Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 November 18

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November 18

Translation from Italian to English

I dont know if this is the right section to ask this,if its not,just delete this:

Where can I find a translations of Eros Ramazotti songs,I know Italian a little bit,but not good enough to understand everything hes saying.

Thank you(if its in wrong section,just delete the question) --YXYX 04:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not in the wrong section. :) Check out http://www.eros-ramazzotti-lyrics.com/, they seem to have just what you're looking for. –Mysid☎ 08:08, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much,my girlfriend is crazy about Eros and we argued about the meanings in some songs,so thats why I need it.The site you gave me is excatly what I was looking for.Thanks again YXYX 22:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

What's the language?

Hello all! I've just been doing some narcissistic Googling for my various user names and have discovered that a web site has used one of my pictures from Flickr to illustrate their article about Hard Gay! Could anyone please tell me language of the site? Here's a sample:

"Kysyin Shujilta ihan piruuttani, että mitähän seksuaalivähemmistöt hahmosta meinaavat."

For the whole article, go here: [1]

The funny thing is, my picture is not of Hard Gay, but of two teachers I used to work with dressed like him. Phileas 08:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It is Finnish. (Your sample means "I asked Shuji, just to be nasty, about what would the sexual minorities think of the character.") The heading says "Hard Gay - maybe he got the inspiration for the costume from Tom of Finland" –Mysid☎ 08:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was Finnish too but I don't speak it at all :). Isn't there a rule that says : long, weird words with lots of double vowels-->Finnish?Evilbu 16:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Or Dutch, for that matter. :) I think Finnish is logical and the pronunciation is easy, because it is written phonetically. (Or because I'm native...) –Mysid☎ 17:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey! :p I speak Dutch and I'm a native,but I guess it's no coincidence that you brought that up:). Once you get emphasis right (on the right syllable), the pronunciation in Dutch becomes very easy, there's a few rules but once you know them, there you go. The same cannot be said about English (war<-> that, wear<-> weak)and French (parlent-ils <-> ils parlent)... It's not because our languages are not that easy that they don't make sense :).

Finnish is considered "weird" because it's so different from English, not because it's necessarily intrinsically difficult. 惑乱 分からん 19:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Or (IIRC) as CBS 60 minutes so eloquently put it: "Alphabet soup gone crazy!". 惑乱 分からん 16:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, this website identifies which language a sentence of 5 or more words is written in. In my experience its very good, although not infallible. Thryduulf 20:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm the owner of that blog and yes, it's in Finnish. I replied to you in your blog. The easiest way to identify the language or ask about the use of the picture would have been leaving a comment in my blog - English is so universal that it's more than likely that a non-English blog's owner can still reply in English. :) --Sumiko 06:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC) (Suviko, more active in fi-Wikipedia)

Dysphoria

Can someone provide me the Greek spelling of the word dysphoria? I would like to use it in the article. Thanks! --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 22:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Liddell & Scott says δύσφορος is the adjective, so I'm pretty sure the noun is δυσφορία. —Keenan Pepper 02:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. If you wanted a transliterated representation of the Greek spelling, then dysphoria is already fine. Wareh 03:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both... would it be accurate for me to say: from Greek, δυσ (bad) + φορία (mood) ? --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 03:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

No, there is no Greek word φορία. The Greek word δυσφορία (which was used in the Hippocratic corpus in the meaning "malaise, discomfort" – see link above) is compounded from δυσ- and the verbal root φερ-/φορ- seen in φέρω "carry, bear" (which in turn is from this Indo-European root). Thus the compound adjective δύσφορος means "hard to bear," and δυσφορία is an abstract noun describing the state that is hard to bear or uncomfortable. The idea of "mood" doesn't come into it anywhere except later and secondarily, and the idea of dys- here is difficulty (not "bad"). Wareh 04:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for. I added it to the article and credited you on the talk page (per GFDL plus you deserve it). --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 14:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)