Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 September 25

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September 25

Help with Latin quotation

I'm attempting to ascertain which version of this quotation is more gramatically correct. The former was my intial encounter with the quotation, from one of Rousseau's discourses. The latter is more prevalent.

"Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intelligor illis"

"Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli"

Wilymage 01:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

They're both fine, grammatically (except that 'intellegor' is a more usual form) but they have rather different meanings. The second makes better sense and also ties in with the most usual English translation, which includes 'for' or 'because' (quia). Both the versions you give are evidently quoted as being from Ovid's Tristia, and a good edition of that may explain the discrepancy. It may just be that Rousseau or someone else quoted it wrongly and people have been copying the mistake ever since. Xn4 02:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

PS: The text of Tristia online here at thelatinlibrary.com has 'Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli', a mixture of the two versions you quoted. But 'Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intellegor ulli' has more Google hits than any of the other permutations, followed closely by the one with the extra 'i' in 'intelligor' Xn4 03:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

It's Tristia 5.10.37 (Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli). Xn4's intuition seems right: "The citation Rousseau either initially miscopied or copied correctly from a faulty edition on both occasions of the line's appearance in his œuvre," according to J.F. Jones, Rousseau's Dialogues (Paris: Droz, 1991), p. 190 n. 40. It appears that Rousseau used quia non intelligor illis: this is found in good modern editions, in Recueil de toutes les pieces qui ont été publiées a l'occasion du discours (1753), p. 6, in the 1756 edition of the Discourse, and in what purports to be the Magazin de Londres of 1749[1][2], but the date must be wrong, or there's more to it than I understand, because the magazine is referring to Rousseau. (I was about to get even more infatuated with Google Books & think I'd discovered the source of his misquotation before I realized that the magazine's source must have been Rousseau. Possibly several years are bound together and Google, as in other cases I've seen, went with the first title page. Can anyone fathom why they except this & many other public domain periodicals from their full view?) Wareh 03:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Quite a crux. The Google results for "discourse barbarus hic ego" return "Barbarus hic ego sum, qui(a) non intelligor illis." Looking closer, it seems the only results that have this exact variant -- other than personal web sites -- pertain to Rousseau's use of the quote. I have personally seen this in print for Rousseau's Discourses. Is it safe then to assume that the former variant is simply an old mis-quotation by Rousseau himself or an associate? Wilymage 05:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Dissecting responses thus far: "quia" is preferable; "intellegor" is preferable. Is "ulli" vs "illis" pertinent? Wilymage 05:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The answer is getting clearer. It depends who you want to quote. If Ovid, then 'Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli'. If Rousseau misquoting Ovid, then Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor illis'. Xn4 09:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

They are both wrong, as Xn4 pointed out and documented above. For a Latin sentence, getting Google hits is in no way a guarantee of correctedness... Paolo. --79.60.3.92 (talk) 08:04, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Idioms & Proverbs

An idiom is also a proverb? Would you mind telling me the difference between them? Could you give me some clear and easy examples to illustrate them? Thank you many times Binhco 04:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Idioms and proverbs are two quite different things. A proverb is a short phrase which expresses a common belief or lesson - for example many hands make light work, or you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. An idiom is a phrase which doesn't make much literal sense but requires a cultural understanding, like nose to the grindstone, which means "working hard", or green thumbs, which means "good at gardening". Metaphorical or otherwise obscure proverbs may be considered idioms (like the second example above; it's not really about omelettes or eggs, but about making sacrifices to achieve goals), but most idioms are not proverbs. FiggyBee 04:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Well-known proverbs are often quoted only in a partial form (e.g. "Too many cooks [spoil the broth]") or are alluded to rather than quoted. Such fragments may be promoted to the status of idioms (e.g. "clutching at straws", from the proverb "a drowning man clutches at straws") and even survive as idioms after the original proverb has been forgotten (e.g. "bear" (stockmarket) < bearskin jobber < "sell the bearskin before one has caught the bear"). However, there are idioms which are not proverbs, and proverbs which are not idioms. jnestorius^(talk) 14:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

In other words, there's an overlap between the two sets. A given proverb might also be an idiom, but not necessarily. A given idiom might also be a proverb, but not necessarily. -- JackofOz 21:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much for spending time answering my question. Your answer is very clear and useful. But someone told me that "Usually provers are sentences", is that right? (to my knowledge, very many idioms are sentences).And (he said)"...English is like that...many exceptions... so call it a proverb or idiom....it is your call...". If so, how can I say it is a proverb or an idiom even though I understand its meaning clearly? Please explain to me two more questions: 1./ What about an expression? Is there any difference between them (idioms, proverbs, and expressions)? 2./ I've found a word "proverbidiom" (from T. E. Breitenbach and Studio Tour). Is it a new English word and a kind of blends such as "motel", "brunch"...? If so , what does it mean? Thank you and Best Wishes Binhco 02:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's see... yes, proverbs are usually sentences, but like jnestorius said they're often referred to in shorthand with just a few words. To your questions;

1 - an expression is a common way of expressing an idea - that is, a common way of putting it into words. So both idioms and proverbs are expressions.

