Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 August 14

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August 14

Latin conjugation: "veni"

How come in "veni veni venias", "veni" means the second-person imperative "come", but in "veni, vidi, vici" it's the first-person past tense "I came"? Do the two conjugations have the same ending, and if so why wouldn't the ambiguity have caused any problems? NeonMerlin 02:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure there are better English language examples, but the one that comes first to mind is “lay.” As in both, "I lay the book down" (a transitive verb, present tense) and "I lay down yesterday" (the past tense of an intransitive verb). Does it cause confusion? Sure does, in terms of grammar. Does it frequently cause misunderstanding between people? Nope. Context pretty easilly clears up any confusion, despite common misuse. So, while someone who actually knows Latin may come along and give a more satisfactory answer, I would suggest that similar "problems" occur in nearly all languages, yet nearly never cause problems for primary language speakers. Non-native speaking translators, of course, suffer painfully. (-:  — gogobera (talk) 03:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Luckily, this isn't a general problem with fourth declension verbs. Venire and ire are irregular, just like the English verbs come and go. They have regular imperatives. As the first person singular in the perfect tense, indicative active, veni is irregular. However, in the perfect tense ire has both regular and irregular forms , ivi and ii, so it seems veni is simply a contraction of the original venivi. If the contraction had caused problems, it's likely that it wouldn't have happened. Xn4 06:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Another thought, though: in Italian, the sameness has disappeared: venni, I came, vieni, come! Xn4 07:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

They're not actually the same in Latin, either. The 2nd person singular present imperative is vĕnī with a short e, while the 1st person singular perfect is vēnī with a long e. —Angr 07:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair point, but the same when written. Xn4 06:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation: Are

Is Are pronounced air or arr? I say hek-tair for hectare. -- SGBailey 11:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Both Chambers and OED give the IPA equivalent to arr, but I have only ever heard it pronounced air. With hectare, Chambers says hek-tarr, OED gives hek-tair or ek-tarr (á la Français). Again, I have only ever heard it pronounced hek-tair. DuncanHill 11:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation of English varies regionally. "Air" sounds a bit Scottish to this U.S. speaker, who hears it pronounced "arr." Edison 04:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone else reminded of the point in The Lavender Hill Mob where the scheme unravels? —Tamfang 17:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

schooling in australia

Where and what year was the first "school " built in Australia? K gran —Preceding unsigned comment added by K gran (talk • contribs)

de:Volksschule officially since 1840. Obviously, Schulen in general go back to antiquity. --dab (𒁳) 12:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Dude, he said Australia not Austria. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

According to this source, the first school opened in Sydney in 1793. While the aboriginal population certainly educated children in traditional teachings and skills, they lacked physical schoolhouses as such, so the first schools were built by the British settlers. While the source gives 1793 as the date of the first school in Sydney, Sydney was the only European settlement in Australia at that time. Marco polo 18:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Not quite true. Parramatta was founded in late 1788. It's located 23 km west of Sydney. It has long since been absorbed into Greater Sydney, but at the time it was an entirely separate settlement. -- JackofOz 04:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'J' in German

The sound file in German alphabet pronounces the name of the letter 'J' as "yot" (sorry but I don't do IPA). Here in Austria, however, I always hear it pronounced "yay". Is this an Austrian dialect phenomenon? Are there any other letters whose names are pronounced differently in Austrian German? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

In my experience this was the only one when I learnt the German alphabet at home in comparison to school (although possibly 'y' as well, although that may be my bad memory. I also used Karfiol, Karotten, Kohlsprossen and Schwammeln instead when talking about what I had eaten for dinner. I also used to say Nay instead of Nein but that was possibly just laziness. Lanfear's Bane

Thanks for reminding me about the "nay" vs. "nein" thing. I don't hear "nay" in Austria, though. In which regions is it prevalent to say "nay"? It's pronounced that way in Edgar Reitz's great episodic drama Heimat, which is set in the Hunsruck. By the way, it would be useful if you added the fourth tilde to your sig to give the date and time you posted. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

in reply to your question, yes, per de:J, the Austrian name of the letter is je [jeː] (while the German, and Swiss, name is jot). --dab (𒁳) 12:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I know but I like it without the timestamp and it's not hugely important on the RefDesk. Besides the timestamp and date are in the history or if you look up my contribution. I have no idea then where I picked up my Nay from, so to speak, but no one ever could exactly claim that they could not understand me as a result. My German teacher pointed it out the odd time, but I guess it was more of a bad habit than anything else. Lanfear's Bane

Don't know where you picked it up, but, nay (diphtong ɛ̝i̯) means no in Bernese German dialects, as well as dialects spoken in some of Bern's neighbouring cantons. By the way, my first grade teacher taught us to say "Joggeli I" for the letter j, (I don't know why - if we were able to say "Vau" or "Ypsilon", then surely we could have said "Jot" as well) I've seen "Jäger I" in German books for children as well. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

In Berlin and possibly other parts of North Germany, nee (ne:), which sounds like nay to Anglophone ears, is a common alternative to nein. In fact, I think that nee is more common in casual conversation. Marco polo 14:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I think so too. When my mother, who doesn't even speak German, was visiting me in Berlin, she commented that people here said nee instead of nein. As for J, when I was in second grade in Vienna, jee rather than jot was the name we learned for the letter; the other Austrianism we were specifically taught that I remember was Jänner rather than Januar. —Angr 15:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I was aware of nie as in never and the phrase 'nie und nimmer', so maybe I arrived at a point between nie, nein und nimmer and stuck with that. Mein Deutsch is aber jetzt nicht so gut, hab zu viel Vocab vergessen, also finden wir vielleicht nie und nimmer aus, warum ich immer 'Nay' gesagt habe. (That's probably terrible but the best I can come up with after a day at work and building in 'nie und nimmer' didn't make it any easier :) ) Lanfear's Bane

Um, Bane, nie is another word for 'never', so nie und nimmer is 'never ever'. Xn4 21:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

"Nay" was also very common in the village where I was an exchange student on the Bavaria-Baden-Württemberg border, so it can't be exclusively North German. -Elmer Clark 17:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Not forgetting Nay in Middle English, Nej in Swedish and Nee in Dutch! Xn4 20:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

In everyday, informal usage, it's a very rare event to hear a German actually say "nein". In Bavaria, where I currently live, people say "naa"; in Suebia, where I grew up, people say "nöh"; in the North, people generally say "nee"; some people i know from East Germany say "nü" with a very short Ü sound. These are all just variations on the same theme...kind of makes me wonder why us Germans hate the second n so much that we all drop it, or why we don't just change our standard word for "no" to "nee" since nobody bothers with the correct "nein" :P -- Ferkelparade π 21:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I know Xn4, that's why I pointed out it was a pain to fit into the sentence, as it doesn't quite span well but was pertinent to the topic of conversation. Lanfear's Bane