Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 July 16

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July 16

to discuss alphabetic development

Hi, I'd like to point those interested to a discussion about the development of the letterforms at Talk:Proto-Sinaitic_script. (Yes, of course we're aware of WP:OR.) And I'd like to ask where's a better place to talk about it. A bit niche. I'm making a video series with novel hypotheses but I don't have anybody to give me feedback. Temerarius (talk) 03:09, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of wikifying the name of the talk page --ColinFine (talk) 09:37, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Having linked to the discusssion, and now looked at it, I'm quite certain that it does not belong on the talk page, or, probably, anywhere in Wikipedia. WP:Talk page guidelines says Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject. ColinFine (talk) 09:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

In fact, see particularly WP:TALKOFFTOPIC, which says It is common to simply delete gibberish, test edits, harmful or prohibited material (as described above), and comments or discussion clearly about the article's subject itself (as opposed to comments and discussion about the treatment of the subject in the article). ColinFine (talk) 09:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

That's why I'm asking? Don't tell me you love rules more than research. Temerarius (talk) 15:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Why not? Is there a rule against it?  --Lambiam 14:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Check out the new subreddit at reddit.com/r/protosinaitic

Temerarius (talk) 18:07, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Character ° in adresses

It seems the character ° is used in physical addresses in some countries - but where exactly, and for what purpose? --KnightMove (talk) 04:19, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

One possibility is the floor number.[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 06:15, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

In some countries it's used to indicate the '-st' '-rd' that in English we append to numbers such as 1st and 3rd. There are lots of other uses too - see Ordinal indicator. Nanonic (talk) 09:33, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both, this explains it. --KnightMove (talk) 11:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Note that that's strictly speaking not the same character, in terms of text encoding. The character you named is ° U+00B0 DEGREE SYMBOL, while the one used as an ordinal indicator should typically be encoded as º U+00BA MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: Uhm, many thanks for that hint. So in languages using the U+00BA MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR, keyboards contain that character, while others probably do not (I on my German keyboard believed it to be a degree symbol)? --KnightMove (talk) 13:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I can't say about most languages, but Spanish and Portuguese keyboards seem to have these "ordinal" characters. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Aha. "Masculine ordinal indicator", as in primero, segundo, tercero, etc. Exactly as we use -st, -nd, -rd, -th in English. Only it's easier in Spanish because all the masculine ordinals end in -o. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

In French you'll see superscript e used in the same way, since all ordinals of either gender end in ème, except premier, première (1^er, 1^ère) and, if there are only two, second, seconde (which I cannot recall ever seeing abbreviated analogously). —Tamfang (talk) 19:28, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

In MacOS standard US keyboard, º is option-zero, and the feminine ª is option-9. —Tamfang (talk) 19:25, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Also Lista de abreviaturas de vías ("List of abbreviations of ways") and Abreviaturas at the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas have several examples of other uses. --Error (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@Error: Thank you very much for that list! Do I see it right that only the numeral ordinators are considered characters in their own right, while all the other superscript letters as in p.^za are really just that - superscript letters? --KnightMove (talk) 06:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Plus: The ordinal indicators o and a are also parts of abbreviations in that list: camp.º, carr.ª - do I understand it right that this is technically wrong, and normal supercript a's and o's should be used in those cases? --KnightMove (talk) 06:36, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Y'all be unsurprised to hear that it applies to all languages with a direct Latin root. ——Serial Number 54129 16:20, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Here is the teclado nacional, deprecated since 1971 but still in use when I was there [2]. Job adverts specified either teclado nacional or teclado internacional (the one we use). Monday is segunda-feira, but often written as 2^a. The top left key seems to be the one for that. You can see the French AZERTY layout at [3] (note the penultimate key on the top line). On the German and Swiss QWERTZ keyboards again note the top left-hand key [4]. 92.10.146.73 (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@KnightMove:: There are separate Unicode superscripts distinct from HTML superior letters. It also distinguishes the ordinal indicators and these superior letters. The Real Academia Española's DPD uses C.ª with the indicator and C.^ía with HTML sup in the same line. It is not using the Unicode superscripts. RAE is authoritative but our articles say that it is not followed by all language users. Probably professional typographers may differ about it and unprofessional typographers tasked with text formatting tasks will differ further. --Error (talk) 10:31, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

not French —Tamfang (talk) 19:29, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

