Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 March 20

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March 20

Complicatedly inflected languages

Given that most English speakers cannot even grasp the use of apostrophes for possessive nouns, or correctly use the parts of common irregular verbs like "lie", "buy" or "spin", I wonder how speakers of highly inflected languages get on. Are they constantly making basic errors, or are they for some reason more adept in this respect? 86.160.83.116 (talk) 02:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Everyone makes errors, some more than others. And some people have a greater natural aptitude for linguistic complexities than other people. But over and above all that is the question of education. These days, English-speaking people seem to make far more basic errors with the things you mentioned than was the case when I was younger. The things I was taught in school are no longer taught. They might be briefly mentioned and brushed over, but they're not taught. But people have surely not become less intelligent or less naturally adept at language, so the conclusion is inevitable. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 03:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

English speakers manage to do really well with our unpredictable phrasal verbs and our fairly rich periphrasis. --Atemperman (talk) 03:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That's it, basically. In the end it all evens out more or less. The difficulties that are different from your own language just stand out more. Of course speakers make mistakes in highly inflected languages but not really any more than in English. KarlLohmann (talk) 04:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

With apostrophes, the reason many of us have trouble is that the written language is less natural to most people than the spoken one. As for lie and spin (past tense span in Britain?), the reason is that there is variation in the language, and what you're asking would really be, more accurately in my view, "Of the various alternatives that exist in the language for the forms of lie and spin, why are speakers unable or unwilling to choose the ones regarded as standard?" When the question is put this way, the reason for the difficulty is clearer. (For buy, I don't know any form besides bought. What are you referring to?)

This situation is different from ones in which everybody agrees. For example, you'll hear only nous aimons in French, practically never nous aime or anything else, so there is no variation to confuse people in this instance. Whatever errors exist are isolated. But in other forms subject to variation, one form may be frequent but be considered nonstandard. For example, the subjunctive form qu'il soye [swaj] is nonstandard for qu'il soit [swa]. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 07:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

@OP: where do you live to claim that people don't know irregular forms? Never in my life have I heard anyone say "buyed" or some such... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:11, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I've sometimes had the experience of "regularizing" verbs accidentally. This happens very occasionally (perhaps once every few days). It happens more often with rarer verbs, like weave. Usually I correct myself immediately. This is a different kind of mistake than would be a widespread nonstandard form like He laid [on the sofa for a while] instead of He lay, because it's not reinforced by usage. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 07:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

.

@Seb az86556: Is it a coincidence? Just one hour ago, my little daughter (2½) said to her brother: "I buyed you a car"... 84.229.239.89 (talk) 08:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Ouch. We're not talking about children in their learning-phase, are we? Of course a two-year-old will talk like that; any child in any language will make up stuff like that. We're talking about adults. And I've not heard anyone say "buyed" in the same way people frequently screw up on "whom"/"who" (which is sad enough) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 08:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Now that I've gone out on a limb and admitted I've accidentally regularized verbs before, are you saying you think most adults never do it? 64.140.121.1 (talk) 08:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That's why I ask where that happens; the English-speaking world is large. The people I interact with indeed never do, and they range from university-professors to gas-station janitors (On the other hand, there are several "no parking at anytime"-signs and "you are subject to be towed"-warnings *sigh*...) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 08:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this never happens to you. But I doubt that none of the people you interact with ever do it. I said that it's rare, but everyone makes speech errors occasionally. I've found an estimate that 0.004% of irregular verbs in the past tense are overregularized by adults. See [1] on page 45. That estimate wouldn't include people who catch themselves before making the error (resulting in a mere hesitation, which it can be assumed happens more often than actually uttering the incorrect form). 64.140.121.1 (talk) 11:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

To clear something up, I don't think I've ever heard an adult say "buyed". I imagine he means the "brought"/"bought" mistake that many make.  Omg †  osh  09:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

