Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 September 9

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September 9

German manners

after recently returning from travelling in germany i noticed alot of the younger people would burp and then say what sounded like "schvelts" do you know what this means —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.64.107 (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It's "Schulz", and I think calling it a "manner" is not appropriate: it's a game. If someone burps, everyone has to say Schulz; the last to do this is hit on the forehead. Although I have to admit I took part in this a few times, I've also wondered what the background to it is. I've found a description on a German wikipedian's user page, which calls this the Schulz-Saufspiel ("Schulz drinking game") and claims it is an old game played in pubs. Further google evidence suggests it was made "popular" by the 2002 movie Fire, Ice & Dosenbier ("fire, ice & beer in cans", see IMDb). --Dapeteばか 08:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

English translation from Japanese

What is the English translation for 'Tenko', as in the t.v series of that name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.28.30 (talk) 05:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Tenko in this context means "roll call" (in kanji 点呼), a procedure the prisoners in the Japanese war camps had to endure several times daily under difficult and often humiliating circumstances.  --Lambiam 06:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

oi kei

does this mean anything in japanese? --203.126.19.150 06:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

According to a Japanese informant: no, it doesn't mean anything he can think of. Are you sure it was not oy vey?  --Lambiam 12:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Or OK?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Neologism?

I've seen the term "ludography" used in several articles (meaning a list of games created by the person in question), but I'm unable to find any evidence that this is a real word. It has 10,000 Google hits, and an early revision of the ludography article (before it was redirected for being a "dictionary definition") contains very little evidence. Dictionary.com also doesn't have a definition of the word (but does suggest an article on Wikipedia!). So, is this a word? Miremare 14:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It is evident from the article that this is a neologism (newly coined word), which apparently has found insufficient currency as of yet to be considered an established word by lexicographers. It is a classical chimera, combining a Latin head (lud-) with a Greek tail (-o-graphy), the mirror situation of that found for tele-vision, Greek in the front and Latin from behind.  --Lambiam 17:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, cheers. Just wanted to be sure it isn't an "accepted" word before I get rid of it. Miremare 18:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Mind you, not that I have anything against dictionaries or lexicographers, but lexicographers are by definition always one step (or more) behind the game. They don't create words, they report what new words and meanings they happen to discover already existing out there in the real world. When and if a dictionary lists this as a word, that doesn't mean that it became a word only from the date the dictionary was published. It had actually been a word ever since the coiner of it coined it, and the dictionary would only later be acknowledging this. 10,000 Google hits suggests that a lot of people are using it already, and they haven't waited for some dictionary to tell them it's ok to use it. -- JackofOz 22:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

However, please don't interpret my comment above to mean that, just because you find many Google hits for a certain usage of a word, it's necessarily ok to use it that way. Google evidence alone would lead us to believe that "its" and "it's" are interchangeable, or that "affect" and "effect" are interchangeable, or that "your" means "you are". Barbaric spellings and usages are always to be spurned. But many new words created on a reasonable basis attract users, and after their usage becomes widespread, dictionaries will start to record them. If very few people choose to use the word, it won't make it as a recognised word. So usage always precedes recognition. It's up to you whether you want to be part of the vanguard that is championing "ludography", or wait till it receives formal approbation. But if everyone took the latter option, no new words would ever get created. And that would be a terrible shame. -- JackofOz 01:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

How to read Chloe?

It sounds like a French name, but how to read it (in ??different forms??)? Is it k-loh-e or sh-loh-e ??--Fitzwilliam 16:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you asking how it's pronounced? In English the name is /klo.i/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is approximately "kloh-ee", with a "hard" k sound at the beginning. The name doesn't come from French, but rather (according to Behindthename.com) from Greek Χλοη (khloē), which in Ancient Greek would have been pronounced [kʰlo.ɛː], or approximately "kloh-eh". --Miskwito 16:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The name has been popular in many countries at various times as it is the name of one of the people addressed in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, in the New Testament.SaundersW 20:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, "Strephon" (male) and "Chloe" (female) were names strongly associated with lovers in traditional pastoral or mock-pastoral poetry (Jonathan Swift wrote a poem with that title). AnonMoos 22:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Note, too, that it is often spelled Chloë, and with the diaeresis, it would be pronounced—in English or French—more or less as klo-ay.

