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October 17

Equivalents to Basic English/Special English in Spanish, French, and German?

Hi! I noted that Simple English Wikipedia has a basis in Basic English, Special English, two standardized simplified Englishes. Do you know of any equivalents in Spanish, French, and/or German? If so, they could form bases of Simple versions of their Wikipedias - Since I know there are large numbers of Spanish speakers in the United States who may have access to technology through public libraries but are not well educated, I think a Simple Spanish Wikipedia could be very helpful. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Basic English isn't meant so much for uneducated English speakers, but for speakers who have English as a second language, it being the language with the most second-language speakers in the world. French, Spanish and German are all easy to pronounce once you know the spelling rules, while English is a crap shoot in that respect. But none of them takes kindly to having its grammatical desinences removed. μηδείς (talk) 03:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

French? Easier than English, maybe. But it has plenty of stuff you just have to know, especially in terms of when letters are silent and when they aren't. (An old colleague summed it up as "don't pronounce anything in the second half of the word", which works pretty well for, say, prennent.)--Trovatore (talk) 04:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It's true that Basic English was meant for ESL purposes, but Simple English Wikipedia is also trying to target people who are relatively uneducated and children as well as ESL. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

To be honest I don't think SEW has a clear rationale. It was my understanding that it was supposed to be able to treat material that was just as difficult, but using simple language. The problem is, of course, that in practice this is not in fact possible — while it is certainly true that it is a bad habit to use unnecessarily difficult language, it is also true that precise discussion of specialized material requires specialized language.

As a same-level-of-sophistication copy of en.wiki using simple language, SEW is just a flat failure. As a "children's WP" it could possibly make sense, but in that case it probably shouldn't e treated as a "language" WP, but as a different WikiMedia project. --Trovatore(talk) 04:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Would it be fair to say that it is difficult to introduce complicated/precise topics to relatively uneducated people anyway? If they aren't able to understand complex sentence patterns and/or terminology then it would be very difficult to discuss certain things with them. There are languages which by design have great difficulty in discussing things like sciences and modern technology (It can take a long White Hmong sentence to convey what a short English sentence can say) - Because of these two aspects we can have language wikis which aren't/can't be as "sophisticated" or "technical" as say, English and French WhisperToMe (talk) 04:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

“The untrained man reads a paper on natural science and thinks: ‘Now why couldn't he explain this in simple language.’ He can't seem to realize that what he tried to read was the simplest possible language – for that subject matter. In fact, a great deal of natural philosophy is simply a process of linguistic simplification – an effort to invent languages in which half a page of equations can express an idea which could not be stated in less than a thousand pages of so-called ‘simple’ language.” —A Canticle for Leibowitz

French may have a lot of silent letters but there is no confusion over how they are pronounced, nor is there confusion over how the non-silent ones are pronounced. And if one drops the verb endings it is simply no longer French. Those languages are simply not amenable to the same project that English is, for the same reasons I just gave, regardless of the uneducated trying to take advantage. μηδείς (talk) 04:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

There is confusion over whether they are silent or not, and no simple rules for determining that. There are also one-off pronunciations specific to a given word (e.g. the schwa in the first syllable of faisons). --Trovatore (talk) 04:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Getting back to your original question, the only non-English equivalent of a standardized simplified language that I know of is français fondamental. These languages are restricted on purpose; any natural language, including the Hmong languages, can express complicated concepts through loanwords, calques, etc., if the speakers are motivated to do so. I think that the paucity of scientific literature in Hmong is more a product of the social situation of Hmong speakers than of the languages themselves. Also, just so we're clear in this discussion, Basic English and Simple English have nothing to do with pronunciation or spelling reform. Lesgles(talk) 05:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's true that natural languages can adopt loan words, etc. And I agree that the limited natural languages do have to do with cultural/situational issues. But sometimes it can become cumbersome to incorporate and explain all of these loanwords. In some countries people switch from their native tongue to a second or third language just to discuss scientific topics/etc. Anyway, thanks for the tip! I'll review the failed French Simple nominations, and then make a proposal regarding starting a "Simple French" Wikipedia based on "français fondamental"WhisperToMe (talk) 06:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You'll have to give examples, Trovatore. Prennent is perfectly regular in regards to pronunciation for a third person verb and presents no confusion. French spelling may be more complicated than its surface phonetics, but that is not bad given it conveys information you'd otherwise have to gather from context. μηδείς (talk) 05:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I have never lived in France, so I don't really know, but I was taught in high school that prennent is a single-syllable word. I have heard other French speakers say it with two syllables, but the second syllable was at most a little glide. It certainly does not rhyme with, say,maintnent. --Trovatore (talk) 08:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's just a rule you have to learn that the -ent ending of otherwise polysyllabic third person plural verbs are silent. You have to apply grammatical criteria; it's not like Spanish where surface orthography tells you all you need to know. But it's not like prennent has an irregular pronunciation once you know the rules. μηδείς (talk) 18:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

On Trovatore's "little glide". Speakers in the South of France have a schwa at the end of prennent, as they do with word-final e. I also recently discovered that some dialects systematically pronounce the -ent ending, and do indeed rhyme prennent and maintenant. It is regarded as very non-standard, a dialectal form rather than an accent. I am trying to find out more, but there is such a stigma attached to non-standard French, people don't like to admit to theses variants. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I hadn't known about the regional aspect. I did know that these syllables come back in sung French.--Trovatore (talk) 00:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I started a Meta page to explore the concept of a Simple French Wikipedia:Meta:Babel#Simple_French_Wikipedia_proposal_based_on_fran.C3.A7ais_fondamental WhisperToMe (talk) 06:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you give a IPA transcription or description of how they pronounce the -ent in prennent, Judith? (BTW, are you yourself Judith, or are you telling Judith it's you?)μηδείς (talk) 03:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Ils prennent. Standard French: [/il pʁɛn/], non-standard French (heard in Sarthe and Mayenne French départements:[/il pʁə.nɑ̃/] I don't know how to get rid of the square brackets (I use the IPA-fr template) — AldoSyrt(talk) 08:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

See the new article "Français fondamental".—Wavelength (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Help with Chinese names

Hopefully quite a simple question: I'd like to use this book as a reference, but don't know how to cite the names of its authors. They're listed by Google as "Dan Yao, Jinhui Deng, Feng Wang, Huiyun Tang"; however the front cover of the book reads "Yao Dan et al", and Feng Wang redirects to Wang Feng. So, are Google's versions reversed/westernised? And if so should we return them to family-name-first per WP:NC-ZH? Thanks! – Arms & Hearts (talk) 01:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• Google probably listed the name in western order. Chinese names#Chinese names in English states that in most situations Chinese people use the family name first. It may help to try to find the Chinese characters of the authors. Deng, Yao, Wang, and Tang are all Chinese surnames.WhisperToMe (talk) 01:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

If you're trying to work out which is which, but are not up on Chinese surnames, it's useful to note that Chinese given names are often (not always) two syllables, while surnames rarely (though occasionally) are. Henry^Flower 04:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes it looks like these names have been re-ordered - so if you are citing them as "Surname, Initial." they would be "Yao, D., Deng, J., Wang, F., and Tang, H." --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(Belated) thanks everyone! – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Linear A and Linear B

I couldn't find mention of this in the articles Linear A and Linear B, but in what sense are they "linear"? Being that Linear A is still unintelligible and that these names were coined before Linear B was deciphered, I assume it must refer to something fairly superficial. Some orthographic feature, perhaps? 129.234.186.45 (talk) 09:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

From Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson: "The term 'Linear' was used not because the signs were written in sequence but because they consisted of lines inscibed on the flat surface of the clay. (...) This writing was quite different from the three-dimensional, engraved images of a third, primarily pictographic Cretan script." ([1])

I've added this to the Linear A article as well. - Lindert (talk) 09:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Lindert. I'm not sure I follow the "flat" vs. "three-dimensional" distinction, but the Linear scripts are certainly less pictographic and more... ahem, linear. 129.234.186.45 (talk) 11:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The terms were originally coined by Arthur Evans as part of his various speculations about the origin and development of writing. This is discussed in detail in "The Story of Archaeological Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Linear B" by Maurice Pope (ISBN 0-684-14303-8)... --AnonMoos (talk) 17:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Can someone point to a transliteration of a Linear A text assuming the values assigned to Linear B? μηδείς (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Older versions of the article have such ( http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Linear_A&oldid=492272596 etc.) AnonMoos (talk) 04:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"They need to see the new 4-84s to make sure it works with their OC"

From Punch-drunk love, what does it mean? Groupask (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't know about 4-84s, but OC usually means "original content". --Viennese Waltz 12:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Or Officer Commanding, Offensive Coordinator, Old Carthusian, etc. "usually", at best, depends on context and at worst a . Many more options on our OC dab page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Given the protagonist's occupation, "4/84s" might apply to a case of 4 times 84 (total of 336) flushable wipes. If you google "case of 4/84s" or even just "4/84s" you mainly get references to Cottonelle fresh flushable wipes. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. That still leave us with the question of OC, as well as the poor grammer of the sentence ... new 4.84s ... it works.--Tagishsimon (talk) 13:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It might not mean anything at all. It could be Hollywood Technobabble; designed to sound like he's saying something that has meaning, but doesn't. --Jayron32 13:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Jayron32. Note that the sentence in question is spoken, not by the Adam Sandler character, but by his sister to her coworker Lena and is clearly intended to relate to their job. In a hasty scan of the film's script, I don't see any mention of what their job actually is, so it's likely that the sentence is just supposed to be generic "job speak". Deor (talk) 16:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Is defer here wrong?

"Dear Cecil: Is it true that, as a class, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals are crazier than average? And that despite their training and experience, they can recognize their own issues less readily than the average nutcase? — Paul Cecil replies: I defer judgment on whether shrinks don’t recognize their problems. On the contrary, there are indications some mental health professionals enter the field because they do recognize their problems and think their work will help them get a grip."

It seems that the author thought 'refer'defer means something else. Groupask (talk) 13:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see an issue. The respondant is deferring his judgement on shrinks, whilst noting that some do know they're nuts. Where do you get your "refer" from? --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree - it looks fine to me -- Q Chris (talk) 13:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant "defer". OK, the author says "I defer judgment", I understand this as "I won't get into it myself", but then goes on "On the contrary", judging it. It seems that the author thought 'defer' means 'deny'. Groupask (talk) 13:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

"Defer" can mean to "put off to a later time", as in "Now is not the time to pass judgement on shrinks, so I'm not going to do that in answering your question" is basically what he is saying here. --Jayron32 13:57, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(EC) I parse it as the repondant saying he defers judgement, but notes that there are some indications to the contrary. None of that seems problematic to me. Certainly not enough to presume that the word used was ill-chosen, such that the substitute changes entirely the meaning of his response. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

But, wouldn't the sentence be better with "on the contrary" substituted for "However"? — Precedingunsigned comment added by Groupask (talk •contribs) 14:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The text you cited has "on the contrary" in it; however, I can see no "however". Lectonar (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The OP asked if "however" could be on the place of "on the contrary." OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Groupask that the passage contradicts itself -- it says that it defers judgement, and then makes a judgement. Looie496(talk) 15:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Only if you're unaware of the differences between indications and proof. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

But what does "on the contrary" refers to? It has to refer to something contrary to what will be said. If you say "I defer judgment about this, but/even if/however there is evidence to it", it makes sense. In the present form, the sentence doesn't make much sense. OsmanRF34(talk) 17:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) There are two different definitions of "defer". From Wiktionary: To submit to the opinion or desire of another in respect to their judgment or authority and To delay, or postpone, especially to postpone induction into military service. If it means the former (i.e., to be deferential to someone else) the speaker wouldn't offer his own opinion. If it means to delay, then the speaker wouldn't give his opinion in the next sentence -- that's not much of a delay! Either way, the speaker contradicted himself. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Or there is a "not" missing somewhere. "I won't defer judgment, on the contrary ..." would be OK. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I think Cecil meant what he said, more or less. "I decline at this time to commit myself to the proposition that shrinks don't recognize their problems. In fact, there is evidence for the contrary proposition." He doesn't commit himself to the contrary proposition either, but says there is evidence for it. He probably didn't choose the best possible wording, but it's not quite a self-contradiction. --Trovatore(talk) 03:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"Doctrine" used in a scientific context?

What is the metaphorical/figurative meaning of "doctrine"? I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of this sentence in a peer-reviewed journal:

• Research on symbiosis developed in virtual conflict with the aims and doctrines of the major biological disciplines for most of the 20th century.

