוּוּי shivuy it is glossed as "imparting, giving (of form etc.); equalizing; value, worth". But it is also a way of writing the related שׁׂוִּי shovi "worth, value". I agree that the last letter is not tav, but I think it is he rather than chet, so the word would be bah "in her", or "in it (feminine)".

Which doesn't really help to make sense of it. "Value in her"? Note that it's not definite ("The value"); and that it probably doesn't mean "value of her/it", as that would use a different preposition. --ColinFine (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

OK, so, watch the movie. Previously, the junk dealer was telling someone on the phone he expected $6 on his $2 loan, "confound interest". Then we cut to the Rose, picking through the rags, illicitly improving her own torn hose for a slightly better pair. Then we see the dealer counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 on his fingers, then the caption. "Shiva" (as in "sitting shiva") is "7". So, 7 what? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 20:02, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@Jpgordon, Lambiam, and Card Zero: Thanks for the responses. I suspect that there could be an error in this Hebrew dialogue. They're (presumably) not meant to be understood by actual speakers of the language (like in the rare case of a bilingual film), but are just there to show that the character said something in the foreign language. Little Annie Rooney (1925 film), another silent film from 1925, was a film that included a few Greek lines in it. Upon asking some actual Greek speakers who are not on Wiktionary or Wikisource, I determined based on their input that there were typographical errors (or perhaps obsolete spellings?) of some of the words in that dialogue. So just throwing it out there as a possibility only, that whoever came up with the translation for this Raggedy Rose line maybe just found a English–Hebrew dictionary and threw a couple words together that may or may not work in a real speaking context. I could be completely wrong in that guess, though. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: I think you are about right. It looks most like –שיוו כח–‎. It doesn't have an obvious meaning.

Second (left) word: Today's familiar accounting term –כח קנייה–‎=buying power, a construct state. Here we have only half of it, without an article.

First word: it would be grammatically correct only as a plurar past tense declension of שיווה / שיווי . Besides, the letter ש is flipped horizontally.

The very literal translation would be "(they) have balanced (v) power", which doesn't seem useful. It could possibly be –שיור כח–‎ - Shiyur Koah - retention of power, if they mistakenly used the letter Vav (letter) instead of Rosh (letter). If they have made multiple mistakes, it could be a Yiddish blessing meant as encouragement, mostly in positive situations - יישר כוח‎ - Yisher Koich (w:he:יישר כוח)

trespassers william (talk) 18:36, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I also noted the flipped ש‎. Combined with the ambiguous presentation of another letter – ה‎? ח‎? ת‎? – it appears that the lettering was not photographed from an existing typeset Hebrew text, but created for the film. It is possible that someone, as a kind of dumb mechanical translator, tried to come up with a Hebrew term by using an English-Hebrew dictionary and doing a word by word translation of some term such as "balance value". Given the context in the film, I think it is plausible that (as was my first guess) this was somehow supposed to stand for the bottom line of some financial calculation.  --Lambiam 22:51, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Arabic to English, requesting help in translation.

Greetings,

Following Egyptian Arabic language paragraph from This article in the El Watan News Dt. 2022 – 06 – 06 seem to appear as follows. Requesting confirmation of correctness of the translation, possible improvements in the translations if any and also confirming English transliteration of the Author of the article which MEMRI article transliterates "Sahar Al-Ga'ara"

"..الآن أطرح السؤال الأهم: من الذى أساء للسيدة «عائشة»؛ السياسى الهندى أم نحن المسلمون؟.. من الذى شوه سيرة نبى الرحمة؟ «الهندى» أم «البخارى»؟ .."

"..الرواية ذائعة الصيت التى يكاد يعرفها كل مسلم، والتى جاءت فى «البخارى ومسلم»، أن النبى (صلى الله عليه وسلم)، وهو صاحب الخمسين عاماً، قد تزوج أم المؤمنين (عائشة) وهى فى سن السادسة، وبنى بها -دخل بها- وهى تكاد تكون طفلة بلغت التاسعة، وهى الرواية التى حازت ختم الحصانة الشهير لمجرد ذكرها فى البخارى ومسلم، رغم أنها تخالف كل ما يمكن مخالفته، فهى تخالف القرآن والسنة الصحيحة وتخالف العقل والمنطق!! .."

MEMRI translation seem to as following

".."Now let me pose the most important question: Who was it that hurt the lady 'Aisha, the Indian politician, or we Muslims? Who besmirched the biography of the Prophet of Mercy? .."

".."Now let me pose the most important question: Who was it that hurt the lady 'Aisha, the Indian politician, or we Muslims? Who besmirched the biography of the Prophet of Mercy? The Indian [politician] or Al-Bukhari's [compilation of hadiths]? According to a well-known hadith, which almost every Muslim knows and which appears in Al-Bukhari's and Muslim's [hadith compilations], the Prophet, Allah's peace and prayers be upon him, married the Mother of the Believers, 'Aisha, when he was 50 and she was six, and had intercourse with her when she was a child of less than nine. This hadith received a stamp of immunity [from doubt] just because it is included in [the compilations of] Al-Bukhari and Muslim, even though it contradicts everything it can possibly contradict: the Quran and the authentic Sunna [i.e., authentic traditions about the Prophet], as well as reason and common sense!! .."

• "Sahar Al-Ga'ara" is this writing of author name correct?
• Also please help in providing translation of the article title "..إلا التراث يا «مودى» .."

Requesting help in confirmation / or improvement in translation and confirmation of Author name English writing. May be used in articles related to this on going controversy (Change of article name is under consideration @ article talk so mentioning only link here).

