Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 November 11

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November 11

Kurdish as Iranic language

What are the proofs that Kurdish is a Iranic(Iranian) language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.153.153 (talk) 03:10, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Comparative method, geography...what else? What do you expect it to be? Adam Bishop (talk) 03:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Geography isn't a proof of genetic relationship; after all, Kurdish is geographically adjacent to a lot of non-Iranian languages, and even non-Indo-European languages, too. The proof is the comparative method, by which it can be shown that Kurdish developed from Proto-Iranian, which was also the ancestor of the other Iranian languages, such as Persian, Avestan, and Pashto. Zazaki is an Iranian language that's geographically close to Kurdish, but apparently not particularly closely related to it. Zazaki language#Phonological Correspondences of Zazaki and other Iranian Languages has some tables showing cognates in some Iranian languages, including Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish). —Angr (talk) 07:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

It's within the general Iranian language group (a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which in turn is a sub-group of the Indo-European languages), but it's not very closely related to Persian within the Iranian language group... AnonMoos (talk) 05:26, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Proper translation of Chinese novel title

What would be a proper English translation for the 《大宋中興岳王傳》? It is one of the earliest Ming novels about Yue Fei. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not a Chinese, but I suppose it means "The story of King Yue(of course, here, 'King' does not actually mean he was a king but is a kind of honorific) who restored the Great Song Dyansty"--Analphil (talk) 08:20, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the above, except that Yue Fei was raised to the rank of nobility of Wang posthummously in 1211, which is often regarded as equivalent to the Western title of "king", being second in rank only to the Emperor (just as a European king is subservient to the Emperor of Rome). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

"The Story of King Yue of the Resurgent Song Dynasty"71.167.144.217 (talk) 03:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I would have thought the 中興 modifies 岳王 (The King Yue who restores) rather than 大宋 (the Great Song that is restored). I am using "restore" loosely here, more accurately it means "to revive the flagging powers of a formerly strong regime". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:59, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

So which is the best English translation then? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The Ming dynasty (when the book was written) was Yue's "golden age." He enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. Therefore, if Palaceguard008's comment on 中興 modifying 岳王 is taken into consideration, the title could read The Restoration of King Yue of the Great Song. What do others think? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Eponymous

In the article Lost (TV series) I saw the following sentence: "After the episode "Numbers" aired on March 2, 2005, numerous people used the eponymous figures (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) as lottery entries." Is this correct English? After all, nobody actually named these numbers after somebody or something, just used the same combination... 109.186.121.71 (talk) 07:04, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Think it's just a fancy way of saying that the episode title was named after the numbers... AnonMoos (talk) 07:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

No, it would be "eponymous episode" then, not "eponymous figures" 93.172.59.179 (talk) 07:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

As you can read in wiktionary [[1]], there are 2 uses to eponymous. The second one is for things or people that where named after something. The first, however is the one used here, is for things whose name are used to name other things or people. So I my first name was Napoleon, the Emperor could be qualified as eponymous of me. --Lgriot (talk) 09:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

"LRT horse van"?

Translating Under Orders by Dick Francis, I encounter the sentence "Had two LRT horse vans here at seven this morning to collect them all."

In this sentence, "them" means "horses", so "horse van" means "a van for transporting horse".

The stage is England, and more speficically, near London, I suppose.

I wonder what LRT stands for. --Analphil (talk) 07:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

It might mean London Regional Transport, although I don't think of them as being in control of horse vans. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought just like that, but rejected the idea for the same reason.--Analphil (talk) 08:10, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Eureka! Lambourn Racehorse Transport[2] - "Founded in 1930 to provide a racing transport service to the racehorse trainers of the Lambourn Valley & surrounding villages, L.R.T. still provides the same quality service today to racing and the bloodstock industry as a whole". Alansplodge (talk) 13:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly!! I forgot the exact stage is Lambourn. You should be right. Thank you!--Analphil (talk) 15:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

soroptimist

what is "best for men" ? Kittybrewster ☎ 09:48, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

"Soroptimist" doesn't really mean anything in Latin, but it squashes Latin soror "sister" and optimus "best" into a single word. You could squash the Latin word for "brother" in a parallel manner, if you really wanted to... AnonMoos (talk) 10:13, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Giving "fratroptimist", perhaps. —Angr (talk) 12:01, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd guess "Soroptimist" was coined to name the female equivalent of Optimist International (which didn't admit women until 1987). Since the men's organization had already taken the plain word optimist, there would have been no need to coin a special male version of the name. Deor (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