The doctrine article suggests: "In some organizations, doctrine is simply defined as 'that which is taught', in other words the basis for institutional teaching of its personnel internal ways of doing business." Therefore, I am guessing that, in scientific institutions, doctrine is simply defined as 'that which is taught', and when used absolutely figuratively, forms the foundation of that particular discipline. I suggest you to google this article and read this abstract. I believe it's written very poetically. 140.254.226.244 (talk) 13:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The term is actually not all that widely used in science, but basically it is as you say, "that which is taught". The only scientific "doctrine" I'm really familiar with is the neuron doctrine, which is a set of beliefs about the structure of the nervous system. (By the way, if you were trying to link to a web page, it didn't work.) Looie496 (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Neither is evolutionism or evolutionist. Apparently, the journal article, The dynamics of symbiosis: an historical overview, does use American spelling, but also amusingly uses the term "evolutionist" as in "microbial evolutionists" or "classical neo-darwinian evolutionists". Another instance, "We so-called higher organisms did not just evolve from bacteria; we were created and maintained by bacteria," imprints an strong image in one's mind. Note how the sentence begins with "so-called" and ends with "by bacteria". With this slight wording, this article tries to imitate the words of a typical creationist but from a biologist's perspective. 140.254.121.36 (talk) 16:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

How about the term Central Dogma of Biology? That's a "dogma" I am quite familiar with. 140.254.121.36(talk) 17:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the sentence you quote, but two other 'doctrines' would be the evolutionary synthesis and the central dogma.μηδείς (talk) 17:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The discovery of Romance

When did people realize that tongues as Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, & cetera were all related? When was the lingual family of Romance languages proposed? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 16:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you check out the Wikipedia article on Romance languages. :-) The Romance languages are related to the Romans; the name Romanin the word stands for something. Those are all Romance languages, because they are derived from the Roman language, which is dead Latin. Latin, despite being "dead", is still being spoken and written and used in many academic disciplines. 140.254.121.36(talk) 17:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that they realised early on, because there is a degree of mutual intelligibility. I once heard a Portuguese friend hold a conversation with an Italian ice-cream man without either being able to speak the other's language. The relationship between French and Spanish is easy to spot once you write it down. In the Medieval period, every educated person would have been able to speak Latin too, so it wouldn't have taken a genius to see the similarities. Alansplodge (talk) 17:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Literate people in the areas where all these languages were spoken never lost consciousness that they were speaking a language which was a modified (they might have termed it "degenerate", "decayed" or "vulgarized") form of Latin. In each region, from Catalonia to Sicily, the question of whether people were speaking a separate language descended from Latin but entitled to consideration and respect in its own right, as opposed to a bad and ungrammatical localized Vulgar Latin, was debated for centuries. --Orange Mike |Talk 17:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

66.190.69.246 -- Up until around the time of Alcuin, people in Romance-speaking areas tended to pronounce written Latin using their own particular spoken vernacular dialect, and were not necessarily conscious that they spoke anything other than Latin. After that, the accumulated phonological, morphological, and grammatical changes became too great for it to remain practical to use Latin writing as a kind of loose spelling system for spoken Romance vernaculars, so that standardized Church Latin pronunciations started to be adopted, and Romance vernaculars started to be written quasi-phonetically. However, most early medieval Romance-speakers were not really aware of long-term language change, and often assumed that the ancient Romans spoke and wrote more or less as they did (i.e. using a written Latin which was very divergent from their spoken language). Dante was one of the first who forcefully and systematically presented evidence for change in the spoken language from ancient to medieval times, and classified the Romance languages into several approximate subgroups... AnonMoos (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Orange Mike and AnonMoos have covered this quite well. To emphasize the point by summing it up in one sentence; it is not the fact that these separate languages were related that was discovered, but the fact that they were separate languages which was discovered. μηδείς(talk) 19:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

More interesting would be to ask: when exactly did all these people realized that they were not speaking Latin anymore. OsmanRF34(talk) 23:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

At least as early as the Strasbourg Oaths, in the case of French. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Are the dh's in adiudha and cadhuna meant to represent edh (ð)? The text from the oath from our article:

[Old French:] “Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun saluament, d'ist di in auant, in quant Deus sauir et podir me dunat, si saluarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per dreit son fradra saluar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon uol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.”

μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes:[2][3][4]--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

If you really want more detailed analyses of this kind of issue, I will refer you to the articles Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache,dialect continuum, and post-creole continuum. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

"A(n) historic event" in American English

What fraction of American speakers say "an historic event" rather than "a historic event"? Is this regionally based? Duoduoduo(talk) 17:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you'd find hard evidence, but I would guess it's a very small fraction of American English speakers who speak thus. It's not all that uncommon in print, but consonant sounds following "an" are unnatural in American speech. When I see this in print, I imagine a Cockney accent: "an 'istoric event." Given that this makes more sense in British English, I would guess you'd see it more among people who are pretentious, linguistic prescriptivists, and/or New England aristocrats. --BDD (talk) 18:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See also H-dropping, which reminds me of another concept I was trying to get at: hypercorrection. --BDD (talk) 18:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

What led me to ask this question was that inthis article, the University of California-Berkeley scientist Geoff Marcy, who according to our wikibio is an American who got both his graduate and undergraduate degrees in California, wrote in an e-mail This is an historic discovery. He's probably not a New England aristocrat or a hypercorrecter. Duoduoduo (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm from New England, but very much NOT from an aristocratic background, and I use "an historic" and "a historic" somewhat interchangably. Both sound perfectly natural, so long you don't aspirate the "h" in the first. I would say /ænʔɪstɔərɨk/ for the first an /eɪhɪstɔərɨk/ for the second. The first sounds more casual, while the second is what I would say for emphasis; the distinction is like the distinction between pronouncing "the" as /ðə/ or /ðiː/, I would use "an historic" in the same contexts as I would use "/ðə/" and "a historic" in contexts where I would use /ðiː/. --Jayron32 18:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting, Jayron. My accent is mostly Buffalo, NY-based, and I always say /ʌhɪstɔərɨk/. So unlike you I use the casual pronunciation /ʌ/ before the /h/. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Buffalo's native dialect is Inland Northern American English, while New England has a different dialect: New England English. Of course, I have developed a somewhat peculiar idiolect since my childhood. My New England accent, which was full-on before I left New England at 18, and still creeps back when I get around the right kind of people, has been tempered by living away from New England for the past 18 years. I now speakGeneral American or fairly close to it, so I was only offering the above as a single data point. --Jayron32 22:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Even as a kid, I followed American politics. And to this day I remember a cover of TIME about the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro as Walter Mondale's VP running mate in the United States presidential election, 1984: it read, "A Historical Decision". SeeTIME's archived front cover pic. (Erm, and yup, I got the "remembered" caption wrong.) --Shirt58 (talk) 09:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

This was discussed just last month [5] and many times in the past [6][7]. μηδείς (talk) 18:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't know about percentages ('a historic' is in the majority I think) but it's probably going a bit far to think only a tiny aristocratic segment use 'an'. I usually use 'an historic', but then again my speech has always been a bit on the pretensious (in the US at least) side - I'll often use words such as 'quite' instead of 'really' or 'perhaps' instead of 'maybe'. AlexiusHoratius 20:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• I think it's a learnèd affectation. I will say /æn hɪs'tɔrɨk/ or /ænɪs'tɔrɨk/ /ʌ hɪs'tɔrɨk/ in free variation, (and /eɪ hɪs'tɔrɨk/ as a citation form,) but I remember remarking to myself that "an historic" was odd when I first encountered it in elementary school in the Delaware Valley. The nunated forms are acquired secondarily so far as I am concerned. μηδείς (talk) 00:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

In my personal writing style, the rule is simple: an before a word stressed on the 2nd syllable, and a before a word stressed on the 1st, 3rd, or 4th syllable.

To wit:

Stress on First Syllable	Stress on Second Syllable	Stress on Third Syllable	Stress on Fourth Syllable
a heartthrob, a hardcase, a history, a habit, a hero	an historic occasion, an habitual offender, an homogenous culture, an heroic act	a heterogenous mixture, a homozygous genotype	a heterosexual man

Some people today consider this practice somewhat dated, but I find that it still tends to make quite an impression! Pine (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese help: How is this read?

• File:Beijing SLS Flags 4515.jpg

The storefront says "双隆盛旗亚" - The characters would be Shuāng Lo?ng Sheng/Cheng? qí yà - What would the second and third characters be read as?

Also how do I say Category:Shops in Beijing by product in Chinese ?

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

From Googling around it appears to be Shuang1 Long2 Sheng4 ("Double Abundance"?). Note that the fifth character is actually 业/業 (ye4).--Cam (talk) 02:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the easiest way I know of for people (like me) who don't know Chinese is to put it into Google Translate, make sure the Ä toggle is on, and look below to find the pinyin: "Shuāng lóngshèng qí yà". Not foolproof, though, since sometimes a character can be pronounced two different ways and Google may not always divide the words properly. Lesgles (talk) 15:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's 双隆盛旗业 (Shuāng lóng shèng qí yè, if Google Translation's transcription can be trusted). The last two characters, 旗业, are the description of their line of business - "Flags Industry /Flag Manufacturing" (formed on a common pattern seen e.g. in 林业 "forestry" etc.). Shuāng of course is "double", while 隆 and 盛 both appear to me as some of those several characters with a nebulous good meaning of sorts ("grand", "prosperous", "flourishing", "abundant", etc) - members of the same family of characters that you often see in company names, along with e.g. 丰,兴,喜,博,福， etc. Think of the entire title as "Double Acme Flags Inc." :-) -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Here's that company's website (also in English): http://www.slsflag.com/

Language issue on the Mathematics Refdesk

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics#"The" calculus. The question is why does "the calculus" take an article but other branches of mathematics such as algebra, geometry or trigonometry don't. Roger (talk) 20:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's because 'the' calculus is specifically the integral and differential calculus (the Major-General was very good at it) - 'calculus' without the article used to have a much wider range of meaning. Nowadays the article is often dropped - but the Lambda calculus keeps it, as do other more specific topics such as the binomial theorem (...lot o' news...) AlexTiefling (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That was asked a number of weeks ago. The answer at least in part has to do with the fact that 'calculus' means 'reckoning'. Hence, "the reckoning". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

That makes no sense at all. How does that distinguish the calculus (meaning a particular collection of mathematical methods initiated by Newton and Leibniz) from, say, the propositional calculus? As far as I can see, no one has given a remotely plausible answer to the "why" part of the question, and many of the participants simply refuse to acknowledge the descriptive basis of the question at all (the fact that "the calculus" as a fixed phrase has this particular meaning). --Trovatore (talk) 03:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The intro of our article calculus says Calculus has historically been called "the calculus of infinitesimals" . So maybe (speculation here) everyone was calling it "the calculus of infinitesimals" and calling other things "the propositional calculus" or whatever, but 99% of references to "the ... calculus ..." were to "the calculus of infinitesimals", and finally people just dropped "of infinitesimals" because they thought it was obvious which calculus they were referring to? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

That rings true to me. Not sure how to check it, though. --Trovatore (talk) 19:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I hope it's understood that "the calculus" is pretty much archaic nowadays. Mathematicians almost always just say "calculus".Looie496 (talk) 15:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Mathematicians don't talk about calculus much at all, except as an annoying class they have to teach :-). I wouldn't call the calculus archaic, exactly, at least not in the usual non-linguist's understanding of that word. More like "dated"; carries a sort of a classic feel that can come across as an affectation if used outside extremely formal contexts. --Trovatore (talk) 18:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

caisse

Someone can record the pronunciation of the word caisse with a Quebec accent please ? Fête (talk) 21:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You already asked this, and were given good answers. Please, go to YouTube and find videos of Quebecois politicians discussing appropriate topics.AlexTiefling (talk) 22:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Record in Wikimedia. Fête (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't be so hostile, Alex. User Fête may not understand the IPA. Do you understand the International Phonetic Alphabet, Fête? The answers I gave above imply it is pronounced to rhyme with English case or to sound like cah-ess run together almost as if it were rhyming with General American "goddess" with a silent "d", or close to "kice", similar to the way you described your own username vowel being pronounced on my talk page. Tiefling's suggestion that you search Youtube is a good one. Perhaops he can find a link to offer you, rather than telling you to find one on your own? μηδείς (talk) 22:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand IPA either. That's why I thought the YouTube suggestion was smart. But that wasn't my suggestion - it was made in the thread which is still visible further up this page, which the same OP started, asking the same question. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

My bad, that was Clarityfiend, might try their talk page if my explanation isn't clear enough. μηδείς (talk) 23:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

fête

Why Quebeckers pronounce "fight" for the word fête ? Fête (talk) 23:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See Quebec French phonology. --Jayron32 23:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See below: OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Nous t'avons deja dit beaucoups de fois que <<fête>> se prononce [faɛ̯t] ou [fei̯t] en francais quebecois. Tu dis que tu entends l'IPA. On ne peut pas dire pourquoi c'est vrai. C'est simplement vrai que se prononce comme ca. Il faut lire http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonétique_historiqueμηδείς (talk) 00:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

What μηδείς said. And when <e>'s put on little party hats, it's a festival time in anyone's (strictly speaking, mostly inRomance languages) language.--Shirt58 (talk) 11:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Diphthongs

Why Quebeckers make diphthongs. Fête (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Language change? OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

See above. --Jayron32 23:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

extrême

Why the word extrême cannot pronounce as /ɛk.stʁaɛ̯m/ in Quebec French ? Fête (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The circumflex here is purely orthographic; it does not indicate a long vowel in Quebec French. See this chapter for a discussion of this and other exceptions, which I hope will satisfy your thirst for knowledge about long ê. Lesgles (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Now that's a weird one. Why would there be a circumflex there? I don't know of any extresmus or extresmo in Latin or any neo-Latin language. --Trovatore (talk) 18:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Accent of Gaspésie

I want to listen the accent of Gaspésie ? Fête (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Listen here. I get about one word in 25; in Montreal, I get three out of five. Bielle(talk) 04:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Céline Dion

Céline Dion is French ? Fête (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Canadian. See Celine Dion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by88.104.5.244 (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Ethnically, she is kinda French. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

That would make me kinda Viking, since I have ancestors from Iceland? No, she's Canadian, specifically Quebecoise. Not French.Mingmingla (talk) 01:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't the term, Canadienne? Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:51, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Only in French. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 04:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

But then, in French, adjectives are not capitalized, even if derived from proper nouns, so Céline Dion est canadienne. —Kpalion^(talk) 14:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) She's French Canadian. Note that that article says French Canadian or Francophone Canadian (also Canadien in Canadian English or in Canadian French).... Presumably for a female the English synonym Canadien becomes Canadienne (?) Duoduoduo (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Luc Bourgeois

Luc Bourgeois is French or Quebeckers ? Fête (talk) 01:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Il est québécois, fr:Luc Bourgeois. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Fete, did you read the box which is heading this page? it say "You can search first. Please do this".