2 - "Proverbidiom" is the name of Breitenbach's poster. It's not a real word and doesn't mean anything. Just by-the-way, blends like motel and brunch are called portmanteau words.

FiggyBee 04:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Definition of the word "native"

I recently found myself under a huge fight about the term "Native American". I am from Canada, and in Canada it is very typical to associate the word "native" with "indigenous", particularly in this context. Wikipedia also uses it in this sense, although without citations. The US census also appears to do so, and a cursory look at a few dictionaries also confirms that "indigenous" can be synonymous for "native", among other meanings.

Nevertheless, I have on this occasion (and on previous occasions), found myself in the middle of a viscious pitched battle over what is a "Native American". Many appear to want to reserve the term "Native American" to refer ONLY to anyone who is born in the Americas, or potentially the USA. The claim has been made to me, repeatedly, that the "official legal definition" of the phrase "Native American" is anyone who is born in the Americas (or maybe in the USA). I am somewhat taken aback whenever I am confronted with this kind of dispute, and I was not able to find any such definition in a short search. Some of the fires of passion here are probably stoked by various political sensibilities.

So I ask, what is a "Native American"? What is the legal definition of the phrase "Native American"? Can similar things be said for the word "native"?--Filll 16:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Words don't mean what people want them to mean; people just say words which spread (or die out). The person who confronted you is a prescriptivist of the worst kind: people who try to force their words on other people. People speak differently. Period. You shouldn't force your own stance on anybody, especially when it comes to words. You don't force people to dress in a certain manner or eat in a certain manner, do you? Well you do have to keep your manners, but what you wear or eat in a civil way should be a private matter, off-limits to nosy parkers. So tell them that what you want words to mean don't change what words do mean. "This dictionary supports my claim," they might say. Scoff at them. Dictionaries are descriptivist, and they're more than likely to put more support on your own claims. --Kjoonlee 16:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

One thing you could use against him would be the difference in pronunciation between "blackboard" and "black board (a board which is black)." Compound nouns (and stock phrases) can mean something totally different from their constituent parts. Compound nouns have stress on the first syllable. If you want to mention something different from the compound, you have to put heavy stress on the second word. Is he putting heavy stress on American? --Kjoonlee 17:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to note that the legal definition of a word is rarely the same as the various dictionary definitions, which can be very, very flexible, even contradictory. The term Native American is ambiguous, so it is probably best avoided if you want to be understaood.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Words mean what people agree they mean. "Nimrod" used to be a compliment, but a late-twentieth-century Warner Brothers' ruling turned it into an official insult. You're in Canada, and I don't know as much as I probably should about the place, but here in the USA the government doesn't get to define words—the television does that. Also, in the USA the stand-alone noun "American" can only mean "citizen of the USA", and if you mean "the New World" you have to say "the Americas". I know that's hard to believe; I've had no end of trouble convincing Brits of that. To get back to the point, it occurs to me that there is a difference between "Native" and "native". To my mind, a "Native American" is an American Indian (North American, when I think about it) being referred to by someone who either doesn't think much about terms or thinks about them too much. A "native American" is anybody born in the USA. In speech there is ambiguity, which militates against the PC neologism, incidentally. --Milkbreath 18:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked in 23 general dictionaries and found that they all included "indigenous" as one of the meanings of the word "native", or "Native American". Interestingly, two (Encarta and Oxford) said this meaning is now viewed as derogatory (?? I never heard of this before...interesting??). I looked in 7 legal dictionaries and only 1 had a meaning similar to what he proposed, however it also said any person born anywhere who was in the USA on July 4, 1776 was a Native American and that Blacks and Indians are not US citizens. So that last definition might be a couple of hundred years out of date...--Filll 18:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Calling someone a native or speaking of 'native' is often likely to be seen as derogatory. Calling some a Native American however is notNil Einne 02:43, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The eternal problem of words and communication is the fact that words have multiple meanings (polysemy) and that we all have varying references. Just like wearing clothes sends different signals to different people, using certain words send different signals. Technically, you are both right. Similar problems can appear because a word changes meaning over time.--Berig 18:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, when you claim someone else is wrong based on your own semantics, you are definitely wrong. --Kjoonlee 19:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You might find useful information in the various articles linked from the page Native Americans, as well as in Race and ethnicity in the United States Census. jnestorius^(talk) 20:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We have articles on part of this: see Native Americans and Native American name controversy. Rmhermen 20:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There is generally no such thing as an "official legal definition" in English. However, if you want to out-pedant your foes, you can point out that 25 USC 3001 (part of a U.S. federal law) reads:

"(9) "Native American" means of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is indigenous to the United States."