美国 - Chinese name for the United States

Why are the US called 美国 in Mandarin? I understand that those characters together mean "beautiful country". Why is that? --Belchman (talk) 09:59, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The character 美 is pronounced měi in Mandarin, which copies the second syllable of America. Of course there are other characters with a similar pronunciation, but it's nice if the name sounds appealing in addition to its phonetic similarity. (It's much better than calling it 黴国 "moldy country", 痗国 "ill country", or 祙国 "demon country"!) In Japanese, America used to be called 米国 Beikoku; the character 米 is pronounced mǐ in Mandarin and so was originally also phonetic. But 米国 literally means "rice country" and is thus also an auspicious name as it suggests a land of plenty (even though the Japanese probably eat way more rice per capita than Americans do!). —Angr (talk) 11:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I always heard that the original Japanese name for the US was 美国, copied from the Chinese even though it doesn't match phonetically in Japanese. Then with rising anti-American sentiment in the early 20th century it was changed to 米国, because this has a more neutral meaning, and 米 is pronounced the same as 美 in Japanese. Some supporting data: 英国 is also used for the UK, and this also has a phonetic similarity in Chinese (英 = yīng, as in the first syllable of England) but not in Japanese. 114.252.70.42 (talk) 15:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

A lot of rice consumed in Japan is imported from the US, ironically. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the character 米 is still used for the US quite a lot in Japan for shortening: 米日関係 is "US-Japanese relations". In fact, many of the old characters for countries are used in this way, even when the actual name for a country has been modernized into katakana - you could have (especially in newspapers), for instance, 仏伊関係 meaning French-Italian relations, with the shorthand "仏" for France and　"伊" for Italy where noone would dream of writing France in the obsolete rendition of 仏蘭西 or Italy as 伊太利亜. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

In Japanese, 蘭学 preserves the archaic 和蘭、和蘭陀, 阿蘭陀, usw for "Holland". Is that still recognisable in Chinese? Is 豪州/豪洲/濠州/濠洲 still recognisable as "Australia" in Chinese? (A long time ago, when I could actually speak Japanese, I was puzzled that even Junior High kids knew the kanji 豪/濠. I found out - to my shame - that it was because even Junior High kids knew that the early to mid C20 Japanese diaspora did not extend to Australia... because of the 白豪主義.)--Shirt58 (talk) 09:59, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Holland makes sense phonetically, but the first character in modern Chinese is 荷 not 和 (both of them are hé, pronounced similarly to the English word "her"). The name for Australia is totally different though 114.252.70.42 (talk) 15:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Originally in China, US was called as 美理哥, 亞美里加, 美利堅, etc., whose pronunciation is similar to 'America'. Those were abbriviated to 美.--Analphil (talk) 15:48, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The official transaltion of the full name, "United States of America", in Chinese is 美利坚合众国. The first part (美利坚) translates "America(n)" phonetically. "合众国" literally means "a nation [created by] uniting many", and translates "United States". This full name abbreviates to 美国. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:49, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Chinese has some interesting exonyms -- "Moral country" for Germany, "hero country" for England, "old gold mountain" for San Francisco, or so I've been told. Who decides on these? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Like Angr explained above, many of these are abbreviated phonetic translations of the native pronunciations of those country names. Germany--Deguo--Deutschland; England--Yingguo--; France--Faguo; etc. Still more are un-abbreviated (Italy--Yidali; Phillippines--Feilübin; Spain--Xibanya--España; Mexico--Moxige; etc.; it seems to me that, no offense, but the more obscure the country, the more phonetic the translation). This applies not only to countries, but also to cities and other demonyms (New York--Niu yue; Montpellier--Mengbili'ai; California--Jialifuniya). San Francisco--Jiujinshan is one of the minority that are not phonetic borrowings, but semantic borrowings. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:06, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The broader question of "who decides these" is harder to answer with anything specific. The article Borrowing (linguistics) and references therein may help you. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:08, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

California also has a more Chinese-like name, 加州 (Mandarin Jiāzhōu, Japanese Kashū), where again the first character is phonetic, and again the meaning is auspicious: "increase state" (state where you can increase your wealth, for example?). I don't see that 舊金山 Jiùjīnshān for San Francisco is a semantic borrowing though; the English name doesn't mean "old gold mountain". If it were called something meaning "Holy Frenchman" in Chinese, that would be a semantic borrowing! —Angr (talk) 15:45, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