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 11:46, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

References

June 12

Ivory Coast

Why do we say, "Flag of Ivory Coast" and not "Flag of the Ivory Coast?? This is inconsistent with other countries with names based on common nouns. Georgia guy (talk) 16:21, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I've combed through the list of alternative country names to see how unusual this is, and investigated some countries a bit further, and the answer is, it's not very unusual.

• The Bahamas (official), Bahama Islands (colloquial)
• Congo, the Congo
• Czechia has apparently had alternate names "Czechland" and "the Czechlands"
• Gambia, the Gambia
• Lebanon, the Lebanon (not used much any more)
• Maldives, the Maldives
• Niger, the Niger
• The Netherlands - our article forgets to use the definite article in 12 places.

On the other hand:

• The Comoros (doesn't ever seem to be called "Comoros")
• "the Philippines" = our article names of the Philippines says When standing alone in English, the country's name is always preceded by the article the.

So those are the unusual cases, not Ivory Coast (which would officially like us to call it Côte d'Ivoire, anyway).  Card Zero  (talk) 17:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

This paper found "Ivory Coast" was preceded by the definite article one third of the time. Nardog (talk) 17:34, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

The official name of Ivory Coast is République de Côte d'Ivoire, without definite article, which would be République de la Côte d'Ivoire. But when the country is referred to in French by a shorter name, it is invariably as la Côte d'Ivoire, also on the government's website.^[1] This is not something special for Ivory Coast; most country names have an obligatory article in French, such as la France, le Japon, le Liban, la Suisse. The Republic of The Gambia always uses the article as part of its name, whether in the full form or in the shorter form. I think this is an exception for the short-form name of an (officially) English-speaking country, except when the name is a plural (Commonwealth of The Bahamas). In these cases, the article is part of the name and should be written with a capital letter T. Using "the Congo" may evoke associations with a history of brutal colonialism and is best avoided.  --Lambiam 22:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

This article says that "If it is a group of islands, use the... If the name is taken from a geographical feature, you should use the... This last one is declining though." Alansplodge (talk) 11:25, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

If it's a plural, it gets a determiner: The Bahamas, Maldives, Philippines, United States of America, United Arab Emirates, Netherlands – that last one has locally been singular for two centuries, but in foreign languages it's often still plural. If named after some river or other geographical feature or some descriptive noun, it's inconsistent. The river Congo, the river Niger, the river Gambia, the river Suriname, the river Senegal, the Lebanon mountains, the western Sahara desert, the united kingdom, the land of the Irish, the land of ice (and fire), the mark of the Danes, the coast where one finds ivory. I suppose it depends on how well people realise where the name comes from and how used they are to seeing such compounds as proper names. If the name ends in land, you never see a determiner. PiusImpavidus (talk) 20:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire, when used in English, is never preceded by the article. It might be less common and more "foreign", but at least spares you that dilemma. --Theurgist (talk) 22:36, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

June 13

Help transcribing English handwriting

Can you help reading the lines written on the top of the second page of the pdf embedded here (one on the left, one on the right)? https://www.archives.gov.il/product-page/2335939

Thanks. trespassers william (talk) 17:18, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The first part says "Agreed map - sent by Findlay & Gray." Underneath that it says "Agreed by ?? Owen (2/8/06)". The part on the right is written in capitals & is pretty straightforward - "Agreed map" July 1906, Taba Section (enlarged). --Viennese Waltz 17:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I think "Agreed by Tewks ?? Owen". I think the ?? is some kind of abbreviation, maybe with a slash in the middle, but nothing in wikt:Category:English_terms_spelled_with_/ seems to fit. Is it a really badly written "c/o", for "care of"? No, you don't really agree "care of" somebody, you agree "on behalf of" somebody. Is it some kind of military rank? It looks like "a/c" which means "account", but that makes no apparent sense. Might be an f rather than a slash, but that gives me "ofc", for "of course", which still makes no sense. If it's an ampersand, it looks entirely unlike the other ampersand.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed by Turks (something / something) Owen". --Amble (talk) 17:48, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Looks more like "Tuke" to me. Deor (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Findlay: diplomat Mansfeldt Findlay; Grey: Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon; Owen: army officer and Sudan Agent Roger Carmichael Robert Owen. See section "The Taba crisis of 1906" in [2]. --Amble (talk) 18:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps the abbreviation in the middle is ofc for "officer". I see from your link that he would indeed be agreeing with the Turks.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I suggest it's an abbreviation for "Lieutenant Colonel Owen". Whatever it's meant to be, it isn't written clearly. --Amble (talk) 19:42, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Owen was a major in 1906, see British Military Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign, 1914-1918 (p. 29, note 21). Alansplodge (talk) 13:22, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

You are technically correct — the best kind of correct! —Amble (talk) 14:51, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if it's either "etc." or the equivalent "&c.", if someone else was also expected to agree. --174.95.83.56 (talk) 01:08, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I couldn't read "Turks" alone. Based on an unrelated map I saw today, maybe "o/c" stands for "on conversation."

But what about the first line? "Agreed map - ???? by Findlay". Could be "Sinai"? But a verb would be more fitting. trespassers william (talk) 20:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

As User:Viennese Waltz says, that's definitely "sent by". --Amble (talk) 20:10, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

June 16

Not-quite-dualism -- is there a word for it?

OK, so dualism is when there are two different things which are polar opposites in every way and are mutually antagonistic (e.g. good and evil, life and death, love and hate, heat and cold, fire and water, etc.) -- but is there a word for when two different things are radically different (to the extent of being opposites in some ways, but not in every way), but coexist in a mutually complementary relationship? 69.181.91.208 (talk) 10:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)