Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 May 8

Language desk
< May 7	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 9 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 8

Type of Phobia

I had to, as part of my work, take a 9-year-old Japanese girl to the dentist to get her front teeth fixed, involving lots of 'shaving' of the teeth and me holding her hand and translating for the dentist. A terribly horrific experience for me, as I had my front teeth taken out without anaesthetic when I was a kid, but the child was loving every minute of it (except the part where she nearly drowned in the water from the drill). What is the word for a fear of dentists?--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

PS - don't say 'dentophobia', because that would be fear of teeth, not what I'm on about.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The dental fear article suggests odontophobia among others. Cycle~ (talk) 02:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Cheers! That'll be the one! This happened nearly a year ago, but stuck in my mind as a horrific experience. BUT, I have managed to get my teeth cleaned and get some fillings since. Just the whole thing of watching a little girl having her teeth 'shaven' was really horrific for me. Thanks, you gave me the answer.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Humph. "Odonotophobia" should also mean "fear of teeth". "Fear of dentists" ought to be odontiatrophobia. +Angr 06:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, right. And being a man I could only think of one reason why I should fear teeth, but we won't go into that. 'Odontiatrophobia' it is then. That'll be a lovely word to teach. Let's see if she can pronounce this one! She is extremely advanced in her English, but the father asked me to go just in case. Cheers.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Is that a reference to the vagina dentata? BrainyBabe (talk) 11:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

A phrase I always find myself wanting to sing to the tune of Hakuna Matata. +Angr 11:58, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Ha! I'll do that next time I'm at karaoke! Watch the bottles flying from the ladies!--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Space or not?

Shall there be a space between the number and the "%"?

For example: 98% or 98 %

Thank you for helping. Fanoftheworld (talk) 11:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

There is no consensus. See percent sign#Spacing. — Emil J. 11:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I personally would not put a space in there. I get paid per character, and the space is a character, and I've been told specifically not to put it in, in cases like this. Anyway, I don't think it's necessary, and I am so used to not putting it in that it actually looks silly to me now. I'd go with the 'no space' bit.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

98 % is certainly wrong. If you're going to use a space at all, it should be a non-breaking space: 98 %. Algebraist 13:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, if we are going to discuss different kinds of spaces, then it should be a thin space: 98 %. — Emil J. 13:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Should it? That's not mentioned in the article you linked. Algebraist 14:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm not sure where I got it from, maybe I'm wrong. — Emil J. 14:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, there should be no space. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Percentages. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Hindi and Rajasthani

I was trying to ascertain the relationship and degree of mutual intelligibility between Hindi (a macrolanguage, I recognize) and Rajasthani. Apparently Hindi is a Central Indo-Aryan language and Rajasthani is a Western Indo-Aryan language, yet formerly Rajasthani was classified as a dialect of Hindi. How much mutual intelligibility is there? Are there any rough comparisons that can be made, e.g. like Spanish (Castillian) compared to Portuguese, or to Catalan, or to French or Italian? Thanks for everyone's help --71.111.205.22 (talk) 16:13, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what you mean when you refer to a Spanish-Portuguese level of intercomprehensibility, since it's somewhat notorious that Portuguese speakers often find it easier to understand Spanish than Spanish-speakers do Portuguese. AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Plus, if it was 'formerly classed as a dialect of Hindi' there must be a reason for that, i.e. that they were mutually intelligible. Your question answers itself.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 00:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

We need some researcher to come up with some sort of measurement and scale for these language or dialect pair relationships, it would be a brilliant breakthrough in language classification. --Lgriot (talk) 03:18, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

See Languages similar to French. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:04, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure whether that link is really too helpful; French has a number of structural similarities with Spanish and Italian, but the intercomprehensibility of spoken standard French with spoken standard Spanish or Italian is very low... AnonMoos (talk) 07:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

My reference to that page was in response to the preceding comment by Lgriot, and not to the original questions. That is why I indented my comment as I did. See Wikipedia:Talk page#Indentation.

-- Wavelength (talk) 05:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting website, thanks Wavelength. I was looking for something more academic, though, with a proper methodology on how to decide those cactuses and percentages (use standard printed dictionaries A and B, use grammar features X, Y and Z etc.). --Lgriot (talk) 05:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a more productive question: to what comparative degree do native / advanced speakers of Hindi (perhaps from Delhi/New Delhi/ Uttar Pradesh) understand Punjabi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, or Marathi (etc.), without having studied them? (the Guj. and Punj. alphabets differ from Hindi Devanagari so perhaps we should focus on oral comprehension) Can any useful comparisons be made with German speakers understanding Dutch, English, etc. or Spanish speakers understanding Portuguese, Italian, etc? BTW, I totally agree with Lgriot and AnonMoos. Thank you. --71.111.205.22 (talk) 10:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians by language has links to Category:User hi and Category:User raj. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Portuguese was never classed as a dialect of Spanish, and Dutch was never classed as a dialect of German. However, Luxembourgish sometimes is classed as a dialect of German, Dutch and even French (and one idiot even claims it to be a dialect of English), and when I speak Luxembourgish to people of any of those areas, they still understand me, even though it's also classed as a separate language - people who class things as such and such tend to have a real knack of making it complicated by disagreeing with each other.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 20:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)