There is a search box on every single wikipedia page. happy searching! --Lgriot (talk) 11:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Pourquoi croyez-vous que ceci est un question juste pour un lieu qui discute les langues? AlexTiefling (talk) 11:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

accent of Quebec City

In Quebec City, the word fête is pronounced /fɛːt/ or /faɛ̯t/ ? Fête (talk) 11:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Pourquoi repetez-vous ces questions si similies? AlexTiefling (talk) 11:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, this user was banned from the French wikipedia for similar obsessive behaviour, including on the ref desk. --Xuxl (talk) 13:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

...and according to his page he is living in Quebec!!! a local expert you might think. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

C'est pas surprennant, ça. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

accent of Quebec City

I want to listen accent of Quebec City. Fête (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Might I suggest you take a stroll down to the shops and listen to the folks chatting. You are in a good place to here a quebec accent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by86.4.182.75 (talk) 19:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Angela Tong

Angela Tong speaks French with an Quebec accent ? Fête (talk) 16:19, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Pourriez-vous expliquer pourquoi vous, qui êtes québecois et francophone vous-même, nous avez demandez plusieurs questions comme ça?AlexTiefling (talk) 16:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Est-ce qu'on peut tutoyer? Je ne crois pas que Fête a dit qu'il parle français nativement dans sa page user. On ne sait pas que soit sa langue maternelle. μηδείς (talk) 20:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Toi, Medeis, je peux tutoyer, je crois. Nous ne sommes pas toujours d'accord, mais nous nous comprenons assez bien. Ce type-ci, alors, je ni connais ni comprends point. Je ne le vais pas tutoyer, sinon je recois un reponse, un mot, qui signifie q'il a lu ce que j'ai ecrit. (Et je suis desole, mais cet ordinateur n'a pas les accents si faciles que l'autre.) AlexTiefling (talk) 22:16, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Il faut lire ce qu'il m'a dit dans ma page user, Alex. Je le pense bon type. J'espere sa reponse maintent, mais je crois de ce qu'il m'a dit qu'il parle nativement le cantonais. Par ce que je ne sais pas aussi utiliser les accents avec mon ordinateur, il faut que je vous prie pardon de tout le monde, mais je n'essayerai pas de les utiliser. μηδείς (talk) 23:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Belgian accent

In Belgian French, the word caisse is pronounce /kɛs/ ou /kɛːs/ ? Fête (talk) 00:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I know that you are blocked from editing French Wikipedia, for whatever reason, but I assume you can read French Wikipedia. All of the phonological questions you are asking can be answered by reading the articles on French Wikipedia, fr:Français de Belgique has information on the pronunciation of Belgian French. Similar articles exist on French Wikipedia for other varieties of French, so you can get more answers that way before you have to ask here. --Jayron32 01:14, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

fête

In American English, the word fête is pronounced /feɪt/ or /fɛt/ ? Fête (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Both, according to the Merriam-Webster New Collegiate Dictionary on my desk. Deor (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

muffin

In American English, the word muffin is pronounced /ˈmʌfɪn/ or /ˈmʌfən/ ? Fête (talk) 14:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It could be pronounced either way, or /ˈmʌfn/. These questions are getting pretty annoying. Looie496 (talk) 15:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you look things up in the obvious place (in this case, a dictionary)? I propose that everyone just ignore these questions that the OP could have looked up for himself. Duoduoduo (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

expresse

In Quebec French, the word expresse is pronounced /ɛkspʁɛs/ or /ɛkspʁaɛ̯s/ ? Fête (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Look it up in a dictionary. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I haven't Quebec French dictionary. Fête (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say that we won't be able to supply you with one, one word at a time. Have you considered responding to the many, many attempts at interaction that people have made with you further up this page? It's very frustrating to deal with a person who makes repeated demands for information, but won't answer questions themselves, or provide clarifications when asked. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Rather than criticizing, can we not perhaps search for a dictionary for the user? Here is a book at amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Pronunciation-Canadian-French-Douglas-Walker/dp/0776645005 and here are various other resources at Google forCanadian Pronunciation. Rather than telling Fête to look things up, perhaps we can tell him where? μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

A fair point. I'm more thinking of the interaction side of using the Reference Desk, rather than the actual answer to the question. More flies with honey and all that. I've only ever been to Quebec on two very brief occasions, and made myself understood with my English schoolboy French. I believe you as both a North American and a more accomplished linguist than I am may have a better idea of where to look for practical help for Fete.AlexTiefling (talk) 23:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

October 18

asked ----> 'axed'

How does such a corruption occur? This isn't simply a difference in accent or relaxed pronunciation but a reordering of consonants. Ankh.Morpork 00:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It's called metathesis, and in this word it's ancient. Even in Old English the word is attested as both ascianand acsian; the "ax" variant was accepted in literature through the 16th century. So when a modern-day person says "axed" for "asked", it isn't some newfangled "corruption", but a variant form that's over a thousand years old. Angr (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, a re-invention maybe. It's only ever used in the UK by those wishing to imitate black Americans. See Aks; "Aks," a metathesis of "ask" in African American Vernacular English" Alansplodge (talk) 00:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe it is common in Caribbean Englishes, where it is not standard but not particularly looked down on, and has entered Multicultural London English from there. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:31, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I won't say that's not attested, but I have only ever heard it from working class white people in the NYC and Philly metropolitan areas, and Hispanics, never once in person from a Black. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I hear it often from highly-educated U.S. blacks (especially slightly older ones), and occasionally from Southern whites like myself.--Orange Mike | Talk 02:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Clarifying that some folks use it all the time, others not at all; I seldom find a given individual drifting across the boundary, unless code switching is going on. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

You mention that some highly educated blacks, especially slightly older ones, use it. I've heard Jesse Jackson the elder saying it. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

But Mike was talking about highly educated people. μηδείς (talk) 17:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Medeis, I'm doing you the favor of straining to assume that you and I differ drastically in our definitions of "highly educated"; because the other interpretation of your remark is not even remotely acceptable. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Jackson's article is clear enough about his educational history. μηδείς (talk) 20:39, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I just figured out what you are implying I might be implying. No. μηδείς (talk) 03:49, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Just ask Asterix what he thinks of asterisks. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:40, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It might just be easier to say "ax" and "asterix". The former is strongly associated with blacks in America. The latter I've heard many times without regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude. Which reminds me, a black comic once referenced that well-known black usage with this joke: "When Lizzie Borden went to the maid and said, 'Can I borrow the carriage tonight?', the maid said, 'I don't know - you'll have to ax your parents.'" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?}carrots→ 03:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Tee hee.

People saying "aks" for "ask" is all too common in Australia. (And saying "asteriks" for "asterisk", too - but that's only in those cases where the speaker actually knows the name of that funny thing, which would not be universal, thanks to our brilliant education system; no offence, HiLo48). It has zero to do with anyone imitating African Americans or anyone else, in my experience. More to do with sloppy speech patterns picked up from their environment. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, good one, Bugs. μηδείς (talk) 04:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Purely anecdotal, but "aks" (as /aːks/, not /æks/) is common in Australian Aboriginal English. Looking for refs right now.--Shirt58 (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Not disputing that, Shirt, but I think the bigger picture is it's something more likely to be found among people of socioeconomically disadvantaged background, not a race thing per se. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 17:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I must confess I've never heard ax anywhere, in my 40-odd years in Australia. Maybe I should get out more often. I first came across it the other day in Chaucer, where I think "ask" does not exist at all. IBE (talk) 22:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I dunno about that Australian Aboriginal English claim. In the movie Australian Rules, about a culture clash between Aboriginal and European Australians, it was one of the European characters who actually gained a nickname based on his pronunciation ofaksed. HiLo48 (talk) 22:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

This is pretty widespread. I knew an English chap from a Sikh background who always used these pronunciations. The TV show Futurama uses this early on - it's mentioned that the pronunciation has become standard by the show's 3000AD timeframe, and it's done fairly consistently for the rest of the show's run. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned in the article metathesis that Angr has already linked to, "wasp" is another word which has been unstable in exactly the same way over the centuries. --ColinFine (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I wonder why we never hear about people who riksed their lives. Or maybe we do. I haven't. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Because the metathesis of "ax" and "wopse" is no longer productive, and possibly never was. Risk didn't enter the English language until the 1660s, by which point people were no longer switching their /k/'s and /p/'s with their /s/'s. And I don't know if they did so in any words other thanascian ~ acsian and wæsp ~ wæps even in Old English. Angr (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Metathesis seems to occur rather often only in single instances rather than always regularly. Consider chthonic which comes from PIE*dhghom, cognate with OE guma and NE goon and (bride)groom. μηδείς (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

However, PIE *tk and *dhgh quite regularly became kt and khth in Greek, not just in that one word. In Irish, -ts-, -ps-, and-ks- all metathesized to -st-, -sp-, -sk- in pretty much all words where they occur (though not in all dialects), and in Hebrew, prefixing hit- to a verb beginning with s, š, or t͡s causes metathesis to hist-, hišt-, and hit͡st-. (I'm not sure what happens with verbs beginning with z; hizd- perhaps?) So sometimes metathesis is a regular sound change. But probably not in Old English.Angr (talk) 21:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Our metathesis article says that t-z -> zd in Hebrew, and van de Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze's A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammarimplies it, though without giving an example. --ColinFine (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

To walk down Dizengoff Street is lehizdangef (though that's kind of a joke word)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Fromkin and Rodman gives Hebrew reciprocal sibilant infinitives prefixed with lehit as regular targets for metathesis. There are indeed many mutated and metathesized Greek T/K roots. Ichthys compares quite nicely with PEA Tik-, see Tiktalik. μηδείς (talk) 22:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

My curiosity is aroused: What is this prefix hit of which you speak? —Tamfang (talk) 06:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The mark of the Hebrew "hitpael" verb stem, often (but not always) with a reflexive or reciprocal meaning. Becomes mit- in the participle, and it-, yit-, tit-, nit- in various persons and numbers of the imperfect/future. What Wikipedia has from the modern Hebrew point of view is at Modern_Hebrew_verb_conjugation#The_binyanim... AnonMoos (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

You could risk your life in a rixe (French word), or on a Rixe. —Tamfang (talk) 06:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Languages in Singapore

Singaporean people speak English or Mandarin ? Fête (talk) 19:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

See "Languages of Singapore". Both English and Mandarin are official languages of Singapore, and many people in Singapore speak either or both of the languages. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

There are so many ethnicities (and by implication spoken languages) in Singapore that they formed a thriving football league. My father has a 3rd Division Runners-up trophy from the early 1960s (he played for the Royal Army Pay Corps team). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195}84.21.143.150 (talk) 10:26, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

"minute" pronounced: / mɪnʌt /, rather than: / mɪnɪt /. Is there any English variety having this attribute?

HOOTmag (talk) 19:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

According to my copy of the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary there is no variety of English in which the word "minute" (in the sense "60 seconds") is pronounced [mɪnʌt]. It does list [mɪnət] used outside the US as a non-RP British variety.Gabbe (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

But the LPD only lists Southern British and General American pronunciations. There are lots of other English varieties not listed in LPD.Angr (talk) 21:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't think of a variety of English in which I would expect that pronunciation. --ColinFine (talk) 21:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

What exactly is the question here? All I see are a header and a signature. Who has asserted there is such a pronunciation of either form? Why not ask who pronounces the word /mi:nu:t/? Please give a reference to a published source. μηδείς (talk) 22:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

On my browser, the header reads "minute" pronounced: / mɪnʌt /, rather than: / mɪnɪt /. Is there any English variety having this attribute?Gabbe (talk) 06:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Correct. I'm asking whether there are dialects that have an /ʌ/ for the "u". HOOTmag (talk) 07:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

HOOTmag -- In the majority of English phonetic transcription conventions, the symbol [ʌ] refers to the vowel as in "duck" occurring in stressed syllables. If there's one thing which holds across almost all English dialects, it's presumably that the second syllable of "minute" (as a noun meaning 60 seconds) is unstressed... AnonMoos (talk) 08:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC).

The vowel /ʌ/ may occur also in unstressed syllables, as in "unknown", "adult" (in British English when stressing "adult" on the first syllable, and also in US English - that may pronounce the second syllable of "adult" - with an /ə/ as well as with an /ʌ/ ). Further, the Scots don't have a schwa (e.g. they pronounce "sofa" with an /a/ at the end, and also pronounce "hurt" like /hʌrt/). Anyways, I still don't know whether or not there are dialects having an /ʌ/ for the "u" in "minute". HOOTmag (talk) 11:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Unknown and adult are not examples of true unstressed syllables (comparable to the second syllable of "minute"). If no meaningful context is provided, your question is semi-pointless. See further below. AnonMoos (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Anyways, the main stress is not on the /ʌ/. See further below. HOOTmag (talk) 09:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

My guess is the OP is attempting to ask whether there are dialects that have a schwa in minute [mɪnət] as opposed to the schwi [mɪnɨt] which the OP is presumably more familiar with (as am I). Lsfreak (talk) 03:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Nope, I'm asking about an /ʌ/ rather than about an /ə/. HOOTmag (talk) 07:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

In dialects which lengthen unstressed [ɪ] to [iː] before another vowel and at the ends of words, there's sometimes a tendency to neutralize remaining unlengthened [ɪ] to [ɨ], or even in some cases to [ə] -- since very few contrasts between different words would be lost by such a merger. However, in RP-type dialects, where there is no such unstressed [ɪ] to [iː] change, and all non-pre-vowel "r" has vanished, there's a tendency to strongly preserve the unstressed [ɪ] vs. [ə] distinction, presumably because if the distinction were to be merged, there would be no contrast in pronunciation between "cities" and "sitters" etc. etc. ([sɪtɪz] vs. [sɪtəz] in RP, [sɪtiːz] vs. [sɪtərz] in American).AnonMoos (talk) 08:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I guess you're referring to User:Lsfreak. If you're referring to me, then please notice that I've been asking about the /ʌ/ rather than about the /ɪ/ or the /ə/. HOOTmag (talk) 11:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I was explaining that among quasi-standard-English dialects, it's only those varieties of speech that show what Wikipedia calls "happy-tensing" where unstressed [ɪ] commonly takes on a vowel quality similar to that of [ə] (or in some cases actually neutralizes with [ə]). To get to [ʌ] you would presumably have to go through [ə]. AnonMoos (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it's still a "common" phenomenon only (as you've written), not a necessary one. Just as pronouncing "adult" with an /ə/ - is pretty common - in US English, yet not necessary, because US English speakers may pronounce it with an /ʌ/ - when still having the main stress on the first syllable. To put things clearer: I'm asking whether there are dialects in which "minute" has the same phonetic structure of "adult", i.e. whether (in those dialects) the main stress of "minute" (rather than the minor one) would be on the first syllable, whereas the vowel of the second syllable of "minute" would be identical to the vowel of the second syllable of "adult" (in British English when having the main stress on the first syllable, and also in US English - that may pronounce the second syllable of "adult" - with an /ə/ as well as with an /ʌ/ ). Additionally, I'd like to know whether the Scots (who don't have any schwa) pronounce: /mɪnɪt/ or /mɪnʌt/. HOOTmag (talk) 09:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know as I've never been to outside of the state of Rio de Janeiro or the city of São Paulo in my entire life and my exposure to British English is too low. But what I would like to say is that you are confusing phonemes (slashes) with allophones (brackets). For example, while AFAIK English has all the IPA vowel chart as allophone of one of its vowel phonemes (except rounded front/central a and schwa, and unrounded u), they count only between a half or one third of the number of allophones.