-- Mwalcoff 03:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Some of the people the original poster was referring to may well have confused "native" with "natural born". As to the offensiveness of "native", it is obviously offensive now in the old-fashioned, colonialist sense (the natives are restless) - which was official in apartheid South Africa. And as to the original question, this is a pretty common "point" among a certain sort of smart alec, and has to my mind less to do with language prescriptivism than with thinking oneself quite clever and naughtily anti-pc.--Rallette 10:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

In my (American) experience the term "Native American" is usually used to refer to a member of the various indigenous populations, or "Amerindians", or whatever you want to call them/they want to be called. The other usage of the term is most often a political statement of some kind and can be distinguished in a number of ways. Emphasis: The first usage is often just said casually while in the latter usage the "Native" is emphasized (stress the first syllable), with a pause before the "American" is said. Context: If the person using the term has just finished ranting about immigrants and "them", "coming over here" you know which usage they're using. Also, the "native" to mean natural-born is especially common in the type of person just mentioned, who has also recently watched Gangs of New York; which portrays an anti-immigration gang called, "The Natives". Finally, maybe take a quick peek at Nativism. 38.112.225.84 15:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I've occasionally encountered the neologism Siberian-American. —Tamfang 06:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

… and, even more facetiously, Bering Sea Pedestrian. —Tamfang (talk) 02:38, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Percentage of English words derived from Latin or Romance languages

Now that I'm learning German I really miss those easily recognizable words that English has for us, speakers of Romance languages. My question is: what is, approximately, the percentage of English words that have Latin roots? --Taraborn 21:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

My guess would have been around 20% but it's over half! From Latin: English derives 60% of its words from Latin: largely indirectly through French, but partly through direct borrowings made especially during the 1600s in England. HYENASTE 22:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Your original guess is probably based on the fact that, though 60% of English's words are derived from Latin, the majority of those words used most commonly are from German or Scandinavian. Corvus cornix 01:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I read somewhere that the figure was 30%, but my experience with German clearly makes 60% much closer to reality. Being both Germanic languages, some time ago I thought that German could be easier for an Englishman than, for example, Spanish; but now seeing the greater grammar complexity of German and the fact that they share only basic vocabulary my mind has changed completely. --Taraborn 10:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The number of English words is not well-defined. You can pick your favorite dictionary and count the origins of its words. More instructive would be a graph of minimum-word-frequency against percentage-of-Romance-origin. As previous commentators suggest, the lower the tolerated frequency, the greater the proportion of Latin. Assigning a single percentage, however, is meaningless. jnestorius^(talk) 12:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the English-speaking questioner's experience learning German is pretty typical: it presents a far tougher vocabulary hurdle than the Romance languages. Yes, you have the satisfaction of seeing some very pedestrian & common words strikingly resembling English. But these words are so common, that even if you're studying Chinese, you'll pick them up soon. On the other hand, when it comes time to speak of (still pretty basic) things like "result," "impression," etc., etc., you find that you have to learn a new vocabulary to speak or read at this level (even if many of these words are calques). With Romance languages, once you learn the basic everyday words, you can do darn well faking the more abstract vocabulary on the basis of Latinate English words. Wareh 13:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

We're all aware that the "number of English words" is not well-defined, and, additionally, we all know (or should know) that percentage is an approximation and should be taken to satisfy one's curiosity, not as a scientific law. Please, next time think a little more before posting certain replies.

And, Wareh, you've described the situation I'm experiencing perfectly. The only words that are familiar are too common to actually be time-saving, and are those words you point out, which aren't that uncommon, by the way, that are a true pain. --Taraborn 14:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're aware that "number of English words" is not well-defined, and thus that "percentage of English words" is not defined, you might at the least have the courtesy to point that out in your original question. Not everyone knows this—certainly not everyone who asks questions here knows this—so if you know that the correct answer to your question is not the one you want, it helps everyone if you make that clear up front. Also, percentages are not approximations; they are proportions. Tesseran 23:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that anyone doesn't know that the "number of English words" is not well-defined. On the other hand, if a number is an approximation, then a part of an approximation is also approximate. To sum up, what I meant is that I'm assuming the RD users are humans, that's why I can (or thought I could) ommit what is obvious to a human mind. --Taraborn 02:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I've taken or taught enough introductory linguistics courses to have seen questions like "which language has the biggest vocabulary?" come up far too many times, without any understanding of the issues that go into even properly defining that question. I envy you that you haven't come across this; for me, it got quite frustrating (or perhaps "disappointing" is better) to hear it over and over. (Fortunately, I got out of that field, so I'm mostly safe from such questions now.) Anyway, I think the tendency on the reference desks is to assume that the questioner knows little, rather than a lot. This is not to be rude; it's simply that most people in the world are not experts, or ever educated, in a given field. Similarly, even if something is obvious to the people answering your question, they may not want to assume that it's obvious to you. If answerers guess wrong regarding your background, certainly correct them, but remember that they're trying to help you. I must have misunderstood your comment about percentages. Tesseran 03:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that the fact that this type of question comes up over and over (both here and elsewhere) demonstrates that not everyone understands that the number of words in a given language is not well defined. This is hardly surprising if "most people in the world are not experts, or ever educated, in a given field". Hence your disappointment surprises me, Tesseran. -- JackofOz 04:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I meant disappointed in the sense that my hopes were disappointed, not that I was disappointed in my students. Tesseran 07:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, now I understand. Sorry for any misunderstandings I may have caused. --Taraborn 12:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)