Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 October 21

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October 21

Spelling, grammar etc.

I need some help with the short article Jersild Live. See also Talk:Jersild Live. I am NOT good at English. --JAL78 (talk) 04:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I have done some tidying up of the grammar. Richard Avery (talk) 07:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

And I changed "previous" to "former", which sounds better. The stub reads OK now. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Better now. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --JAL78 (talk) 15:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Yiddish

An aquaintance once described Yiddish as a German(ic)-Hebrew Creole. Is it a sustainable claim? Roger (talk) 08:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

See this recent thread. Essentially, yes. - filelakeshoe 08:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

No, the short answer is "no". Yiddish has a lot of Hebrew influence, but it's essentially all vocabulary. That's not a Creole. Though the Yiddish situation is more complex than that, as with Jewish languages in general.

Somewhat longer answer (keeping in mind that I am decidedly not an expert in Yiddish so preface all statements with "as far as I know"): Yiddish is a Germanic language, in that the grammar is entirely German, as is a large portion of the vocabulary (though it's an offshoot of medieval German, around the boundary between Old High German and Middle High German, so it's quite different from modern Hochdeutsch--my understanding is it's closest to Bavarian). There's also a large "substrate" of Hebrew/Aramaic influence, but only in the area of vocabulary. Initially this is because the Jews who moved into German-speaking areas and around 900 AD adopted a form of German as their native language were all very familiar with Hebrew/Aramaic as the languages of the Bible and Talmud, and as the languages in which legal and religious debates were conducted, prayers were said, etc. Besides which, the language they had previously spoken (probably Judeo-Romance) itself contained a large amount of Hebrew vocabulary, much of which remained in the lexicon of the community even as they switched superstrate languages. Yiddish over the years has continued to borrow a great deal of vocabulary from Hebrew, but there's almost no Semitic influence on Yiddish morphosyntax whatsoever. --Miskwito (talk) 08:54, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The answer is no because the word creole has a very distinct technical meaning. A creole language results from a situation where a pidgin, which is a very "imperfect" version of a language used as a makeshift between adult speakers, becomes the native language of the children of its users. Pidgins are very simplified languages which are not the proper form native to any speaker. Imagine, for example, cowboy movie Indian English. The Indian sidekick will say something like "Me want-um eat-eat, boss, you-me go buy-um vittle?" That is what results when speakers of a "target language" simplify their speech to an adult population which adopts it as an adequate medium of exchange. As an English speaker you can understand what was said. But you know it's not proper English.

Now, let's assume there were a whole bunch of Indians who spoke this pidgin to communicate amongst each other, because, coming from different nations with different languages, it is their only common tongue. And let's assume there were no prestigious "proper English" speakers around to "correct" their language. Then this form of speech, with its reanalysis of English grammar (The 1st person in all cases becomes "mi", transitive verbs come to take an "-um" suffix which originally meant "him", the 1st person dual inclusive "the two of us" becomes "yumi", vocabulary shifts as jargon words like victuals replace standard" words like food), would become a whole new standard. In such cases you get a new language that looks like the old one put through a blender and thrown against the wall to see what sticks. In such cases there is not the normal continuity in phonology, vocabulary and grammar that results from the slow shifts of children learning almost perfectly the native tongues of their mothers or fathers (or neighbours) over the generations. Instead of slow, steady and "regular" change you get the radical punctuated equilibrium of children learning as a native language a code which was a simplified compromise that was never anybody's native tongue.

Here is the Lord's Prayer in a Pacific creole, Bislama:

Papa blong mifala we yu stap long heven,

nem blong yu i tabu. Mifala i wantem we olgeta man oli ona long yu, mo we yu yu kam king blong olgeta man, mo we olgeta man long wol oli mekem olsem we yu yu wantem, olsem we olgeta long heven oli stap mekem. Plis yu givim kakae long mifala, i naf blong tede. Yu fogivim mifala from ol sin blong mifala, olsem we mifala i stap fogivim ol man we oli mekem i nogud long mifala. Yu no letem ol samting oli kam traem mifala tumas,

yu blokem Setan i no kam spolem mifala.

Here is Haitian Creole (Kreyòl):

Papa nou ki nan sièl la,

ké non ou va sanktifié. 10. Rouayom ou vini. Ké volonté ou vi-n fèt sou la tè, minm jan li yé nan sièl la. 11. Ba nou jodi-a pin mou bézouin chak jou. 12. É Padonnin dèt nou yo, tankou nou padonnin moun you ki doué nou. 13. Pa minnin nou nan tantasion, min délivré nou anba malin an: paské rouayom , é puisans, é la gloua sé pou ou pou toujou.

Amèn.

Yet here is an image of the Lord's Prayer in Yiddish. (Standard German for comparison.) Except for the vocabulary, like malkhes for kingdom, the grammar is simply a mundane dialect version of a High Germanic language. The Yiddish Undzer voter wos bist in himl, geheylikt zol vern dayn nomen is not Du-mi papa was in wolke shlafen-shlafen, lassen-ihm du nom barukh seien, or the like, which it would be if it had been creolized. The Yiddish retains all the standard cases and verb endings and retains all the native irregularities which it would have lost or reanalysed (like bist vs ist) if it had been creolised. Indeed, Yiddish would look and sound just like a local variety of standard German were a more standard German orthograpy retained. That is not the case with Bislama and Kreyòl. In their cases they have been radically reanalysed due to the interruption in transmission of the language from "perfect" adult speaker to child.

μηδείς (talk) 11:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

---

It's not a pidgin or creole, but on the other hand it does show certain striking simplifications with respect to standard German, such as completely eliminating the simple past tense, reductions in case contrasts, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 22:48, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't Bavarian prefer the perfect over the preterite too?