Another example would be my native language, Portuguese, that has nearly the entire official vowel IPA chart of vowel allophones except unrounded back vowels, rounded central vowels, close-mid/near-close/close unrounded central vowels and rounded open vowels (to the exception of [ʉ ~ y]), but its phoneme count can be reduced to an easy and boring /a, ɛ, ɔ, e, o, i, u/, if the nasal vowels are interpreted as oral vowels followed by an archiphoneme /N/, with very few minimal pairs between unstressed [ɛ] and unrounded [ʊ] in European Portuguese (the latter is a vowel that isn't even used outside Portugal).

So in the case you are pointing out, this lower vowel is actually just a phoneme of /ə/, that isn't necessarily mid. Lguipontes (talk) 05:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Distinction between people's and peoples'

I'm second guessing and confusing myself about the correct form of the word as part of a formal title, People's/Peoples' Liberation Army, and in a generic description: "the army is a people's/peoples' militia with only a small professional leadership corps". Is there in fact a difference when it's used in a title versus as an ordinary adjective? My instinctive feel for my own language has let me down, help! Roger (talk) 20:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, we have People's Liberation Army, which is the army of a single people. Were it to have been the army of several peoples, then it would be the Peoples' Liberation Army. Does that help? The distinction is between (a) people and many peoples (or a race/ethic group, and several races/ethnic groups, to get away from the use of the word people). Does that help? --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Another way of putting is that the word "people" can be both singular and plural. Singular, meaning a race or nation, as in "The Mexican people is one with a proud history". And plural, meaning more than one person, as in "I saw three people walking past". In the first sense, there are many peoples (including the Mexican people, the Romanian people, the French people and hundreds of others). See Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. He knew a thing or two about the language. But an army belongs to only one people. The possessive of people is people's. If there were an army that somehow managed to belong to more than one people, then it would have to be Peoples'. But that's unheard of, in my experience. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk]21:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Most countries are populated by multiple peoples and there are many examples of a single people being divided amongst multiple countries. In my experience armies belong to countries and a one-to-one correlation between peoples and countries are quite rare (off the top of my head, except for tiny island countries, they exist only in Europe). Thus it is perfecly possible for Peoples' Armies to exist. Roger (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I think both Tagishsimon and JackofOz are confusing two things. It is true that when people is used as a countable noun meaning 'tribe' or 'nation', it follows the normal rules and people's and peoples' would indicate singular and plural possessives. But when people is a plural (the far more common case) it follows the rule of other suppletive plurals such as men and women, and forms its possessive as people's. I suggest that a people's republic and a people's army are always of the people = masses not of the people =tribe. --ColinFine (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with ColinFine. See my post above. In fact mono-tribal countries are the exception rather than the rule so a national army of a sovereign country would be "of the masses" rather than "of the tribe", the latter are more often labelled "rebels"/"freedom fighters"/"terrorists". Roger (talk) 09:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

David Peoples' film credits or Peoples' return policy or indigenous peoples' plight may all properly utilize the second choice, but in most other cases, the first is correct. Something like "freedom-loving people's' manifesto" can go either way.Clarityfiend (talk) 23:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I asked my native Mandarin speaking wife about what the Mandarin name actually means -- The Liberation Army of the Persons (people = persons) or The Liberation Army of the Nation (people = nation). She says it's literally the former, although with a tinge of the latter meaning as well. Duoduoduo (talk)

You should note that the full name of the military force in Chinese is literally the "Chinese People's Liberation Army" (and not, for example, the "PLA of the PRC"). So although the "People's Liberation Army" and "People's Republic of China" both use the Chinese word for "People", they are used in slightly different senses. For the army, it can be read as "the army for the liberation of the Chinese people", while the state is more likely to be read as "the republic that belongs to the people, and is ethnically Chinese". --PalaceGuard008(Talk) 15:58, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Language of Haiti

Generally, Haitian people speak Haitian Creole or French ? Fête (talk) 21:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

According to our article Haiti#Languages, French "is spoken by all educated Haitians, is spoken in schools, and is used in the business sector. It is also used in ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations and church masses", while Haitian Creole "is spoken by virtually the entire population of Haiti." So generally, Haitian people speak Haitian Creole, and a lot of them speak French as well. Our article doesn't mention this, but I suspect there may also be something of a post-creole continuum among many Haitians, where they can slide between pure Creole and more or less standard French without there necessarily being a sharp boundary between the two. Angr (talk) 21:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It probably breaks down along class lines. People from working classes probably speak more Haitian Creole, and people in upper classes speak more French, although there is likely a LOT of code switching going on in Haiti, where the same person in different social situations speak different languages. Also, many creoles are in a Dialect continuum with the "official language", so that you aren't going to find sharp dividing lines between the two languages in Haiti. That is, you'll find people speaking everything from Metropolitan French to French with a little creole thrown in, to a mix between the two, to mostly Creole to all Creole. This is called a Post-creole continuum, and the article specifically cites such a continuum existing between Haitian Creole and French in Haiti. --Jayron32 21:31, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Also see diglossia. --ColinFine (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

October 19

How to say 'or' in colloquial language?

If you want to use the exclusive 'or' and/or the inclusive 'or' but still sound informal, how do you do it? OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Either/or is not "formal"--and you just used the inclusive or in your question. μηδείς (talk) 01:51, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The point here is that we constantly use inclusive and exclusives 'or's, but without specifying them explicitly, although that's sometimes necessary. 'and/or' sounds stupid when speaking. OsmanRF34 (talk) 11:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Not among us edycated folk it don't. In any case, in spoken English it's usually clear from the context. ←Baseball Bugs^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:51, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

If you mean an inclusive or, say "A or B or both"; if you mean an exclusive or, say "either A or B but not both". I'm not sure how colloquial that is, but at least it's clear. Looie496 (talk) 01:55, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, that's what I wanted.

Spanish help

How do you say "Each child had over 10 teeth drilled and given silver caps" (caps on teeth) in Spanish? I'm doing work on es:Small Smiles Dental Centers to discuss the history of the clinics when they were operated by the DeRose family. I wrote the section about the DeRose family at Small Smiles Dental Centers on here, and am now translating that section into Spanish WhisperToMe (talk) 14:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I would say A cada niño les taladraron más de 10 dientes, dándoles tapas de plata. But I am getting tapas from google translate, so I am not sure if that is the proper noun to use here. μηδείς (talk) 17:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll wait around and hear about the Spanish term for caps - You could say coronas since they are stainless steel crowns.WhisperToMe (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, "tapas" is not the term for them, and AFAIK it is indeed "coronas" (see here and here on es.wiki) — Frankie (talk) 19:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, use coronas dentales instead of tapas, see http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(prostodoncia) μηδείς (talk) 19:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

And don't just say dándoles coronas de plata without the dentales or people will be imagining the kids each got a silver tiara.μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, guys! The last one... "The board also reported Edward and Michael DeRose and Mueller to two national databases that serve as clearinghouses for information on actions filed against dentists. The DeRoses and Mueller filed a complaint asking the board to have their names removed." - I'm not sure how to do these two WhisperToMe (talk) 19:52, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, my Spanish is coming out half French right now. What board? I need the broader context--please provide a direct link to the section or source, not just the relevant page. μηδείς (talk) 20:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The Colorado Board of Dental Examiners WhisperToMe (talk) 22:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Who on their lunchbreak eat tapas and drink Coronas. And then clean their teeth thoroughly. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Llol! μηδείς (talk) 23:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

That was a good one, Jack! It's welcome too, since after doing research on the topic of "Small Smiles" I felt really depressedWhisperToMe (talk) 00:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I forgot.. Here's the direct link to the relevant source on HighBeam (cited as "vogrindisc" on the English article: Vogrin, Cary Leider. "move to clear reputations, Three file complaint to remove names from disciplinary database." The Colorado Springs Gazette. May 20, 2004. Retrieved on October 3, 2012. Available at HighBeam Research.): - If you don't have a Highbeam account, I'll send you an e-mail WhisperToMe (talk) 00:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I can see you got it already on es.wiki. Just a few fixes: "El Colorado State Dental Board también reportó a Edward DeRose, Michael DeRose y Mueller a dos bases de datos nacionales que sirven como centros de intercambio de información sobre acciones legales contra dentistas. Los DeRose y Mueller presentaron una denuncia pidiendo a la junta que eliminara sus nombres de las bases de datos." — Frankie (talk) 17:43, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Frankie! Please make whatever other fixes you feel need to be made :) WhisperToMe (talk) 19:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese help

In Karate Kid there is a character named Liang. I uploaded a section of a screenshot to my Flickr -http://www.flickr.com/photos/30646153@N03/8103165243/in/photostream What are the Chinese characters? WhisperToMe (talk) 17:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

That definitely says more than just Liang, because it's three characters, which means three syllables. The first one looks like 梁, which is the surname Liáng. The middle one looks like 子 (zǐ) and is thus presumably the first syllable of the person's given name. Somebody else will have to help you with the third. Angr (talk) 00:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Isn't the third one 浩? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:49, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it. If so, then I guess Liáng's given name is Zǐhào. Angr (talk) 01:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

an English word to describe this thing?

This is not a cauldron though it has two rings. What could be another word?--117.253.198.143 (talk) 17:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Brazier? --Jayron3217:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

It's more like a casserole that goes on top of a brazier. I don't see why you couldn't just call it an uruli. You can also compare it in shape to a shallow krater, although those were used for serving wine. One might also search Category:Ancient Greek pot shapes and seehttp://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/11-4/Scutella.pdf for a patina which is where we get our word pan from.μηδείς (talk) 19:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks like somebody lit a fire under a birdbath. Trying to catch and boil squab in a single step ? :-) StuRat (talk) 20:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Does this even make sense?

OK. I am just making up this sentence, but theoretically, would it make sense if I were to use the verb "save" as a noun? In real life, I never really heard it being spoken this way, but still, I am wondering if they are still understandable or too florid/poetic.

Example 1: I have saved $10.00 in my piggy bank.

Example 2: My piggy bank, which stores $10.00, is my salvation when I become needy.

Example 3: My piggy bank, which stores $10.00, would become my saviour when I become needy.

Yes, I know that I am personifying an inanimate object in the third example. I think the next example would be better:

Example A: The firefighter saved the little girl's life by rescuing her from the burning house.

Example B: The firefighter rewarded the little girl salvation from the fire in the house.

Example C: The firefighter was the saviour of the little girl in the burning house.

People do use salvation and saviour as nouns, right? The root word is save. All I am doing is changing the suffixes.140.254.121.34 (talk) 19:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

"Save" is a verb, not a noun (except in colloquial expressions, as when, for example, a goalkeeper "makes a save"). In the piggy bank context the usual noun would be "savings", and in the second example, "rescuer". The sentence about "rewarded the little girl salvation" makes no sense at all. The other sentences make logical sense, but "saviour" and "salvation" are not normally used in that way.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 19:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

It would really help people to answer these overly complex questions if you would at least number and letter your examples. μηδείς(talk) 20:06, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Then, I can use the Spanish term then? El salvador means saviour. Salvar means to save. So, salva- means to save. And -tionmeans the state of being or the action of doing something. Add salva- and -tion together, and it would supposedly mean the action of saving someone/something or the status of being saved. When I was thinking of "rewarded the little girl salvation", I was thinking of "the status of being saved", so that it would read "rewarded the little girl with the status of being saved", thereby treating her salvation as a status. The action of saving someone or something would deserve another example: The firefighter's salvation of the little girl proves that he/she is a man/woman of merit. 140.254.121.34 (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Example B doesn't make sense. The others all do, but they're not the most natural way of expressing the ideas. It's important to note that in English, the meaning of a word is dependent on its derivation - words with virtually identical roots can have quite divergent meanings if they arrive in English by different roots.

'Salvation' in English usually has religious connotations - although a metaphorical usage is fine. 'Savings' on the other hand is entirely secular. I think (now I consider it) that 'salvation' is connected to the Latin for 'health', salus - like 'salud' in Spanish. Conversely, there's a German word for 'salvation', 'Heil', which is linked to the English 'health' - and it should be easy to see that 'heil' meaning 'hail, greetings' is like the English 'hail', and also parallels the Spanish 'salud' for 'cheers'.

'Savings' on the other hand has its roots only in English - it's a later development from the long-established English verb 'save'.AlexTiefling (talk) 22:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Why does Example B not make sense? Do you think the following makes sense: "The man rewarded the girl salvation from the fire"? If neither that makes sense to you, do you think the following makes sense: "The man rewarded the girl a cake for her hard work"? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It makes sense, but it's not grammatical. You reward somebody with something, but you award somebody something. But you don't award salvation, nor reward somebody with salvation. You might grant them salvation. Angr (talk) 19:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The usage is grammatical, you are disputing whether it is idiomatic. (I think idiomatic usages could be found, the point is really theological whether one thinks good works can be rewarded with salvation; pre-sola fide Catholicism or that God awards salvation to those whom he wishes before they are born regardless of acts; Calvin.)