(OP) Yes, I mean the "brought"/"bought" mistake. 86.177.106.238 (talk) 12:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Re: irregular verbs, just watch Jeremy Kyle to witness British adults unable to differentiate the preterite from the past participle. "I done nuffing wrong! I come over to see him yesterday!" - filelakeshoe 10:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Many dialects of English have non-standard forms for irregular verbs. They may well be using correct dialectal forms. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The reason English speakers have trouble with apostrophes is because the suffix -s is used for so many different functions, all of which are usually homophonous. I remember once explaining to someone that the EME "checketh" is only equivalent to the 3rd person verb "checks" as in "he checks" , and this guy identified "he checks" as "the plural". This is just another example of the confusion. As with they're/their/there and other spelling errors which rely on understanding grammar, there are always going to be a lot of people who don't understand it and just write what they hear, so differentiating between the plural noun "checks", the verb "checks" and the possessives "checks'" and "check's" is too technical. In a more complex inflected language I know well, Czech, the situation is similar. They have no problem with using the complex inflection when it's phonologically unique, the errors native speakers make are e.g. between "mě" (me, accusative or genitive) vs. "mně" (me, dative or locative) which, like with the English examples, are homophones. - filelakeshoe 10:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The original question makes the common error of confusing language with writing. Language, as far as we can tell is, something natural to humans in the sense that almost every human who has ever lived has acquired one or more languages as a child, with all their complexities, and without apparent effort. Writing (including spelling and punctuation) is something that over human history most people have never learnt to do (until five thousand years ago nobody had ever thought of it), and everybody who has learnt it has done so with more or less application and effort. If you believe Chomsky, we're hard-wired to take linguistic complexity (and irregularity) in our stride - other views don't see this as hard-wired, but nevertheless it is clear that at a certain age children are ready to internalise the exceptions in their language to the rules they have already acquired. There is no reason to think that we have any similarly innate capability to learn to read, write or spell. --ColinFine (talk) 13:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

"The original question makes the common error of confusing language with writing." No, it doesn't. 86.177.106.238 (talk) 14:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

However, the question of "errors" according to a prescriptive written standard which are not actually errors with respect to colloquial spoken grammar is actually a rather different matter from real speech errors which are not well-formed or grammatically correct according to any speech norms. The first type of "error" is considered by linguists to be standard language / colloquial language interference more than simple speech errors... AnonMoos (talk) 16:50, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

English will change. We have dropped many complex spellings of words in the last few centuries, and we will drop more. A few decades from now there may be only the shortest spelling: 'by' and ther(e) may be accepted for all uses of the words. The apostrofee(sic) may go altogether as we learn to understand words in context. If the writer wants to make the context very clear, then the older forms may be used to do that. I remember when British rules allowed 'color' because spell chequers(sic) kept dropping the you(sic).--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Foreign Language Proper Names

Why are foreign language proper names not spelled phonetically. They often seem to have no relation to their pronunciation in English and offer little help in understanding the names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.60.184.72 (talk) 07:00, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Give us some examples of what you're talking about. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I think 173 means, if somebody's name in French is Giguère, why don't we write Zheegair in English? English doesn't usually do this kind of thing, but a few languages do. For example, see az:Corc Uoker Buş, lv:Džordžs V. Bušs, tk:Jorj Uoker Buş. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 08:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what he means by "their pronunciation in English". Or why he's restricting the issue to proper names. (There are no words that are pronounced "the way they're written" in "Comment allez vous, je suis Jacques", if you're going by the default sound of each individual letter. But then, what about "Sinead bought eight knives for George"? That's just as much a disaster from a literal standpoint, but the difference there is we're used to seeing those words.) If you know how Giguère is pronounced, that's how you'd pronounce it, no matter what your own language is. If you don't know how it's pronounced, you'd have a go and maybe you'd get lucky, maybe not. But whatever way you say it, the spelling is what it is. Words from languages that don't use the Latin alphabet have to be romanised before most people have any chance of pronouncing them at all. Otherwise, we get by. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Trying to transliterate Roman-alphabet words opens a serious can of worms, in trying to determine what the "correct" English pronunciation would be. I expect the average French speaker who also knows English would be amused and/or appalled at Giguère being spelled "Zheegair". First, they would probably say that's a bad attempt at it, as "Zhi-ghewoh" would be closer. Second, they might consider it to be mockery. Retaining the original spelling solves that problem. For that matter, how about the way the city Paris is spelled and pronounced? We say PAIR-iss. The French say something like pah-WEE (at least to the ears of us English speakers). But we don't spell it "Pahwee", we spell it "Paris". In Spanish it's spelled París, pronounced pah-REECE, with a light trill of the R. But guess what: They're saying it the "same" way as in French, except that French handles R's and trailing S's differently than Spanish does. In English, we should "really" be saying it "pah-REECE" (without trilling the R). But we don't. And maybe it's just as well. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, "if you can't imitate French, don't copy it." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In fairness, British English speakers generally say PA'-riss (PA as in pant, pat, parry), and the French definitely pronounce the R as a rolled R, not a W: "pa-REE"; obviously the S is pronounced if a liaison requires it. "pa-REECE" is the German pronunciation, too, but English has quite a lot of idiosyncratic pronunciations and spellings of foreign locations (and sometimes personal names, too). AlexTiefling (talk) 10:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I betrayed my midwestern roots with that "PAIR-iss", as New Yorkers, for example, would also pronounce it your British way, "PA-riss", the "a" the same as in pant, pat, etc. (as pronounced by Americans.) In the midwest we would rhyme "parry" with "Perry" and "carry" or "Barry" with "berry". In New York City, "parry" and "carry" and "Barry" would have a totally short "a" is in "pant". And by the way, to use midwesterners, the French "r" in "Paris" sounds like a "w". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