Portuguese

I want to start an article in the Portuguese language Wikipedia about Civil partnerships in the United Kingdom. What would the appropriate title be? "Parcerias civis no Reino Unido" is the most intuitive and literal translation, but I don't know if that's right from a legal point of view. A.Z. 20:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It's probably not advisable to invent your own term. What translation is used in Portuguese-language media coverage of the UK situation? AnonMoos 21:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It's precisely because I don't want to invent my own term that I asked this here. Your idea about the media is good. I searched in our biggest newspapar online archive. They have referred to it as "uniões homossexuais", "aliança civil entre homossexuais", "união gay", "aliança entre homossexuais", and, finally, "união civil homossexual". Given those results, I'm starting to feel I'll have to just pick one, and, one day, someone may or may not have to move a lot of articles (because I intend to create articles about civil partnerships in other countries as well), if one of the terms becomes established.

I think I'm going to look for Portuguese-media coverage of Portugal's situation. A.Z. 22:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

They seem to call it "uniões de facto" in Portugal, but no Brazilian newspaper uses this term. A.Z. 22:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Brazilians would spell it "fato", not "facto". http://www.google.com/search?&q=uniões+de+fato --Nricardo 02:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think uniões de fato has a different meaning, more like cohabitation of committed partners. I'd go with just uniões civis, which is neutral, and is being used[1] – although more for the US than the UK, but the concept is the same.  --Lambiam 11:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

"Uniões civis" is a good suggestion. I think I'll use that title. Thank you, they licked :-) A.Z. 05:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

grammar help

Is there a site where i could type in sentences and get an automatic grammar check? not word, mind you- dont suggest that

i can read what you people will say like a book :)- unsigned user

If it just the occasional sentence you want to check, we are pretty close to "automatic" right here, and in a number of languages. Bielle 22:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

See grammar checker and the external link from that page marked "grammar check software". I doubt there are websites, because the software needed is incredibly complex, and even that which is available is quite poor.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

A document in Slovenian or maybe Croatian

I ran across an old document "OBRTNI LIST", apparently from C. K. Kotarsko Poglavarstvo Spljetu. A google search leads me to Slovenian and Croatian websites, but I have no clue what this thing actually is. Any clues from the title? It's dated 1909. -- Миборовский 21:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It could be a crafts license. See this link for obrt. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 21:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

"Obrt" is also "handicraft" in Croatian. "List" is "leaf" (of a tree, or of paper). The title of the document translates as "C K magisterial district of Split" and looks to be in the Jekavian dialect. I can't help any more as I've not been learning for long! SaundersW 21:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

List is not only leaf but also piece of paper, document, license, etc. Just like in other Slavic languages. For example in Czech, živnostenský list means trade license. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 22:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

One the most beautiful words I've ever heard is the Czech word for autumn (that's fall for the North Americans), listopad (literally, "leaf fall"). -- JackofOz 02:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

...and Spljet is actually Split. Kotarsko poglavarstvo is "county administration", while "obrtni list" means a crafts license indeed.
Coincidentally, there was a similar thread on WR Slavic Languages Forums recently. Duja► 07:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

To Jack: Listopad is only one of the fall months – November. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 09:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Daniel. How nice, though; November is, for reasons that modesty forbids me to elaborate, the best month of the year.  :) JackofOz 12:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

...but listopad is October in Croatian :-). There's a great confusing shift in month names between Croatian on one and West Slavic languages on the other side. Surprisingly, we have articles Czech months, Polish months and Croatian months, which smell like AfD or transwikiing... Duja► 14:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Alphabets

There is a car ad on American TV wich has people holding up a sign saying "YES" in various languages. There is a tan young woman holding a sign that has what looks like a script capital "L" followed by what seems to be a Greek "alpha". My question is what language is on the sign? Neilhmurphy 21:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)neilhmurphy If I look in the front of some dictionaries I find alphabets of various languages. I can not find the equivalent on Wikipedia. I can not find the Hindi alphabet, have not even tried the Georgian alphabet. I think runes are part of an alphabet. Do you think that Wikipedia will eventually have a feature that resembles a comparison of alphabets? Neilhmurphy 21:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)neilhmurphy

Could it be ДА (da, Russian for "YES")? You could check out Omniglot's list of alphabets. If you can find a link to the video or to a screenshot of the sign you're talking about, I'm sure someone here can answer your question. Tesseran 01:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I should go at it from that angle.