It might be helpful to point out that save has (at least) two very different meanings. In the sense of "rescue from danger or mistreatment" the nouns saviour and salvation may be used, though they are most often used in a religious context. In the senses of "keep and amass money" and "pay less than one might have", these nouns are not used, and would be liable to be misunderstood if you tried to. --ColinFine(talk) 22:32, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Doubt <-> Question

I've noticed on a number of occasions that some of our customers used the word doubt in an unusual way. They often say "I have a doubt about...", or "my doubt is that...". It seems that they are using doubt where I, in my BrEng, would use question. So, my doubt is this: Is there a form of English which has doubt and question as cognates (for what it's worth, I suspect the answer might be InEng), and is this an influence from another language or maybe a re-emergence of a former usage? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:13, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

This, or something like it, is actually a very old usage. I'm not going to try to pin down the details, but up until at least the 1700s "doubt" was often used to mean "fear" or "suspect". Wiktionary shows that meaning, marking it as archaic. Looie496 (talk) 20:32, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I would say they are using it to mean "uncertainty". I suspect that this manner of speaking might be more common in people coming from cultures where modesty is highly valued. That is, you having an uncertainty implies that this is some shortfall on your part, while "I have a question" does not, and "You haven't explained X" downright puts the onus on the other person. StuRat (talk) 20:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I see this all the time in InEng-- as soon as I saw the section heading I knew what this question was going to be about. However, I don't think that doubt and question are synonyms, even for the speakers in question. You never "ask a doubt". In my observation, if a speaker is asking about something for which they have no prior knowledge, such as someone's name, it is still a "question". But if the speaker is asking about something they have some context for, like if they are trying to clarify some piece of text they have read, it is a "doubt". Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, when you say you have a doubt/uncertainty, this implies that you would like to ask a question, but doesn't say so explicitly.StuRat (talk) 00:14, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

You say "in an unusual way", but to me there is nothing at all unusual about "I have a doubt about..." or "my doubt is that...". However, in neither case is "doubt" exactly synonymous with "question". I am a BrE speaker too. 86.160.220.225 (talk) 21:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes people say "I have a doubt about ... " or similar words, and that's done as an invitation for others to respond. It is not a question in a formal sense, but it may as well be.

It's like newsreaders who cut to a reporter in the field; they'll start talking to them without asking a question, either explicitly or by voice tone: "Hello, Tracey. The Freedom Commandos have launched yet another attack". If I were Tracey out there in the battlefield, I'd say "Oh really, Jim? Do go on. I thought I was telling the story here". But what Tracey actually does is treat it as a question like "Tell us more about this attack by the Freedom Commandoes". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:06, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect 86.160 has not encountered the form of question Cucumber Mike is talking about, but like Orange Suede Sofa I have many times seen it from speakers of Indian English. See http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2429/can-doubt-sometimes-mean-question for discussion.--ColinFine (talk) 22:39, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

This usage doesn't strike me as wholly foreign to American speech. I am quite certain that at least twice I have had professors or employers give me syllabi or policy statements with the suggestion that if we have any doubts we should approach them during office hours. I took this to mean "uncertainties/questions", not crises of faith. The terminology used herehttp://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2429/can-doubt-sometimes-mean-question strikes me as perfectly familiar. And I have never had an Indian boss or teacher. μηδείς (talk) 00:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

If someone said, "Let me ask you a doubt" (instead of "let me ask you a question") that would seem baffling. But not so with: "True, without doubt" (for "True, without question"); or "I have no doubt that . . . " (instead of "I have no question that . . .). Alanscottwalker(talk) 01:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Orange Suede Sofa, as my experience working with Indians is that it's in common usage. But I don't recall any of them saying "Let me ask you a doubt", it's typically, "I have a doubt." It's kind of quirky way of saying, "I have a question." Maybe they're taught that "questioning" someone is less polite than "doubting", although in American English it would be the reverse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:18, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

However, EO indicates that "doubt" has been a synonym for "question" for a long time.[8] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?}carrots→ 04:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

What does EO stand for, please, Bugs? μηδείς (talk) 18:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

EtymOnline.com, apparently —Tamfang (talk) 18:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Bugs, but I don't see where it says that doubt means question at the link you posted. Can you give a quote? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

""from L. dubitare "to doubt, question, hesitate, waver in opinion" (related to dubius "uncertain;" see dubious)..."" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't that refer to the verb ("I doubt what you say is true" = "I question whether what you say is true")? I'm not sure that I've yet seen a source that gives an etymology for doubt the noun being the same as question the noun, as in I have a doubt vs I have a question. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

So, I take it the formulations in the dock is are, "I have a doubt, [followed by question]" (eg. I have a doubt, is his real name Abu?), or is it "I have a doubt, [followed by statement that the speaker intends as a question but which the hearer takes as a statement] (eg. "I have a doubt his real name is Abu." But the reader thinks the speaker is saying, "I doubt his real name is Abu." So, the speaker is expecting an answer and the hearer does not know whether to answer, or ask, "Why do you doubt?") It seems some of the miscommunication maybe tied to whether asking questions is more polite than making statements, or that questioning is less polite (importuning) but that 'putting the doubt' in the speaker's mind seems less aggressive. On the other side, the hearer does not know if they are responding to rhetoric or to question. Alanscottwalker(talk) 11:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

My range of experience with that Indian expression is rather narrow - I've only ever heard it in reference to project specifications. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:36, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Medeis's link http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2429/can-doubt-sometimes-mean-question gives this interpretation of its use in Indian English: doubts in their mind about their understanding. I think that when an Indian (or possibly someone else) says "I have a doubt" they mean "I have a doubt in my mind as to whether I understand this." Duoduoduo (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

That would make total sense. It's a deferential way of asking about something that doesn't make sense to them. A face-saving approach to a situation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

See #would usage in english below for an example of what this question is about. --ColinFine (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks

According to Battle of Greece, this is a quote from Winston Churchill. But what is the name of the literary trick he is employing by reversing "heroes" and "Greeks"? I am sure I've seen other examples of the same technique in Churchillian rhetoric, and in puns, although right now I can't think of any. Can anyone help fill me in? ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 22:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Antimetabole - another example being "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country".Mikenorton (talk) 22:59, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Or the Archie Bunker version of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others, before others can do unto you". :-) StuRat (talk) 00:28, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Chiasmus. Matt Deres (talk) 22:14, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Never mind; Mikenorton's answer is better. Matt Deres (talk) 22:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Top answers thanks. Chiasmus is interesting, but definitely antimetabole was nail-on-head. There is an A-B-B-A pattern to it, so presumably most antimetaboles are chiasma? ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 22:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

It appears that antimetabole is a particular, more restricted, type of chiasmus [9]. Mikenorton (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

That link is particularly interesting - antithesis can sometimes be chiastic and the comparison with antimetabole is helpful. "It would seem convenient to use the term chiasmus for the criss-cross order and correspondence in meaning or syntax of two pairs of words, whether or not involving word repetition, and restrict antimetabole to the narrower meaning of a pair of words repeated (usually with some morphological change) in reverse order". But another description is more confusing for me - apparently antimetabole can be "a large epanados". Can someone explain? Would Churchill's Greek example be an epanados too? ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 00:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I find this link [10] more helpful or more confusing - it may help answer your question. Mikenorton (talk) 15:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

At least it clears one thing up - the spelling epanodos seems to give better google results than epanados did!ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

October 20

Dramatic monologue

I was asked what are the primary characteristics of dramatic monologue and was given 5 choices. One of them is "The reader identified with the listener addressed in the poem" --> Which I don't understand what is the statement even saying? Please explain to me what is the meaning of it and point out to me in the way that anyone can understand. Thanks!184.97.240.247 (talk) 08:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

'To identify with' someone is to be able to put yourself in their position or role. So it's saying that the poem is written as though it's spoken to some (possibly specific person); the reader is able to put themselves in the position of that person.

To give a concrete example: The anthem 'O vos omnes' says (in translation)

All you who pass by upon the road -

Is it nothing to you?

Behold and see

If there be any sorrow

Which is like my sorrow.

These lines are from the Old Testament, and have been adapted for a Christian context several times. I would identify with the listener ('you who pass by upon the road') if the poem made me feel like a person who has been forcibly reminded of another's suffering, and turned back to consider it.AlexTiefling (talk) 08:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Compound word, but different

I'm looking for a term (which may not exist) for those compound words which are not just two nouns. NOT words like: Lighthouse or Bedroom. Rather, words like: altogether, always, albeit - I know that I chose three that include 'all' but my interest is for any words formed out of 2 (or more!) words that aren't just simple object-type of nouns. Is there a term for such words, or can someone point me to a list of such words?199.94.68.91 (talk) 14:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Basically you're asking for a term for a word composed of multiple morphemes, or perhaps of multiple lexemes. I don't think linguists have a standard term for those concepts, but "complex word" is sometimes used. Looie496 (talk) 17:04, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

No term whatsoever ? StuRat (talk) 16:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

You are talking about compound words with bound morphemes as opposed to only free morphemes. I have never heard of a single term for this, but maybe Looie has a link to his complex word suggestion. μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The article on English compound just classifies them according to the word classes of their components (including pairings of modifier and head such as adverb-preposition, preposition-preposition, etc.), but I saw no special word for those which are not noun-noun compounds. We do have a separate articles on compound verb and compound modifier too. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:36, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese help

What is the Chinese in http://www.beijing-hyundai.com.cn/images/lxwm_02.jpg ? I'm trying to see if this is describing a corporate office WhisperToMe (talk) 20:46, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

It says 销售本部, "Sales main office" or "sales HQ". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! WhisperToMe (talk) 00:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

IPA

How is the name "Conley" pronounced in English? --77.12.231.144 (talk) 21:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

In American English, at least, it would be like "Khan-Lee", stressing the "Khan", the "o" like saying "ah" when the doctor asks you to open up. IPA? I don't speak IPA. But if you know how it's pronounced as-is, you could theoretically figure out the IPA. ←Baseball Bugs^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I would like to add the IPA to an article and it's a pretty cryptic knowledge. --77.12.231.144(talk) 21:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

[kɒnlɪ] or [kɒnliː] according to quasi-standard conventions (see footnote 24 at Help:IPA for English for the variation)...AnonMoos (talk) 22:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much! --77.12.231.144 (talk) 22:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

English Midlands: My friends who are Conleys use a very short o. I don't speak IPA either, but it's basically the word "con" + "lee".--TammyMoet (talk) 09:28, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

As a Londoner, I don't have the cot-caught merger, and I agree with TammyMoet. The first syllable of 'Conley' is very much not like 'Khan' to my ears. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me what's difficult about going through Help:IPA for English and looking for each sound in "Conley" in turn? If I knew why people were finding this tricky I might have some idea about how the page could be improved. Marnanel (talk) 09:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I had a look and I don't find it very intuitive, but I put that down to me being a thick Brummie and not having a standard English accent. For example, I say the words start and palm with the same vowel in the middle, whereas the article has them different. That doesn't reflect what I say so it confuses me. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:04, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Right on. I doubt that any variety of English pronounces "why" starting with a "hw" sound. I'd think they were saying "Hawaii" quickly. - Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I can testify that my own variety of English sometimes pronounces 'wh' words with a 'hw' sound. Maybe not me myself, except when I'm trying to sound hyper-correct, but certainly my grandmother (who has spent her whole life in the London suburb in which I grew up) pronounces 'what', 'when' and 'whom' with a distinct 'hhfw' sound at the beginning. It's not quite 'hw', more a sort of a low whistle followed by a 'w' sound, but there's a definite distinction between 'weather' and 'whether'. I'm not quite sure what you'd call this accent, but (at least in my grandmother's version) 'years' and 'ears' are pronounced the same. Maybe it's RP. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 10:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I've only come across it in Scottish speech. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The hw sound isn't actually found in who or whom, They simply begin with h. You will indeed hear hw in New England and the US South, with hwy and hwut for "why" and "what". My dialect doesn't have it. I might actually have developed it though, since our elementary teachers insisted we pronounce it. But, strangely enough, they didn't explain to us that the h preceded the w, the opposite of the spelling order. I remember protesting vigorously that no one says "wə-hat" for what or "wə-hen" for when. But the teachers themselves didn't usehw and they were insisting we use a standard the didn't use or even understand themselves. μηδείς (talk) 17:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to the planet called Earth.

The point is that (a) the "hw" sound is little known, and (b) using "why" as an example of it is confusing, given that most people don't pronounce the word that way. The footnote does not help, given that the page is supposed to be a helpful guide to making IPA easier for those who are already struggling with it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I have added what I hope is a partial clarification. But there is doubt there whether any clarification is actually needed, if anybody wants to comment. μηδείς (talk) 20:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

October 21

would usage in english

hi sir! i am trying to learn english correctly.i need your help to learn good english. my doubt is on would usage. "wish+subject+would can be used to express actions which the subject can control i.e the actions he could change if he wished." can you give some examples and explanation on the above structure? i hope you help me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 02:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

"I wish he would learn to leave the toilet seat down" is OK, "I wish I would eat less so as to lose 5 pounds" sounds a bit funny, though not blatantly ungrammatical... AnonMoos (talk) 05:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

"I wish he would" means "I want him to, even though he doesn't", whereas "I wish I would" does indeed sound strange, though grammatically correct. When talking about one's self in this case, "I wish I could" would be more appropriate - the reasoning being, if you wish it, but have not accomplished it, then you have failed to do it so far, therefore the conditional tense of 'can' (='could') should be used, IMHO. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:14, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

As KageTora says, "I wish he would" means "I want him to, even though he doesn't". For contrast, "I hope he will" means "I want him to, and maybe he will". So "wish" refers to something that does not happen or will not or is very unlikely to happen, and "would" is used in that kind of situation; "hope" refers to something that may or may not happen, and "will" is used in that kind of situation. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

would usage in english2

hi sir! i am trying to learn english correctly.i need your help to learn good english. my doubt is on would usage “Wish+subject+would can be used to express interest in the subject’s willing ness/unwillingness”. can you give some examples and explanation on the above structure? i hope you help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 09:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

You asked this exact question a few days ago, and received some answers. Do you need more information? Please help us to answer you better by letting us know what is unclear for you. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:36, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The previous question was about things the subject can control. This question is slightly different, in that it asks about the subject's willingness or unwillingness. Consider "I wish he would...." This implies that he very probably will not.... The reason he will not do it might be that he does not care and therefore does not bother, or that he does not want to. But if he cannot do it even though he is willing, I would say "I wish he could...." Duoduoduo (talk) 14:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Just a token

I presume that one of the more famous English short poems is Moondog's

The only one who knows this ounce of words is just a token

is he who has a tongue to tell that must remain unspoken.