An old French teacher once told us (a class of lttle Cockneys that barely pronounced "r" at all) that a Parisian "r" sounded like a coal miner clearing his throat. We soon managed an approximation of it. Alansplodge (talk) 15:55, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Ah, does Pontius Pilate in The Life of Brian sound like a Frenchman speaking English to a midwesterner? "People of Jewusalum, Wome... is your fwiend! To pwove our fwiendship, we will welease one of our wong-doers! Who shall I welease?" Man in crowd: "Welease Woger!" etc. Since we're on the Language desk, I'll take the opportunity of reminding that the coal-miner-clearing-his-throat sound is called a Guttural R. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

No, he sounds like a Britisher with a speech impediment akin to Elmer Fudd's. If he had said it with a French accent (like John Cleese atop the castle in Holy Grail), then it might have worked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm a Midwesterner who learned French in hi-skool and can't remember ever thinking that French /r/ sounds at all like /w/. —Tamfang (talk) 08:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a matter of tradition. Only very few Latin-written languages have the practice of respelling foreign proper names according to their own spelling and pronunciation rules, and even in some of those languages the customs are changing nowadays, as their literatures and media prefer using the original orthographies of foreign names more and more often today. See here for a previous discussion on the matter. (By the way, Claudia Schiffer's surname should more precisely be spelt in Latvian as Šifere, rather than Šīfere as I wrote then.) By contrast, in all languages using non-Latin writing systems, foreign names undergo transcriptions based on their original pronunciations and not on their original orthographies. --Theurgist (talk) 08:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Transliterations into different Latin-alphabet languages can vary. Boris Yeltsin was 'Boris Eltsine' in French, in order better to emulate the sound of the original Russian. English has often has a problem with the different Russian initial 'e' sounds, hence Yekaterinburg, too. Russian, conversely, has problems with the English (and German) initial H, traditionally transliterating it with the same character as G, but more recently more often with the 'KH' character. (So it's Adolph Gitler, but Pizza KHat.) Complicated topic, and I don't think any one language or nation has a monopoly on weird outcomes here. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:08, 20 March 2012

I remember arriving in Vienna on the day of the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, and seeing the news displays about "Boris Jelzin" and "Vize-Präsident Janajew" and figuring out who they were (Yeltsin and Yanaev, as I was used to them). "Чайковский" is an interesting name to transliterate into different languages, Tchaikovsky in English, Tschaikowski in German, Tchaikovski in French, it would probably be something like Tsaicofsgi in Welsh! -- Arwel Parry (talk) 21:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