Thanks, but I'm fairly fluent in Russian -- 02:33, 16 September 2007 User:Neilhmurphy

Wikipedia has articles with illustrations of a huge number of alphabets. See especially List of writing systems or Category:Alphabetic writing systems. (Also Georgian alphabet and Hindustani orthography for the ones you mentioned.) Alphabets derived from the Latin has a huge comparison chart. Rmhermen 05:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

If I could find a comparison chart of non Latinic, non Cyrillic, non Arabic writing systems I might be in business. Someone suggested Omniglot.com which I just tried. The problem is that Omniglot has an entry for each language including Klingon, slow going.

• You can often find ads on Youtube or similar. Perhaps you could give us a link to this one? --Sean 13:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll try the car companies-I guess I'm a snob.

Confusion about in- and un-

I used to think, when I was younger, that ingenius meant not genius. When I heard it more and in better context I realized it meant extremely genius. My question is why is it used positively in this sense, and negatively in other words, like INeffective, INdispesable. And then there are other words like unbreakable that use un- and not in-. Why is that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.176.110.100 (talk) 21:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

In Indo-European (before Latin), there were two separate prefix elements, en- which was a prepositional/adverbial particle meaning "in", and n- (syllabic nasal consonant), which was a negative element meaning "un-". Unfortunately, due to certain historical sound changes, these two morphemes became identical in pronunciation in the Latin language, leading to a certain amount of confusion ever since (i.e. does "inflammable" mean burnable or not burnable?). -- AnonMoos 21:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

To elaborate: in– is a conflation of two Indo-European morphemes—en and n̥—both passed through Latin and into English as in–. However, n̥ also entered English through its Germanic history, i.e. From Indo-European, through Proto-Germanic, West Germanic, and into Modern English as un–. Strad 04:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, note that the the word you've heard is ingenious (not ingenius). The prefix does mean "in"; "gen" is the same root as "genetic"; Latin in-gen-ium is in-born talent or character. Wareh 13:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Quibble: The two Latin prefixes were both written in but the negative one had a long vowel and the other had a short vowel; this makes a difference in the Romance languages because the latter became en, as in enflame. Life would be easier if English did the same. —Tamfang 22:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so -- both prefixes could have contextually lengthened vowels in certain phonologically-conditioned circumstances (especially when preceding "f" or "s"), but neither one had a basic long vowel. AnonMoos 14:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Translation of "trem-" in genus name Tremarctos

Does anyone know the etymology of the scientific name of the "Spectacled Bear" aka "Andean Bear"? The species is Tremarctos ornatus. "Arctos" means "bear" (although the online Greek dictionary says that the Greek word for bear is "arkouda"—not "arctos"). "Ornatus" is Latin for "embellished" or "decorated." My question is about the first syllable "Trem-." How would you translate "trem-" or whatever word (such as "tremos") that it might be derived from?Camille029 21:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)Camille029

Arkúða is the modern Greek word, Arktos the ancient Greek. Elements used in modern taxonomic binomial nomenclature don't always have to come from Greek or Latin, but there are verbs from a root trem- meaning "to tremble" in both Greek and Latin... AnonMoos 22:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

You should look for the book Mammals: Their Latin Names Explained by Arthur Gotch. It gives the origin (both Latin and Greek) of all mammal genus names and it's found in many libraries. --Cam 01:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much to both of you. The book Cam recommended will be invaluable as a future reference source. AnonMoos showed me the light! Most bears are dangerous, so I had dismissed the idea that the genus name meant "trembling." But AnonMoos convinced me otherwise, so I researched their nature a bit more and learned that they are docile, cautious, and non-aggressive. Now I see that the name fits!Camille029 22:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"Trembling" fit, but is not the correct derivation. It's from "trema," ancient Greek word for "hole" as in "trematode" and "monotreme." Camille029 13:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, then it should be "Trematarctos", not "tremarctos", according to the correct rules of ancient Greek word formation... AnonMoos 14:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)