As token means many different things in English, but by definition an icon of something valuable, I'm not able to figure out what "...just a token" wants to express and ask for help. --KnightMove (talk) 06:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

'Token' can also mean something almost valueless, as in 'a token gesture' - something which is done just to show you can. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Even using your specific definition, "just a token" is not the real thing of value itself. So, if that is the whole poem, it would suggest that speaking is of little value in the circumstances described (although poetry often has and is meant to have a personal meaning for the reader, so what's important is how you interpret it). Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, if it helps, "token" in New York City, at the time this author was writing was probably most popularly used for a small metal coin, which you bought and used instead of money to ride the subway. (It represented money in a limited use). Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The terms "token" and "icon" both mean a sign or symbol.[11][12] Neither word necessarily suggests something of great value. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:57, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

"Token" here refers to a "love token", a keepsake. A lover gives his beloved a token inscribed with a poem. This poem is self-referential and seems to be about complicity. It is very clever in its simplicity. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks you all so far, this is great help! Judith: Where do you know this interpretation from? --KnightMove (talk) 17:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It's just my reading, but I can't see any other meaning of token working here. If you Google "love token" you will find some explanations, but there is not much in the article that love token redirects to in WP. A bit in our article wedding token. There are other references to love tokens in poetry. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to rethink: "... a tongue to tell that must remain unspoken." - I thought this refers to an individual secret language. Does it mean something else? --KnightMove (talk) 14:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Does it have anything to do with "the love that dare not speak its name"? --TammyMoet (talk) 15:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

If one takes Judith's tack, that the subject of the poem is "love" and the poem is self referential, it suggests unrequited or forbidden love, or merely love that cannot be expressed in words (for any one of a number of possible reasons). In this reading, the first line refers to the poem itself, calling itself 'an ounce of words,' and a 'token' -- in both lines, the 'one' and the 'he' is the poet, who knows but can't speak. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

More Chinese help

As the name of a building, is 津蒙大厦 read as "Jīnméng Dàshà" or does it use a different "meng"? WhisperToMe (talk) 11:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you know anything about the history of the building? If it refers to some kind of relationship between Tianjin and Inner or Outer Mongolia (as seems likely in the absence of any other context), then it should use the "Meng" in Mongolia, which is pronounced with the third tone "Měng" in Mandarin. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Google search of the name seems to confirm that initial suspicion: the building is used by the "国航天津内蒙古分公司北京培训中心", the "Air China Tianjin-Inner Mongolia Branch Company, Beijing Training Centre". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a building that is associated with Air China. It houses two hotels too. Thanks for the clarification! I have also been trying to find the official English name for "津蒙大厦" - I am trying to see if it would be "Tianjin Inner Mongolia Building" or something like that??? - BTW this is the building File:JinmengHotelBuildingShunyi.JPG WhisperToMe (talk) 14:29, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

At a stab, I would say as an address it would be translated to "Jinmeng Building". We have a similar struggle with naming of railway lines in China - e.g. is it the Beijing-Shanghai Railway or the Jinghu Railway? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:05, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Plebiscyty zyczliwosci i niecheci (need PL>EN)

This is from the title of an article by Janusz Korczak and Ada Poznanski, published in 1934 in a journal, Polskie Archiwum Psychologii, about a survey done on the socializing of among institutionalized children. (N.B. redacted to improve the description.) I gather it refers to an opinion poll or survey about affinity vs. antipathy. How would this best be translated into English? -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 13:44, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't speak Polish. But Google translate gives "plebiscites of kindness and dislike". Plebiscyty is obviously the plural of plebiscite, or "survey". Zyczliwosci and niecheci seem to be in the genitive ("of") case. The word i is simply "and". The word nechciem is "I dislike" in my dialect, so niecheci would seem to be "of dislike" or "of not liking". From context your "survey [of] affinity [and] antipathy" seems spot on. But you might try a Polish help desk page. μηδείς (talk) 04:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Would "Survey of likes and dislikes" be a suitable idiomatic English translation? AlexTiefling (talk) 08:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Alex, though for now I'm sticking with the provisional translation I noted above. I'm getting more familiar with the opus, and just revised the wording of my query from "...the socializing of..." to what seems more likely: "...socializing among..." - e.g. aquerying the study subjects "With whom do you [not] like to play? Whom do you [not] trust with your confidences?", etc. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Deborahjay's translation (except that, as μηδείς noted, plebiscyty is plural, so that would be "surveys"). The English words "likes" and "dislikes" may refer to inanimate objects, but the Polish życzliwość can only be used when talking about relations between people. Życzliwość derives from the adjective życzliwy, "well-wishing", which in turn comes from the verb życzyć, "to wish". Oh, and here's the full title with Polish diacritics, in case you need to copy and paste it somewhere: Plebiscyty życzliwości i niechęci. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the "likes and dislikes" is a case where Google Translate and familiarity with marketing surveys will get you in trouble. μηδείς (talk) 17:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Why do the Republic and People's Republic of China use different terms for Republic?

I've always wondered what the significance was of the Republic of China being The Mínguó of China, while the People's Republic of China is The (Rénmín) People's Gònghéguó of China. Which means that the PRC and ROC use different terms for the word Republic, and I have wondered what the significance of that is.

The transliteration of 中华人民共和国 People's Republic of China is Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó . While for the 中華民國 Republic of China it is Zhōnghuá Mínguó . Why isn't the PRC called the Zhōnghuá Rénmín Mínguó or vice versa?

In no other language is the word Republic different in a People's Republic as opposed to a regular Republic.

What is the significance of Mínguó vs Gònghéguó? --Gary123 (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't that have the character 民 occurring twice in a row? -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

That is not a problem in Chinese and happens quite often. In any case, lots of countries are called 'Democratic Republic of [blah blah]' even though 'democratic' and 'republic' mean exactly the same thing. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:52, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It does? The UK would be surprised to find that their government was a Republic, or that it was not Democratically elected. The terms do not coincide. --Jayron32 19:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am sure we would be, having a pretty reliable voting system. Do you have references for this? As far as I know, it's a constitutional monarchy. See Politics of the United Kingdom. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

You appear to have misread or misunderstood Jayron's response. You claimed that "democracy" and "republic" were the same thing. Jayron said that the UK is a democracy but not a republic. You reply that it is a constitutional monarchy with a voting system, which appears to me to be nothing more than a restatement of Jayron's response. What do you mean? Marnanel (talk) 09:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

According to my Chinese wife, Mínguó and Gònghéguó were simply synonyms. The Nationalists had to pick one of them for their name, so they (presumably randomly) picked one; then the Communists needed one for their name, so to set themselves apart they picked the other synonym (and added People's to it). Duoduoduo (talk) 15:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

That is true to the extent that the Communists wished to pick a different name to differentiate themselves from the Republican government, but there is a historical nuance to it - by 1949 very few people were using "minguo" as a general term to denote a republican system of government, whereas in 1911 such usage was much more commonplace. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Minguo means "People's Country" and hence 'Republic'. "Gongheguo" means 'Country [of People Working] Together' and hence 'People's Republic' - essentially a more communist sounding name. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

"Minguo" is a more literal translation of "republic" drawing on its Latin roots, whereas "Gongheguo" at its root borrows the ancient Chinese institution of the "Gonghe", which on Wikipedia we seem to be calling the "Gonghe Regency".

The two translations had parallel developments: the historical Roman republic, for example, was always called "gonghe", even when the modern political system was called "minguo". In the 20th century the former gradually fell out of favour as the name of the political system. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

共和国 is not more 'Communist sounding' than ‘民国’, the two terms have historical origins as pointed out by PalaceGuard. It is the 中华人民 that makes the [Chinese] 'People's Republic' the 'People's Republic'. Moreover, you might be interested to know that 共和 is the same word used to translate Republican Party, i.e., 共和党. 24.92.74.238 (talk) 23:25, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not just PRC/ROC. North Korea (DPRK)/ South Korea (ROK) have exactly the same difference, 共和国 vs. 民国, in the word for "republic". DPRK is 朝鲜民主主义人民共和国; ROK is 大喊韩国。 （Incidentally, they use different words for "Korea" as well, 朝鲜 vs. (大)喊). -- Vmenkov (talk) 23:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Vemnkov, 大喊 is "big shout". The Chinese characters for the Korean "Daehan", as used in "Republic of Korea", is 大韩. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

民国 was a Chinese translation of Republic and 共和国 was a Japanese translation. As the Japanese terms of Western concepts and things (translated or coined in Meiji period; see Wasei-kango) spread to other Sinosphere countries, 共和国 replaced 民国. The names of ROC the ROK (ROK's name comes from Provisional Government of Republic of Korea) were establishd in 1912 and 1919 respectively while PRC and DPRK were establishd after the Second World War. --Kusunose 04:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Additionally, 人民 was also a Japanese translation of people. Oda Mari (talk) 09:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

While it may be true that "in no other language is the word Republic different in a People's Republic as opposed to a regular Republic", there are other languages which call republics different names depending on the context. English has republic and commonwealth; Polish has republika and rzeczpospolita. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The word for "Republic" in Chinese does not differ from the word for "Republic" in "People's Republic", there are just two words that mean "Republic". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Arabic and Russian help

How do you say "Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China headquarters" in Arabic and Russian?

The Russian name of the ministry is "Министерство иностранных дел Китайской Народной Республики", the Arabic name is "وزارة الخارجية لجمهورية الصين الشعبية". Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 16:18, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• Штаб-квартира like ru:Штаб-квартира ООН which officially are Центральные Учреждения ООН. Russian MFA's HQ are called Центральный аппарат МИД России. So Центральный аппарат Министерства иностранных дел Китайской Народной Республики may be the best variant. Other alternatives are Центральный/Главный/Головной офис/учреждения/управление, it's difficult to choose.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 20:52, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Though I'm still in doubt, maybe I've made a mistake. Центральный аппарат is more about internal structure. Of course it's possible to call both the head body and the building where this body is sitting with one word (a kind of metonymy). I've not found an English name for the main building of the Russian MFA. But speaking about a building, Центральное/Главное здание/офис is more appropriate.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't speak Arabic but if the UN HQ is called مقر الأمم المتحدة, most probably the Chinese MFA's HQ is مقر وزارة الخارجية لجمهورية الصين الشعبية. Though maybe the article al- before "ministry" الوزارة is needed in this case, but I'm not sure.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Lyuboslov: The first item of a ʼiḍāfa construction can take neither the article "al-" nor nunation. Therefore, I'd think مقر وزارة الخارجية لجمهورية الصين الشعبية is correct. --Theurgist (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not arguing but I've spoken not about the very first noun maqarr "seat", but about the second wizaarat "ministry". §12.4 of "Arabic. An Essential Grammar" (2007) says that it (the second) may take the article. But §12.9 says that in a complex idaafa only the last word can take the article. I wonder why then the translation of the Chinese MFA has four articles.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

It's two sentences in construct state linked by "li-" ("in"). There are only three "al-" articles. In the second sentence the last word is an adjective describing China, so they both get the definite article. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I haven't noticed the absence of alif. Indeed, al- before wizaarat is not needed. Thanks!--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Любослов Езыкин -- when you see a long sequence of "al-" prefixed words in Arabic, it's usually adjectives and/or appositional forms. In an A-al-B idaafa construction, an al-prefixed adjective following it can modify either A or B (though the meaning or the number/gender form used will often exclude one of the two as the modified, leaving no ambiguity). AnonMoos (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Clarifying theoretical matter: A complex idaafa is an idaafa where either the first or the second item is itself an idaafa. That's why only the last word in a complex idaafa can take the article. --Theurgist (talk) 02:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

In A-B-al-C, I think that [A-[B-al-C]] is the usual interpretation, and anything else would be out of the ordinary. However, there are some complications to allow a conjoined phrase (A-and-B) to appear as the first member of an idaafa... AnonMoos (talk) 03:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, I think [[A-B]-al-C] can occur as an expression like غرفة نوم الطفل "(the) child's bedroom", but it is indeed very much rarer than the usual [A-[B-al-C]]. --Theurgist (talk) 13:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, guys! For Commons:Category:International relations of China I would like to know the Russian and Arabic for "International relations of the People's Republic of China - For relations with Taiwan (Republic of China), see category:Cross-Strait relations". - There are no articles on the Arabic and Russian wikipedias about "International relations of China" or about "Cross strait relations" so I don't have a reference for that. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

• Added.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks! All I need is the Arabic :) WhisperToMe (talk) 02:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
    • العلاقات الدولية لجمهورية الصين الشعبية Wrad (talk) 04:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the first part! All I need now is the note on Taiwan in Arabic WhisperToMe (talk) 12:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, Commons:中华人民共和国 needs an Arabic description - I'm surprised it doesn't yet have one already WhisperToMe (talk) 13:05, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Added. Lesgles (talk) 20:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much! How do you say "For relations with Taiwan (Republic of China), see category:Cross-Strait relations" in Arabic? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Asian names

When something in English refers to a Japanese person, their name is generally reversed to the Western order (e.g. Hideki Tojo), but Chinese names are usually left with the family name first (e.g. Mao Zedong). Why is this? --128.42.153.5 (talk) 22:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Until other respondents manage to give you satisfactory input, you might want to take a look at the #Name order section of the Personal name article. --Theurgist (talk) 23:14, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Japanese name#Japanese names in English and Chinese name#Chinese names in English tell some of the story WhisperToMe (talk) 00:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, it is also interesting that Chinese people also give themselves 'Western' names (and sometimes silly ones, like 'Apple' and 'Pizza'), but when they use them, the surname comes after it, instead. Japanese people don't use Western names. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:00, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Kage, that's a bit of an unwarranted generalisation. I just wrote an email to a Japanese "Kevin" in Japan a few minutes ago. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I have met half-Chinese/half-Japanese people in Japan, and they tend to give themselves English names. This also happens a bit in South Korea. I lived in Japan for ten years, and never once met a fully ethnically Japanese person with a western name. The only two Kevins I have ever met in my entire life were from Korea and Hong Kong, by the way. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

In my experience of dealing with Japanese people who are involved in international business, adopting a Western name is not unheard of. I can't speak for your experiences, but it may just be that your experiences involve more frequently dealing with people whose lines of work do not bring them into contact with English speakers. As for "Kevin", the majority of "Kevins" I know are from English speaking countries like Australia or the US. Apart from the Japanese example I referred to, I can't think of any other "Kevins" who live in an Asian country. I'm not sure the density of "Kevins" proves anything. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, considering my work there involved either translating or teaching English (to children and adults - many of which adults were business people who needed it for work), I would be very, very surprised if not a single one of them had any contact with English speakers besides myself, because this would make both of my jobs completely pointless. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Alright, for some reason I have come across Japanese people who adopt English names and you, despite your considerably more extensive experience in the country itself, have not. If it is not because of some demographic selection bias in the people we respectively encounter, then I am at a loss to explain the difference. My point however was that it does happen. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps because given names aren't really used independently in Chinese. General Tojo's friends and relatives probably called him Hideki in private, but this doesn't really happen in Chinese; even your husband/wife will use your full name (it's also common to use pet names or terms of endearment, but first-name-on-its-own is very uncommon compared to English or Japanese).