We'd have to start with some English names before we went on to foreign names, e.g. Ralph Fiennes, Chuck Palahniuk, John Boehner, none of which are pronounced anywhere near how they appear. - filelakeshoe 10:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess Fiennes is an English name, but the other two are only "English" names because their owners live in an anglo country. Would you say that La Guardia or Hernandez or Roosevelt are English names just because English-speaking people had them? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:26, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say they are in a way now that they've been passed down English speakers long enough for their pronunciations have been dramatically changed, but I agree it's contentious.. what makes an English name? Celtic? Germanic? Do 11th Century French imports count? My point was that the pronunciations of "Palahniuk" and "Boehner" have just become arbitrarily random, completely unrelated from the original Ukrainian/German and the suggested phonetic value in English. Interestingly the ru.wiki article on Palahniuk spells the name Паланик rather than Палагнюк, so they're obviously treating it as an English name. - filelakeshoe 11:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Boehner isn't random; the first vowel has moved to the nearest English vowel because English doesn't have front rounded vowels. The rest of the word is pronounced according to English spelling rules. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:31, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The diphthong [eɪ] is closest to [ɶː]? [ɛː]/[ɛə] and [ɜː] seem closer to me, though I realise these carry complications with rhotic accents; in British English it would definitely be approximated "burner". I would have said that the whole name has been moved to be pronounced like the nearest familiar English surname, Bainer. - filelakeshoe 22:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There isn't a uniform Cyrillic alphabet; each Cyrillic-written language has its own version of the script. There are letters that are present in some versions but absent from others; there are also letters that represent different sound values in the different languages where they occur. When borrowed across those languages, proper names still undergo transcriptions on a phonetic basis. The Russian and the Bulgarian versions of the alphabet are identical except for two extra letters in the Russian one, but the Bulgarian town of Търговище will appear as Тырговиште in a Russian-language text, even though the Russian alphabet does contain the letters <ъ> and <щ>. And the name of a river spelt in Serbian as Јањ will be respelt in Russian as Янь, which doesn't have a single common letter with the original version. --Theurgist (talk) 21:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

"Why are foreign language proper names not spelled phonetically. They often seem to have no relation to their pronunciation in English and offer little help in understanding the names." I find the way the question is stated very strange, because of the languages of which I know at least something, English is almost the furthest away from being spelled phonetically, or what I find more important, having a consistent mapping between written characters and spoken sounds. From my experience, only French is further away, what with words usually having at least half of their letters left silent and entire sentences running into a single, swiftly spoken word. JIP | Talk 20:23, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. I find French pronunciation more predictable on the whole than English, based on the spelling of a word. While there are cases where it's difficult to predict whether a particular consonant will be silent in French, for the most part, one can make a good guess based on general patterns. This source says "When English and French are compared, for instance, a deep orthography with many deviations from a simple one-to-one phoneme-grapheme writing system (English) is compared with a system with a much more predictable pronunciation of written words (French)." The same source considers Danish broadly comparable to English in this respect. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 20:45, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I understand your point, but do you agree that the OP seems to think that "spelled phonetically" means "spelled like in English", where in fact the two are almost as far away from each other as possible? JIP | Talk 20:58, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think "spelled phonetically" means "spelled like in English," but most likely a very conventionalized and systematic kind of spelling. For example, you wouldn't use ough in any circumstances, only oo, oh, of, uf or ou. You sometimes see spellings like this in newspaper articles to help the reader with unfamiliar names. I stated above what my interpretation of the question was. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 22:49, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian changes spelling according their pronounciations, like the Latvian case of Schiffer mentioned above. --Soman (talk) 13:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

"Brother-in-law", as the most bizzare relation in almost all languages, including English.

1. A is B's wife's brother, so B is A's sister's husband.

2. Either one (A or B) is the other one's brother in law.

Amazing, isn't it? Although A and B do not logically-relate to each other - the same way - as I've proved in 1, they still do nominally-relate to each other - the same way - as I've proved in 2.

However, there are two additional amazing points in "brother in law":

3. "Brother in law" (along with its obvious parallels: co-brother-in-law, sister-in-law, co-sister-in-law, sibling-in-law, co-sibling-in-law), is - probably - the only nominal relation between two persons - not logically-relating to each other the same way. For example, take the "uncle-nephew" case: A is B's father's brother, so B is A's brother's son, i.e. A and B do not logically-relate to each other the same way, and...they also do not nominally-relate to each other by any (unique) common relation, do they? (I added "unique", because they still relate to each other by the obvious common relation: "relative", which isn't unique to A and B - as a wife's brother or as a sister's husband).

4. English is not an "isolated" language on that matter, i.e. almost all of the other well known languages (probably excluding the Slavic ones) share the same bizzare property: "Brother in law" is unique (while the Slavic language do not have a common noun, as English has the "brother in law", for both wife's brother and sister's husband).

My question is whether you know of other languages (except for the Slavic ones) that do not share that bizzare property with English. In other words, I'm looking for languages which: either resemble the Slavic ones (in not having the bizzare case of "brother in law"), or have other bizzare cases (as English has the bizzare case of "brother in law").

84.229.239.89 (talk) 12:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your threshold for "bizarre" here... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 12:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the OP is asking for examples of languages in which "wife's brother" and "sister's husband" are denoted by different, distinct nouns. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The Slavic languages are already known to have different distinct nouns, so I'm looking for additional language which share that property with the Slavic languages.