It does according to Wikipedia, anyway.

In any case, while Yiddish does have some grammatical differences from Standard German, I don't know of any evidence that this is due to any amount of pidginization. English can probably serve as a reasonably good parallel: it has borrowed a very significant part of its vocabulary from Norman French, and has in many ways simplified its morphology compared with other Germanic languages (e.g., loss of case marking on nouns, adjectives, and articles), but no sane linguists argue that English is a Germanic-French pidgin/creole. For precisely the reasons that Medeis has outlined above --Miskwito (talk) 00:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

'no sane linguists argue that English is a Germanic-French pidgin/creole'? What about Middle English Creole Hypothesis Or is that the preserve of the insane 164.143.244.33 (talk) 20:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

There used to be some sane linguists who followed that redlink. (I myself gave the hypothesis some credit, but being insane am hardly a counterexample.) But not after they read Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics by Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman. μηδείς (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Grammar help please

hello,

can you say if the first example is correct:

• Considered as one of the major figures in soul/R&B, his open-throated singing was an influence on other soul singers of the 1960s,...

• Redding is considered one of the major figures in soul/R&B; his open-throated singing was an influence on other soul singers of the 1960s,...

or

• Born in Dawson, ...

• Redding was born in Dawson,...

Someone said that they are not complete sentences, and thus grammatically incorrect. Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 18:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

They are absolutely complete sentences. There is no reason why the verb in each clause has to be finite (see Non-finite verb#Participles for examples of this kind of construction) and it reads a lot better in my opinion, otherwise you're using too many pronouns or repeating his name unnecessarily. I personally would write "considered one of the major figures" without "as", but this may be a style preference. - filelakeshoe 18:32, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok thanks, and I agree with you.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 18:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't like the first one. It reads like his singing was considered one of the major figures, not him. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

"Born in Dawson," is not a complete sentence. Bielle (talk) 20:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

No, but "Born in Dawson, ...." followed by another clause would be, which I supposed was what the OP was implying. - filelakeshoe 03:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

(ec) The first example is a complete sentence, but it's not a good sentence, because it contains a dangling modifier. The clause "Considered as one of the major figures in soul/R&B" is about the singer, but the rest is not about the singer but about his singing. It's virtually saying that his singing (as distinct from the singer himself) is considered one of the major figures in soul/R&B. You could easily fix this by something like "He is considered one of the major figures in soul/R&B. His open-throated singing was an influence on other soul singers of the 1960s ..." There is no compelling requirement to link the two thoughts in the one sentence, but if you feel you must, you could use an "and" to link them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Is open-throated opposed to falsetto? μηδείς (talk) 21:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Not quite sure of your question, but there is some overlap, but not necessarily. See falsetto. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Since he is being described as an innovator for his full throated singing, I am wondering in what way the commenter would describe those who sang before him? From what method of singing is full-throated being distinguished? Perhaps polished? μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

He wasn't an innovator of this singing style; he just influenced other musicians with this style. I don't know why polished; if you listen to a few songs, such as "Respect" or "Satisfaction", his singing is indeed not "polished", but more raw and sandy; but in some songs he could sing in falsetto, sometimes together with a tremolo. There you can hear a open-throated singing, for example in songs like "I've Been Loving You Too Long" at the beginning of the chorus, and "Try a Little Tenderness" somewhere in the middle, and in "A Change is Gonna Come" one just after the horn section at the beginning.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 11:40, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

whats right?

- tommorow is tuesday? or - tuesday is tommorow? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.112.82.2 (talk) 23:08, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The first version would be most often heard, although I can imagine where the other one might occur:

• I don't have to finish my assignment till Tuesday (he thinks he has many days left)
• "But Tuesday is tomorrow" (telling him he has less time than he thought).

Btw, the word "tomorrow" has one m and two r's, not the other way around, and Tuesday always starts with a capital T. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Both are wrong, because it's Saturday tomorrow. = ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.112.82.2 (talk) 23:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, tomorrow is Sunday -I'm on BST (and come to that "whats right" is wrong - missing apostrophe). But, to answer the intended question, 'tomorrow is Tuesday' is the more common usage I suspect, though I can think of circumstances when 'Tuesday is tomorrow' would make sense. If on a Monday, I were to say "do you want to meet on Tuesday, or tomorrow?", "Tuesday is tomorrow" would be a perfectly reasonable response. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Although some may argue that "to be" in "X is Y" constructions denotes equivalence (implying interchangeability), common English usage dictates that the primary item being referred to comes first (like the subject of the sentence does in other cases) and the description or what the primary subject is being equated to comes second. Thus you have "My brother is a firefighter", where you have the primary topic being your male siblings and the description being his occupation, versus "A firefighter is my brother", where the primary topic is an arbitrary member of the firefighting profession and the description being metaphorical brotherhood (i.e. you feel a close association to all firefighters simply by virtue of their profession, even if they aren't related to you in any way.) Note that in others' examples of "Tuesday is tomorrow", the concept of a particular Tuesday was introduced first, and the "Tuesday" in "Tuesday is tomorrow" is referring to that specific Tuesday. "Tuesday is tomorrow" doesn't make much sense in isolation, as there are over fifty Tuesdays in a year, and they can't all be accurately described as being tomorrow. -- 174.24.217.108 (talk) 18:21, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Although it is certainly true that there are situations in which utterances of the form "X is Y" are assertions of equivalence and thus symmetric, there are also others where "X is Y" asserts not equivalence, but containment. For instance, "Dogs are mammals." Obviously, though it is true, its converse, "[All] mammals are dogs" is false.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 20:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)