So, for Japanese it's just a case of putting two words in a different order (which wouldn't be a big deal to Japanese people speaking English, as the two languages have quite different word order anyway), while in Chinese you've got the extra step of splitting a name apart to give a given-name-on-its-own portion that isn't used anywhere else. This is probably also part of the reason why when Chinese people have to use a "first name" they often choose an unrelated English name rather than using the given portion of their own name.

220.231.34.3 (talk) 10:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's more because they originally believed Westerners couldn't pronounce their names properly, and then the fashion just took off like a YouTube viral video. When I lived in China I was given a Chinese name twice. One completely unrelated to my real name, and another which was similar to my real name, depending on what dialect you said it in. I ended up using one of them in Japan for the banks, because my real name in katakana wouldn't fit on the ridiculously small seal I had to use (because in those days they wouldn't allow signatures, which was silly, because you can buy a seal in a shop - they are mass-produced - and pretend to be anyone. You can't buy a signature). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:43, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

October 22

Were / was?

"If Facebook were a country,..." or "If Facebook was a country,...". Which one is correct? 117.226.219.230 (talk) 08:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Under traditional rules, "if" governs the subjunctive mood, so "were" is undoubtedly correct. But most people don't even know what the subjunctive is these days, let alone apply it, so there's a new grammar at work, and most people would use "was". Those who use "were" in that example are in danger of being regarded as old fogies.

Letting the people decide these things seems pretty radical and republican, even revolutionary, to me, I must say. Not like my day, when we were told what to think, what to feel, what to say, what job to do, whom to marry, and how many children to have. It was so much easier that way, really. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Two other things to note: 1) the disappearance of the subjunctive in English is dialectal; the mood is more commonly heard in the US than in Commonwealth English. Not that long ago the Toronto Sun ran "LEST HE FORGETS" as a headline. 2) Even where it is dying out in other ways, it remains in use in fossil phrases such as "if I were you". Marnanel (talk) 09:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Under traditional rules, "if" governs the subjunctive in an counter-factual antecedent. In a realis context such as "If I was there, I don't remember it", "was" was normal. --ColinFine (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Colin has made the relevant distinction. To put it in layman's terms, you use were to express things that are not factual: "If I were an angel (but I am not) I would have wings." You use was when describing real things in the past, even if you are making a conditional statement: "If it was tuesday afternoon, then I must have been at the dentist when you called."

If you are tempted to use a double "would have" construction, e.g., "If I would have known you were coming, I would have baked a cake", then the first "if" phrase should be in the subjunctive: "Had I known you were coming (but I didn't) I would have baked you a cake." If you can substitute an inverted verb and subject for the if clause, you are using the subjunctive: "If I had known you were coming" > "Had I known you were coming I would have baked you a cake." But not "If it was 1972, I was living in Louisiana" > "Was it 1972, I was living in Louisiana."

The above are instances of the past subjunctive. The present subjunctive is used for things that aren't the case, but which you want to be the case:

Indicative: "I insist that he is here." I.e., he is actually standing behind the door, you just don't see him. Versus:

Subjuntive: "I insist that he be here." I.e., he better be here soon, or I will fire him.

Indicative: "I insist that he speaks English." I.e., he may be a foreigner, but I know for a fact that he's fluent in English, I have heard him. Versus:

Subjuntive: "I insist that he speak English." I.e., I don't care how much he'd prefer to speak Klingon, all employees are required to speak English at work.

μηδείς (talk) 17:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

TammyMoet reminded me above of The love that dare not speak its name. Is "dare not" a use of the subjunctive, or some peculiarity of the verb "to dare" in third person singular present indicative, the negative of which might normally be expected to be "he/she/it dares not"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What always seemed odd to me about that expression is how love has apparently literally developed the power of speech. I can understand figurative speech, like "love speaks to me", but literal ? No. StuRat (talk) 19:48, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

It's first person indicative. The full line is: "I am the Love that dare not speak its name." -- Elphion (talk) 20:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't there a disconjunct between using 1st person for the verb, but 3rd person for "its"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec)When it's used in the third person singular without an -s, and with not after it, it's a modal verb. He dare not works like he must not.

Also, it's not first person,, it's third person. In I am the Love that dare not speak its name., the relative clause has subject that with its antecedent being the immediately preceding Love. It's clear that the antecedent is Love because its (not my) has the same antecedent as that. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:18, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the article on modal verbs seems to cover it. 'Its' does argue for 3rd person too, though 'my' would have worked here too. -- Elphion (talk) 22:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, it speaks its name loud and clear these days, in many places. Maybe we can say it is the love that once durst not speak its name. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't you dast say that, Tom Sawyer. --Trovatore (talk) 00:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes'm. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: The sometimes-modal nature of "dare" -- there used to be special contracted negative forms daren't and durstn't... AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I use daren't. Is it meant to be obsolete? Itsmejudith (talk) 06:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

It is in U.S. English, at least... AnonMoos (talk) 07:17, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I daren't contradict you on that. 21:40, 23 October 2012 (UTC) User:Itsmejudith

It may be obsolescent, but it's not yet obsolete. I've heard older Southerners use it. μηδείς (talk) 22:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese and Korean help

Hi! What are the Chinese and Korean for "Inscription stone marking the border of China and North Korea in Jilin" (File:Border stone china-corea.jpg)? What is the Korean text displayed? Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 19:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

位於吉林省之中國朝鮮邊境石碑 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.70.114.88 (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Or in modern Mandarin: 位于吉林省的中朝边境界碑 --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 20:34, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Now all I need is the Korean WhisperToMe (talk) 20:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

expresse

In Quebec French, the word expresse is pronounced /ɛkspʁɛs/ or /ɛkspʁaɛ̯s/ ? Fête (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Look it up in a dictionary. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I haven't Quebec French dictionary. Fête (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say that we won't be able to supply you with one, one word at a time. Have you considered responding to the many, many attempts at interaction that people have made with you further up this page? It's very frustrating to deal with a person who makes repeated demands for information, but won't answer questions themselves, or provide clarifications when asked. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Rather than criticizing, can we not perhaps search for a dictionary for the user? Here is a book at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Pronunciation-Canadian-French-Douglas-Walker/dp/0776645005 and here are various other resources at Google for French Canadian Pronunciation. Rather than telling Fête to look things up, perhaps we can tell him where? μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

A fair point. I'm more thinking of the interaction side of using the Reference Desk, rather than the actual answer to the question. More flies with honey and all that. I've only ever been to Quebec on two very brief occasions, and made myself understood with my English schoolboy French. I believe you as both a North American and a more accomplished linguist than I am may have a better idea of where to look for practical help for Fete. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I have no special knowledge of French other than four years in a quality secondary school and a good familiarity with Romance in a wider context. I spent 30 minutes looking for godd references, but came across no on line dictionaries with spoken Quebecois pronunciation guides. If I were the OP I would contact a good local University French department. Perhaps we have French speakers and Canadians here with better resources. μηδείς (talk) 01:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is its pronunciation by a male from Canada. --Omidinist (talk) 05:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

That's a great resource. It obviously won't have every possible word. But comparing the recording of expresse to that of bête humaine by the same speaker it is obvious he does have the diphthong for the latter, but not for expresse. μηδείς (talk) 06:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

drêche

In Quebec French, the word drêche is pronounced /dʁɛʃ/ or /dʁaɛ̯ʃ/ ? Fête (talk) 13:59, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems you are interested in learning Quebec French, is that right? Do you want to ask about suitable learning programmes, because that would be more efficient than asking us about everything you encounter. Lots of us who respond to you here are learning languages and we don't bring every single question to the board. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Still, after having had a look at the OP's userpage, he proclaims to have quebecquois at near native-level..and still makes these requests. BTW, he is blocked from FR-wikipedia for 1 month, for the same...let us say sheenanigans. Lectonar (talk) 14:36, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Fete, I've looked at your userpage and contributions. You seem to be interested in pronunciation, but when you don't have a language at native competence, it's not going to be easy for you to make definitive edits on pronunciation in this encyclopedia. It's not helpful to keep coming to this board or to individual editors for help on a one-by-one basis. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

October 23

Mandarin in the Onion

There is an article today in The Onion that has a passage written in Chinese, but it's an image so I can't just drop the copypasta into Google Translate. Is there anybody here that can translate it? Link. Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 03:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I seem to be able to cut-and paste the following text, though I don't know what it means (other than that 中国 is "China", of course): AnonMoos (talk) 07:27, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

中国的领导我毫不含糊地向你们肯定当我做了总统我定会确保中国遵守国际贸易规则你们国家长久以来用操纵汇率让你们自己的制造业受益打击我们美国的制造业这是不公平的我的政府不会接受中国这样的行为 当我进白宫的第天我就会把中国列入率操纵国这是对你们的警告

I didn't read the article, so not sure of the context, I am guessing it's meant to be Romney's "true" message to the Chinese government? In any case, my translation, punctuation (or lack thereof) exactly as per your text:

"Chinese leaders, I without any ambiguity whatsoever confirm to you, when I become President I will ensure China obeys international trade rules. Your country for a long time used exchange rate manipulation to benefit your own manufacutring industry, and suppress we America's manufacturing industry, this is unfair! My government will not accept such conduct by China. On the first day when I enter the White House I will list China as an 'exchange rate manipulating country'. This is a warning to you."

--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:14, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

(Ed) - I did click into the link and have amended the above in light of the punctuation on that page which did not carry through with your paste. They seem to have used the English full stop (.) but I assume they meant the Chinese equivalent (。) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I wish I were going

Resolved

 – Thanks, everyone! Gabbe (talk) 11:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The following has bugged me for years: In the Simpsons episode "Bart on the Road", Bart is planning a road trip, and in order to get away he lies and says that he's going to a "National Grammar Rodeo" in Canada. Upon hearing this, Marge says "The National Grammar Rodeo? I wish I were going. Oh wait, wait – I mean, I wish I was going. Is that right, Bart?"

Well, which is it? "I wish I were going" or "I wish I was going"? Gabbe (talk) 11:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Please see #Were / was?, four questions above this. --ColinFine (talk) 11:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

So, "I wish I were going" because it's subjunctive? Gabbe (talk) 12:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

More like "I wish I were going" because she isn't. Bielle (talk) 16:27, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The simple test is, can you add (the appropriate equivalent of) "but I'm not"? If sou, use were, it's subjunctive. μηδείς (talk) 18:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

But as was pointed out up there, plenty of English speakers use the "I were" construction rarely or never. --ColinFine (talk) 18:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I even know a guy who never brushes his teeth. μηδείς (talk) 20:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The joke is that she incorrectly corrects herself. There is another episode where someone says "I saw her, that is to say I seen her". Adam Bishop (talk) 21:15, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

It's Lenny (Simpsons) who says it, and the phenomenon is hypercorrection (LOL). μηδείς (talk) 21:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Ehum, actually it's the gravedigger in "Mother Simpson"... Gabbe (talk) 09:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect it's Lenny's voice. μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

French translation: Eteroa

I am using google translate to understand a book I am reading. There is a passage that I can't seem to understand with google translate. " En ce temps-là, le roi Paa a Teuruarii III, devenu vieux, pensait à rentrer chez lui, dans sa terre natale de Huahine. Et quand se présenta un navire, il le prit et s'en alla à Huahine. Peu de temps après son arrivée sur sa terre natale, la mort le prit. " which according to google translate is "In that time, the king was Paa Teuruarii III, grown old, believed him home in his native Huahine. And when a ship appeared, he took it and went to Huahine. Shortly after his arrival in his homeland, death took him." What does the author mean exactly when he said "believed him home in his native Huahine"?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

"In that time, King Paa a Teuruarii III, grown old, was thinking of returning home to his native land of Huahine." The rest of the translation is correct. Lesgles (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Google is simply wrong here: rentrer means "go home" it can't mean "be at home". --ColinFine (talk) 10:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Also "C'est durant leur règne à eux deux que fut changée la loi établissant la peine de mort, Va'a Tai 'Aru, en un bannissement sur la petite île de Maria, et non en un bannissement en mer."/ "It was during their reign between them that was changed the law establishing the death penalty, Va'a Tai Aru, a ban on the small island of Maria, not a ban at sea " doesn't make sense to me. Did they change the law to include a death penalty, a exile to the island of Maria and not a exile to sea or did they changed the law that established the death penalty (ie. abolished it) and made crime punishable by exile instead? What exactly does the "not a ban at sea" part even mean? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

"It was during their joint reign that the law establishing the death penalty, Va'a Tai 'Aru, was changed to a banishment on the small island of Maria, and not to a banishment at sea." My guess is that the author is using "banishment/exile at/in the sea" figuratively to refer to the death penalty, which perhaps involved drowning at sea. Lesgles (talk) 20:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Ban used to mean "banishment" in English, but they have since diverged; but apparently bannissement covers both. --ColinFine (talk) 10:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

More Chinese and Uighur questions

In File:Military Museum of Xinjiang signboard in Uyghur-Mandarin.jpg I have "新疆兵团军垦博物馆" - Is that correct? What are the other characters in the background? And what is the Uighur text? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 20:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Uyghur says shinjang bingtüen herbiyler boz yer özleshtürüsh muzey. If I'm not mistaken it means something like "Museum about how the soldiers from the Xianjiang military corps cultivated wild lands". I hope somebody will correct me if I'm wrong.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the romanization! What is the Uighur text typed in? I want to post it in the image description WhisperToMe (talk) 03:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
    • شىنجاڭ بىڭتۈەن ھەربىيلەر بوز يەر ئۆزلەشتۈرۈش مۇزىي
    • I'm slightly mistaken: the last word should be transliterated as "muziy".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• Thank you! I updated the description of File:Military Museum of Xinjiang signboard in Uyghur-Mandarin.jpg. Would the name of the museum be written in the same way in Arabic as in Uighur, or would it be written differently? WhisperToMe (talk) 12:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • It should be translated in Arabic, of course, but this task is too difficult for me. :) I'm sure there is a lot of people who know Chinese and Arabic. It can be also possible to translate in a row Chinese > English > Arabic.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• Your transcription is correct. The slogan at the back says "走进军垦历史 凝聚民族精神 传承军垦文化". If it is helpful, this says something ike "Enter military-cultivation history; coalesce national spirit; pass on/inherit military-cultivation culture". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thank you, PalaceGuard! I put it in the annotations WhisperToMe (talk) 00:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

volume, autrefois

Can you turn up the volume of the file File:Fr-Normandie-Marseille.ogg please ? Fête (talk) 21:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Such requests should be made at the Help Desk, not here. μηδείς (talk) 22:03, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

