Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 22

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September 22

Latin? motto translation

What does the text on this logo mean? ----Seans Potato Business 19:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

"The Word of the Lord is a light". DNI is an abbreviation for Domini "of the Lord". Our article University of Groningen explains that the full motto is Verbum Domini lucerna pedibus nostris, "The Word of the Lord is a light for our feet". —Angr 19:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, it was adapted from

Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:46, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Or both are translations of (part or all of) the same original text. --Anonymous, 03:33 UTC, September 23, 2008.

What I meant to say was:

Apparently, it was adapted from a Latin version of

Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

(The Psalms were originally in Hebrew. I followed my usual custom of copying the source code for the title bar, and pasting it into the external link. In this instance, the text in the title bar happens to be in English.)

-- Wavelength (talk) 15:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Latin Text

Nearby where I live is an exposition of Latin inscriptions. Id be interested in what it means. The texts are short. First one: Aeliae Novelae. Matri vixit annos LXX. Et Victriae fortion convgi vixi annos XL et Hermeti filio vixit annos XIX Flavius Serenus Piisimus. Second text: Deo invicto. Soli templum. A solo resti. Tuit Valerus. venustus Vir Perfectissimus Praeses Provinciae Raetiae Sicuti Voto. Ac Mente Con. Ceperat Red. Ditus Sanitati. Votum Solvit Laetus Libens Merito.

Thanks in advance.--85.180.23.192 (talk) 19:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, they're a little weird and seem to have periods right smack in the middles of words. (I'm pretty sure "resti. Tuit", "Con. Ceperat", and "Red. Ditus" should be "restituit", "conceperat", and "redditus".) The first one sounds like it might come from a family grave or something since it seems to say someone's mother Aelia Novela lived 70 years, his wife Victoria lived 40 years, and his son Hermes 19 years. —Angr 19:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like there are spelling errors too, but maybe they are just typos. "Victriae" must be "Victoriae" and "fortion" I suppose is "fortiori", and the "vixi" should be "vixit" like the others. When and where are the inscriptions from? The first one I would say is a dedication made by Flavius, who is either "serene and most pious", or "Serenus" is part of his name; he has dedicated something, perhaps a gravestone as Angr said, "to his mother Aelia Novela who lived 70 years, and to Victoria the stronger [or "the elder?"], his wife who lived 40 years, and to his son Hermes who lived 19 years." The second one is "The handsome and most excellent man Valerus, governor of the province of Rhaetia, has restored from the ground a temple to the god Sol Invictus..." I'm not sure about everything after "sicuti voto" but maybe "...just as he had conceived in vow and in mind for a safe return." The periods and the capitals are throwing me off; are these new sentences, and names? Did a guy named "Laetus Libens" rightly release him from his vow? Or are "laetus" and "libens" more adjectives describing Valerus? Adam Bishop (talk) 13:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Valerius Venustus was the praeses of Rhaetia in the late third or early fourth century AD. [1] --Cam (talk) 17:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

ch in german

Why does the ch, as in ich, in german sound like an "h" sometimes and an "sh" at other times? Like in ich, "eeh" and "eesh"? I used to think that it turned into sh when spoken rapidly in conversation, but Ive heard people actually pronounce individual words with the sh sound. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.47.26.4 (talk) 21:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

In normal standard German pronunciation, German orthographic "ch" after a front vowel is not a "sh"-type sound, but rather a non-sibilant palatal fricative, IPA [ç]. The phenomenon of conditioned sound variants is called allophony. English has allophones too -- for instance, the "t" of "top" has a little puff of air after it (aspiration), while the "t" of "stop" doesn't. Speakers of many other languages might perceive these two allophones as completely separate and distinct sounds (i.e. those language have a phoneme contrast of aspirated vs. unaspirated)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Generally, 'ch' will sound more like a 'sh' before an 'i' or an 'e', and more like an 'h' before others. It's the allophony that AnonMoos was talking about. AnonMoos is also correct that it's not quite the same as the 'sh' that English speakers use, nor is it like the 'h' that English speakers use. However, if you used 'sh' and 'h' sounds in those situations, a German speaker would understand you, but would probably think you have a very strong accent. Steewi (talk) 01:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The back-variant or "ach-laut" is IPA [x] (as in Scottish loch etc.), while the front-variant or "ich-laut" is IPA [ç], neither of which sounds occurs in standard English. And I think that preceding vowels more often have an influence than following vowels. Pronouncing the "ich-laut" as "sh" is acceptable if you're JFK reciting a single sentence in front of the Berlin wall, but it's just a temporary makeshift expedient if you're seriously learning to speak German. See German_phonology#Ich-Laut_and_ach-Laut for what Wikipedia has... AnonMoos (talk)

Actually, [ç] does occur allophonically in English, in words like hue and human, especially if you pronounce the h strongly. And there are German accents where /ç/ merges with the "sh" sound spelled "sch" in German, so that "ich" becomes "isch", as well as accents where the opposite happens: I think Helmut Kohl was known for saying "Tich" instead of "Tisch" ("table"). As for JFK, if I remember correctly (and we have a sound file at Ich bin ein Berliner but I don't have speakers at the moment), he pronounced "ich" as "ick", which coincidentally is how the word is pronounced in Berlin dialect. —Angr 05:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The general tendency in American English, at least, is to de-emphasize the aspiration in such contexts (or even drop it altogether), rather than to often emphasize it in a manner which would produce a true [ç] sound. And you should only imitate dialectal pronounciations when acquiring a standardized language (as opposed to Bühnenaussprache in the German case) if you're aware of what you're doing and are comfortable with the resulting social connotations. I remember I was once told that my pronunciation of French "r" could pass as a certain regional dialect, but if I wanted to sound Parisian, then I had to get uvular... AnonMoos (talk) 06:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Both sounds occur in my dialect of Scouse. We are most famous for the [x] sound, but we also use [ç] as in German and under exactly the same circumstances (i.e. in the proximity of front vowels) as in certain people's pronunciation of 'book' [byç].--ChokinBako (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the ach- ([x]) and the ich-sound ([ç]) are two variants of one phoneme, [ʃ] is used instead in some dialects and sociolects. It is true that Helmut Kohl was/is often ridiculed for his hypercorrect overgeneralisation, leading to things like [tiç] instead of [tɪʃ]. In his Palatinate dialect [x] and [ç] are afaik rare and usually realised as [ʃ], so that by trying to speak accent-free High German he simply replaced any [ʃ] by [x] or [ç]... ;-) -- 84.160.48.100 (talk) 06:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)