I'm also looking for languages which have other examples, other than "brother in law", i.e have a common noun denoting a relation between two relatives that logically do not relate to each other the same way. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 12:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

"Brother in law" - is a "bizzare" relation, in the following sense: although - the wife's brother and the sister's husband - do not logically relate to each other the same way (because John is David's wife's brother, while David is John's sister's husband), they still nominally-relate to each other the same way (because either one of them is the other one's "brother in law"). Notice that the Slavic languages don't have this "bizzare" property: Just as John and David do not logically-relate to each other the same way, they also do not nominally-relate to each other the same way, because the Slavic languages do not have a common noun, as English has the "brother in law", for both wife's brother and sister's husband. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 12:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There are several different ways to break this down. Firstly, English has some relation-words which are generalisable ('brother' and 'sister' have a general term 'sibling') and others which are not ('uncle' and 'aunt', for example). Whether or not we break terms down to their finest level of detail affects whether relation-words appear 'bizarre' in this sense. For example, 'uncle' can mean 'mother's brother' or 'father's brother', which appears more bizarre than 'parent's brother'. But if we generalise differently, to 'father's sibling', we don't have a word at all. And it's quite common for 'uncle' to mean 'aunt's husband' (or in same-sex marriage jurisdictions, 'uncle's husband'), which is a relationship of affinity, not kindred, and thus more different from the other meaning than the two meanings of 'sibling-in-law' are from one another.

But there are examples, from the same Germanic language family as English, which behave differently. Swedish denotes many kindred relationships with compound nouns, so that 'maternal uncle' is 'morbror' - literally 'mother-brother'. Likewise for aunts, paternal relations, and grandparents.

And I've seen examples, from as recently as the late 19th century, of the 'in-law' being dropped, and people reporting (for example in censuses) their affine relations using the exact same terms as their kindred relations.

Latin, conversely, used different words - gener and socer - for 'father-in-law' and 'son-in-law', which could not be confused with the kindred words pater and filius. I don't know if the same went for siblings-in-law, but I expect so. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Albanian even lumps together 'brother-in-law' with 'son-in-law', both are dhëndër. I'm not sure what 'wife's brother' would be called, but I'm assuming also dhëndër. However, 'sister-in-law' is kunatë, whereas 'daughter-in-law' is nuse or reje (depending on the dialect). Interestingly, dhëndër and nuse also mean 'bridegroom' and 'bride'. --Terfili (talk) 13:19, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Latin has "levir" for "brother-in-law", but could also use "gener" that way, and "glos" for "sister-in-law", but those are derived from Greek and aren't really classical words. They would normally just use "frater" and "soror" with some other word or phrase clarifying the exact relationship ("wife's brother", etc). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Another thing about Albanian kinship terms is that nip can mean both 'nephew' and 'grand-son' and mbese both 'niece' and 'grand-daughter' (Latin had the same thing I think). On the other hand, father's siblings and mother's siblings are distinguished: axhe 'father's brother' & daje 'mother's brother' and halle 'father's sister' & teze 'mother's sister'. --Terfili (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure but I think Italian is similar to Albanian here, in that you can use nipote both for granddaughter (grandson) and niece (nephew). Tinfoilcat (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

If you are female, you use the same word for your male children, your sister's male children, and your mother's brothers. Would that be such a "bizarre" case? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 13:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing bizarre about it. A will call B (in German, e.g., Schwager), and so B will call A based on reciprocity. Note that German uses a proper word and not a composition like English. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In English an "uncle" can be your father's brother, your father's sister's husband, your mother's brother, your mother's sister's husband, or an unrelated but usually older male acquaintance. It is also commonly used to refer to great-uncles. Is that bizarre? --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:34, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm at a loss as to the meaning of the word "bizarre" in this context. Having said that, I would point out that the suffix "-in-law" has had a different meaning historically in the UK: it has also been used to refer to adoptive relatives, such as "son-in-law" meaning adopted son. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Chinese differentiates between wife's older brother, wife's younger brother, elder sister's husband and younger sister's husband, each of which is known by a distinct term, although there is also a general term for wife's brother regardless of relative age. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