(1) Download audacity from here. Works on Windows, Linux, Mac. (2) Select "Effect" | "Normalize. (3) Save as .ogg. (4) For the benefit of fellow wikipedians, upload the improved file. If you need a tutorial, search for audacity normalize volume on Youtube, or RTFM. If you run into problems, ask for help at the computing reference desk, WP:RD/C. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of -ing

Why does Wiktionary say that -ing is pronounced -ɪŋ? I've always pronounced it -iŋ. --168.7.230.175 (talk) 00:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That's ood. Are you from somewhere other than Texas? μηδείς (talk) 00:42, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Ood? I don't know nuffink about that. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:46, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Ood? We have an article... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

We seem to have a lot of ood questions that geolocate to Rice University. As for /iŋ/, I find /in/ and /im/ require no especial effort, but /iŋ/ is oodly hard to say. μηδείς (talk) 01:11, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually from Missouri. I'm sure that I'm saying /iŋ/ rather than /ɪŋ/ because I can say /ɪŋ/ and it sounds and feels very different from /iŋ/. --128.42.218.93 (talk) 01:35, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

So, you're saying that the words "bing" and "bean" have the same vowel sound in your dialect? Interesting.--Jayron32 05:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I read it that he pronounces "bing" and "being" differently, as I think most people do, but the IPA is suggesting they'd be pronounced the same. I agree that the IPA seems to be in error. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

You're both right. I pronounce "bing" as [biŋ], "bean" as [bin], and "being" as [bijiŋ]. --168.7.238.140 (talk) 18:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Wouldn't the former be pronounced (via IPA) /bɪŋ/ and the latter /biːɪŋ/? I don't think IPA would make it hard to distinguish between the two. --Jayron32 05:19, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That's the IP's only entry so far, but I wonder if he pronounces his home state "Missour-ee" or "Missour-uh". There's a significant population using each pronunciation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's a vowel reduction/schwa issue, which is something different entirely (like the difference between pronouncing "the" as "THUH" or "THEE") --Jayron32 05:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

If "ɪŋ" is intended to rhyme with "eeng", that's not correct, except maybe in some parts of the south. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

[iŋ], or "eeng", is common in California English. Lesgles (talk) 03:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to see a good ref or hear a good clip before I believe this. I have never heard it. And/i/ has an offglide which I find impossible to imagine as an actual [i^jŋ]. μηδείς (talk) 03:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is one reference with some short clips; here is a more in-depth study, which considers only Southern Californian. Lesgles (talk) 05:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that certainly is theenk. I'd still like to hear -eeng for the participle though. μηδείς (talk) 18:36, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand the sound of "i" in the English suffix "ing" to be a falling diphthong comprising a near-close near-front unrounded vowel [ɪ] followed by a close front unrounded vowel [i].

—Wavelength (talk) 03:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the most common accent to apply to -ing is to drop the g: "Walkin' the walk and talkin' the talk". StuRat (talk) 04:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and it's pronounced walk-in, not walk-een, expect maybe in some isolated regions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:04, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

"Walk-een" etc. is more common before a pause. I've heard that kind of pronunciation in lists, e.g. "I like hike-een, swim-een, horseback ride-een … lots of stuff." I've heard Tim Allen pronounce "-ing" this way, for example.--Cam (talk) 12:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but having looked at the wiktionary page wikt:-ing, it is significant that the transcription is /ɪŋ/, note virgules. So I suspect whoever the linguist was who made this transcription meant to convey that the underlying phoneme, s/he believed, is /ɪ/, to be realized according to however a speaker's dialect realizes /ɪ/ in such a context. In other words, you are all correct. 24.92.74.238 (talk) 04:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

If that miniature capital "I" refers to a normal short "i" rather than a long "e" sound, that would work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

/ɪ/ is the vowel in strip. /i/ is the vowel in Streep (as in I would not be keen to see Meryl Streep strip.). I'm not sure what vowel length has to do with anything. 24.92.74.238 (talk) 22:54, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

This nomenclature may be before your time: "Long" vowels are pronounced like their names, while "short" vowels are not. Examples: make vs. mack, me vs. met, bike vs. Bic, go vs. got, duke vs. duck. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes, I do vaguely remember being taught something like that in elementary school! Good times :) I suppose I was "made to forget" when I took linguistics - in linguistics a long vowel is just a vowel that is held (e.g., the e in bet=short, bed=long), so while the vast majority of occurrences of /i/ in English are realized as [iː] (the colon denotes the lengthening), the vowel in -ing clearly is not, which was the source of my confusion. 24.92.74.238 (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason for that peculiar nomenclature of English vowels, of course, is that it refers to the lengths of vowels before the Great Vowel Shift. —Tamfang (talk) 04:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Do we have a source for that?(Not that I really doubt it.) In any case, traditionally (RP/GenAm) all the "short vowels" are short, and the long vowels diphthongs. μηδείς (talk) 04:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

-iŋg (a nasal "ee" followed by a clearly pronounced hard "g') is the common pronuciation used in words of English origin in Polish. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Personally, when I say "bing", I use a vowel that is neither the vowel of "bin" nor the vowel of "bean", but one that's about halfway between them. Since /i/ and /ɪ/ don't contrast before /ŋ/, it doesn't really matter which phoneme you assign the sound to. Angr (talk) 18:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

October 24

Mo Yan translation question

In "葛浩文谈中国文学." Nanfang Weekly. March 26, 2008. It seems like the translator of Mo Yan said that he edited Mo Yan's works. What do the sentences say exactly? (The content is toward the end) Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:18, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean this paragraph "相反的例子是莫言。我们合作得好，原因在于根本不用“合作”。他总这样说：“外文我不懂，我把书交给你翻译，这就是你的书了，你做主吧，想怎么弄就怎么弄。”其实，他的小说里多有重复的地方，出版社经常跟我说，要删掉，我们不能让美国读者以为这是个不懂得写作的人写的书。如果人们看到小说内容被删节，那往往是编辑、出版商为考虑西方读者阅读趣味做出的决定，不是译者删的。"

My translation: "The contrary example is Mo Yan. We co-operated well, the reason being there was no need to "co-operate". He always asid: "I don't know foreign languages. I give the book to you to translate, it is your book, you decide, do whatever you want to do." In fact, there are many repetitive parts in his novels. The publishers often tell me, these must be deleted, we cannot let American readers think this is a book written by someone who does not know how to write. So if people see that parts of the novel have been removed, this is a decision made by the publishers considering the reading tastes of Western readers - it was not the translator's deletion." --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that's it! Thanks! In the meantime, "五年前，经济型酒店强势崛起之时，黄德满曾一度热衷其商业模式并成为追随者，创立了“三好”经济型酒店。但经过五年的实践，黄德满最终将公司锁定在中档市场。" is saying something like "five years ago, budget hotels were becoming lucrative so Vienna Hotel decided to get into the business, but after five years they are changing to the mid-market", correct? - Also this one says that the the China Hotel Starlight Awards Lifetime Achievement Award (中国酒店业星光奖终身成就奖) was awarded to Huang. What else does it say about the award? WhisperToMe (talk) 13:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Tradition criticism

What are the features of tradition criticism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.245.6.103 (talk) 15:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I added a header to help you find your question when you return to this page. But I am afraid I don't understand the question. Can you ask it again using different words? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your question either. Do our articles on tradition and criticism help you?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps by "traditional" you mean the original meaning of "criticism", which was a positive, negative, or mixed review of something. However, it has recently come to mean exclusively negative. StuRat (talk) 19:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

"Tradition criticism" links to Biblical Tradition history... AnonMoos (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

October 25

hiver

You hear [ivɛːʁ] or [ivaɛ̯ʁ] in the file Media:Fr-hiver-fr CA.ogg ? Fête (talk) 20:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I hear the latter (or something more like the latter). You? —Tamfang (talk) 04:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Assonance

I'm kind of confused on this. I know it is the repetition of vowel sounds but does it count if the repetitions are two different vowel sounds? Example: Is "later light" an example of assonance? There are two different vowel sounds in it. A and I. My teacher told me it is but I don't understand.184.97.240.247 (talk) 20:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Your teacher probably meant to say consonance instead of assonance. - Lindert (talk) 20:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

You probably meant to link to Literary consonance instead of consonance, which links to an article about music theory. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks. - Lindert (talk) 20:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh yea right! Thanks!184.97.240.247 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

V & W

I have been teaching in Hungary for a few months, and I have noticed that many people, when speaking English, pronounce 'v' as 'w', and 'w' as 'v', with very few exceptions. This seems to happen mainly with adult speakers - the kids at my primary school have near-perfect English accents (and some even speak in Scouse!). I knew a few Scandinavians who also did this. Is this a known phenomenon? I cannot think of a reason for this, as 'w' is absent from all of these languages. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I've noticed this with native German-speakers who say "v" instead of "w" ("Vot's ze matter vith you?"), as the German "w" is pronounced like the English "v" (and there is no labio-velar approximant in German phonology). And sometimes I hear Germans who are obviously somehow aware of this pitfall hypercorrecting their speech and saying things like "wague" instead of "vague". Our bit on non-native_pronunciations_of_English#Hungarian partly ascribes it to hypercorrection too. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

That's the word I was looking for - hypercorrection! Like my own dialect of English drops the initial 'h' for every word which has it, but uses 'haitch' instead of 'aitch' for the name of the letter 'H'. Thanks. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Are they actually swapping perfectly formed v's and w's, or are they pronouncing an intermediate β sound for both, which sounds too close to w for v, and too close to v for w? μηδείς (talk) 17:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

My partner spent his first 22 years in Sri Lanka. He's always spoken (SL) English as well as Sinhalese; his mother was even an English teacher. He is very prone to pronouncing initial v as w, and so do most of his family and friends from there that I've met. He says "wiolence" and "wiolin" for violence and violin, etc. He's less prone to saying w where v is required (it's never "vicket" for wicket, for example; but I'm sure it's happened). These things bother me much less than the weird stress patterns he uses, like saying "AH-mrka" for America (there are schwas in the latter syllables but they're so short as to almost vanish); and pronouncing "airport" as "yah-port" when he does not generally pronounce air as "yah"; and always referring to New Year's Eve as "thirty first night". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure you're not hearing /ʋ/ in place of both /v/ and /enwiki/w/? When you expect /v/ it sounds like /enwiki/w/ (relative to what you're expecting), and vice versa. —Tamfang (talk) 20:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Tangent

This question puts me in mind of Sam Weller and other lower-class (Cockney? I don't see any mention of it in our Cockney article) characters in 19th-century British fiction who also interchange v′s and w′s—Sam pronounces (and writes) his boss's name as "Pickvick" while saying "wery" for "very", for instance. Are there any current British dialects where this happens? Deor (talk) 13:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

John Wells’s phonetic blog says it "is utterly unknown in Cockney today" but "In present-day English such occasional interchange of the two consonants has been reported from parts of the Caribbean, particularly the Bahamas". He references to Accents of English by John C. Wells (same person as the blogger?). Our article on Bahamian English mentions "poor distinction between the [v] and [w] sounds in Bahamian English. The contrast is often neutralized or merged into [v], [b] or [β], so village sounds like [wɪlɪdʒ], [vɪlɪdʒ] or [βɪlɪdʒ]. This also happens in the Vincentian, Bermudian and other Caribbean Englishes." ---Sluzzelin talk 14:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

At the time Dickens was writing, the East End of London was home to many Jewish and Eastern European immigrants, and when I studied Dickens a long time ago, my lecturer told me that the affectation Dickens portrayed here was an attempt to replicate the effect all this immigration had on the Cockney accent. I have no ideas as to whether this is true, but as the lecturer was Howard Jacobson I tend to believe him. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's correct. In my part of London (which would have been rural Essex in Dickens's time), there's an area called Whipps Cross which was originally Phyppys Crosse (1517), the change in the initial consonant being a product of the local accent. There was a recent discussion here about this issue; a source I found then suggests that the "v" (or "f") and "w" switch was already obsolete when Dickens wrote it down, but was a well known Cockney stereotype. Alansplodge (talk) 18:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

In New Zealand, isn't wh (in Maori names) pronounced f? —Tamfang (talk) 20:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese reading question

• For A.mart: in 遠百企業股份有限公司 = Yuan?bǎi qǐ​yè gǔ​fèn​yǒu​xiàn​gōng​sī - Is "Yuan" read as "yuǎn" or "yuàn"?

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Yuán. Fête (talk) 18:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• That's interesting. "Yuán" for "遠" doesn't appear in the dictionary at http://www.mdbg.net/ that I use for Chinese characters. The only choices it gives are "yuǎn" and "yuàn" WhisperToMe (talk) 20:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Tone sandhi, 2 adjoining 3rd tone will result in the first being modified to a second tone, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.70.114.87 (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

tête

You hear [tɛːt] or [taɛ̯t] in the file Media:FRQC-tête.ogg ? Fête (talk) 18:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

How many times do you plan to ask essentially the same question? —Tamfang (talk) 20:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Uighur and Chinese help

What is the Uighur and Chinese seen in the following images?

• File:Khotan-ciber-d01.jpg (I need the Uighur of the main sign. the Chinese I have of the main sign is "九大行星网吧", but it would be nice to have Chinese and Uighur of the smaller signs too)
• File:Yining.jpg (the Chinese is 胜利南路 so I only need the Uighur)

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 20:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the smaller gold sign is the usual warning against minors attempting to access an internet bar: 未成年人，禁止入內 (minors are prohibited from entering).