English names for federal states of Austria

Of the nine Federal states of Austria, six have a traditional English name, at a minimum Tyrol having a varied English spelling. Burgenland, Vorarlberg and Salzburg have not. In the former two cases, this may be explained with the rather young age of the names (1921 and middle of the 18th century, respectively). But Salzburg is really old. Why do e.g. Styria and Carinthia have English names, but Salzburg has not? Where does this difference come from? --KnightMove (talk) 11:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd say for the same reason that Hamburg is written the same way in English and German, whilst Bavaria/Bayern isn't. The 'English name' of Salzburg is Salzburg, thus the same would apply for the state name. Presumably the name didn't create problems for English writers and they got used to writing it same way as in German. --Soman (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The traditional English names actually come from (or via) Latin or Italian, so why not have another traditional name derived from German? The Latin version would be Salisburg or something like that, with a pronunciation that is not far off "Salzburg" anyway. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:07, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Salisbury-by-the-Salzach? --Error (talk) 15:23, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

"Why didn't" questions can be almost impossible to answer. Alansplodge (talk) 17:46, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

"Salzburg" works in English, "Steiermark" and "Kärnten" don't. I mean Salzburg looks and sounds pretty much like an English word or placeneme might. "Steiermark" and "Kärnten" look and sound like nothing any Englishman might ever say or hear. But as Alan says, these kind of "why" or "why not" questions really can't be answered. DuncanHill (talk) 22:58, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

This your explanation is actually very satisfying, thanks. On that occasion, English pronunciation of Vorarlberg (starting 0:37) seems to work better than I had imagined. --KnightMove (talk) 06:29, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, English exonyms tend to follow French ones, Cologne for example. French "bourg" endings are Anglicised as "burg", such as Strasburg and Luxemburg. Alansplodge (talk) 08:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Without looking up the meaning of the word "exonym", Portuguese names for overseas cities follow the German - Luxemburgo, Estrasburgo. English names, on the other hand, follow the French: "Luxembourg" (I've been there), "Strasbourg". There are places named Strasburg in America. 2A02:C7B:232:7100:5830:3E14:CB16:6F14 (talk) 14:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Traditionally, French "-bourg" names were Anglicised to "-burg" (like this for example), although there has been a trend towards using native spellings in recent decades. Alansplodge (talk) 10:25, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Search 'Salzbourg' in Google Books does give a few 1800s English texts. --Soman (talk) 11:13, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Court incapable

What do they call it when a court argues it lacks the authority/competence to hear a case and directs it to a higher court? If there's an opposite of a writ Procedendo, that might be it. But is there such a mechanism? Cheers! ——Serial Number 54129 16:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Magistrates have limited jurisdiction. They often remit a case to the Crown Court. 92.10.146.73 (talk) 16:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I know. There's a name for it. What's the name, bro? ——Serial Number 54129 16:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The reciprocal seems to be remand (court procedure). --Error (talk) 16:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

That would actually seem to be the opposite! A high court sending a case back to a lower court? I mean a lower court that claims it does not have the legal authority so upstairs must deal with it. ——Serial Number 54129 16:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that's called a "referral" in England, but I'm having trouble pinning it down as the same word is used in a number of other legal contexts. Alansplodge (talk) 08:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

It depends on the context. If a magistrates' court decides at the outset that it doesn't have sufficient powers to deal with a charge, the act of referring it up to the Crown Court is a "sending", but if it's already convicted someone (or they've pleaded guilty) and it decides at that point to refer it up, that act is called a "committal". I'm not sure there is a general term that applies in all contexts. Proteus (Talk) 09:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Courts don't "argue" (or "claim"): they "find" (or "rule" or "decide"). The ones doing the arguing are the lawyers. Proteus (Talk) 09:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)