That alternation seems to be pretty common with longer demonyms (Jiazhou--Jialifuniya, likewise with Pennsylvania Binzhou--Binshifanniya), whereas I haven't noticed it as much with somewhat shorter ones (I've never heard short versions of, for example, New York Niuyue, Kansas Kensasi, Kentucky Kendeji, Ohio Ehai'e...although for Russia there is Eguo--Eluosi, and that's also three syllables, so I guess it may be somewhat arbitrary). rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

As for San Francisco, you're right, I guess it's not so much semantic "borrowing" as just a semantically-based neologism. zh:旧金山#汉译名称 has a more detailed story about where the name came from. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much, guys. --Belchman (talk) 10:10, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm supprised that nobody mentioned the fact that the Chinese name for America was named after the transliteration for Amerigo. The literal translation back to English is "beautiful song". ~AH1^(TCU) 02:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you got that idea from. The full Chinese name for America as in the U.S. of, is 美利坚 (Mei-li-jian), literally "beautiful, sharp and hard". The full Chinese name for America the continent is 亚美利加 (Ya-mei-li-jia), or "secondary beautiful sharp addition". Character-by-character re-interpretation of names take you only so far.

Amerigo Vespucci is transliterated as 亚美利哥·韦斯普奇. I'm not even going to try interpret that character by character, but suffice it to say that there is no mention of "song" in there. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

This is obviously a misunderstanding. Mei-Guo (the Chinese name for the U.S.) sounds to English speakers like Amerigo. So, some English speaker probably thought they were attempting to say Amerigo. That is not the case. Guo means "country". Most Chinese names for countries end with Guo. The first character is usually a sound that sounds like the original country name. As explained above, Mei sounds like Ameri from America. Ying sounds like Eng from England. Fa sounds like Fra from France. Guo is appended to indicate "country". -- kainaw™ 17:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Scottish English

Am I right to believe Scottish English is just British English with a accent, no differences in spelling just how words are said? Thanks --George2001hi (Discussion) 21:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

No, there's more to it than just pronunciation. See Scottish English. Algebraist 21:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Ye Sassenach ye. Clarity MacFiend (talk) 21:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Try reading this. This is fairly easy modern Scots. Burns' poetry is significantly more difficult for a speaker of "standard" English.

Sgt. MacKenzie Lament

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

When they come a wull staun ma groon

Staun ma groon al nae be afraid

Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear

Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Ains a year say a prayer faur me

Close yir een an remember me

Nair mair shall a see the sun

For a fell tae a Germans gun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Roger (talk) 22:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

As the article I linked to mentions, Scots and Scottish English do not always mean the same thing. Algebraist 22:55, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

See also this article in the Scots Wikipedia Jimmy.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a bit misleading though. When you buy a Scottish newspaper it's written in standard UK English[3]. Scots may talk like that but they usually write like the rest of us. The quoted example is in a style generally only used for poetry or reported speech. Alansplodge (talk) 11:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Scotland has gained international recognition for a language called Scots, though, in reality, there is a continuum of changing words as one travels north in England towards the border with Scotland. If Yorkshire and Cumbria were to gain international recognition as separate countries (not likely, I agree), then they could claim to have separate languages, even though most of it would just be strange spellings of standard English ("eye dialect") with the occasional word shared with "Scots". You might like to read the article on Lallans. Dbfirs 13:20, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Notice that the OP didn't ask about Scots, he asked specifically about Scottish English. And that indeed (AFAIK) has no spelling differences compared to the rest of British English. However, there are a few words that Scottish people might use even in formal writing that other English speakers wouldn't, like outwith ("outside"). —Angr (talk) 15:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, may I ask how can this article be Scottish English if there's no spelling differences? --George2001hi (Discussion) 15:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I was referring to the variant of English used in Scotland, not Scots or Scottish Gaelic. --George2001hi (Discussion) 15:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

As I said, there are words that are used in written Scottish English that aren't used in other written varieties of English. I even gave the example of outwith, which is used in note 3 of the infobox of that article. There may be other examples in the article. That isn't a spelling difference, though, that's a lexical difference. —Angr (talk) 15:55, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for all the information. --George2001hi (Discussion) 16:47, 12 November 2010 (UTC)