OP's comment: Maybe I was wrong with the adjective "bizzare". I've changed it - by opening a new thread, in which I've also clarified my question. Please respond ibid. I still think that the Slavic languages are the only well-known languages which do not resemble English on that matter. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 18:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, you were definitely wrong in the sense that the word "bizarre" has only one z but two r's. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The property I had been talking about, is not really bizarre; Yet, it's "bizzare" - in the sense I've explained above. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

If you're using the word 'bizzare' as somehow different in meaning from the word 'bizarre', you're going to have to define it for us, because it doesn't appear in any dictionaries I know of. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and I've defined "bizzare", see the section beginning with:

• "Brother in law" - is a "bizzare" relation, in the following sense... 84.229.239.89 (talk) 22:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I can't decide whether this whole thread is bizarre or merely bizzare. Probably both, really. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:28, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

What about “cousin-in-law”? --84.61.139.62 (talk) 21:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you're absolutely corrrrrrrrrrect !!! 84.229.239.89 (talk) 22:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking for languages that do not have an interesting property English has.

By a "natural" relation between any two relatives, I will hereby mean: either: 1. parent (i.e. father for males, mother for females); or: 2. offspring (i.e. son for males, daughter for females); or: 3. spouse (i.e. husband for males, wife for females); or: 4. any combination of the above (e.g. spouse's parent's offspring, mother's son's wife's father, and likewise).

Note that "parent" is not a symmetric relation (because if I'm your parent - then you can't be my parent), nor is "offspring"; However "spouse" is a symmetric natural relation (because if I'm your spouse - then you too must be my spouse).

Note also that "sibling" is not only a symmetric relation (because if I'm your sibling then you too must be my sibling), but is also a symmetric "natural" relation: Because, taking A and B (as two different persons), either one is the other one's sibling, if and only if either one is the other one's parent's offspring - being a "natural" relation (per definition, sec. 4). In other words, A and B - each of which is the other one's sibling, relate also to each other in the same "natural" relation ( = parent's offspring). Therefore, "sibling" is a symmetric "natural" relation.

On the other hand, "sibling-in-law", despite its being a symmertic relation (because if I'm your sibling-in-law then you too must be my sibling-in-law), is still not a symmetric natural relation: Because, taking A and B, if either one is the other one's sibling-in-law, then either: A is B's spouse's sibling - hence B is A's sibling's spouse, or the other way around. In any case, A and B do not relate to each other in the same "natural" relation. Therefore, "sibling-in-law" is not a symmetric "natural" relation (despite its being a symmertic relation).

Now, English (along with almost all of the other well known languages), has the following - interesting - property: "Sibling-in-law" (or brother-in-law and sister-in-law - if we consider gender, along with the obvious parallel co-sibling-in-law) is the only relation (between relatives) in the language, which is a symmetric relation, yet not a symmetric "natural" relation.

On the other hand, the Slavic languages, do not have that property, because they don't have a word denoting the sibling-in-law - as a symmetric relation.

I'm looking for additional languages, other than the Slavic ones, which do not have the property English has, i.e either: languages that don't have a word denoting a symmetric relation which is not a symmetric "natural" relation, or languages that have a word denoting another symmetric relation (i.e. other than "sibling in law") which is not a symmetric "natural" relation.

84.229.239.89 (talk) 17:40, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Your description is quite confusing. So apologies if this doesn't fit. Filipino languages do not have a word for "sibling-in-law", but not in the same sense as you seem to be meaning. We have two different words for sister-in-law (hipag) and brother-in-law (bayaw). Obviously if they are of different genders, A would be B's hipag while B would be A's bayaw.

It's curious, in fact, and one of the few exceptions to the rule. Except for mother, father, and Spanish loanwords (for aunt, uncle, grandfather, and grandmother), all of our other kinship terms do not differentiate genders. Age and generational differences are given greater weight than gender or even the degree of blood separation. e.g. brother and sister are both kapatid, son and daughter are both anak, niece and nephew are both pamangkin, son-in-law and daughter-in-law are both manugang, mother-in-law and father-in-law are both biyenan, etc. I suppose something similar exists in other Austronesian languages. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Of cousre your example does not fit, because neither "hipag" nor "bayaw" is a symmetric relation (because if I'm your "hipag" then you're not my "hipag", and the same is in "bayaw"). As I've explained above, I'm looking for symmetric relations. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 19:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

It is symmetric actually. If you and I are both male and we're siblings-in-law, we'd both be each other's bayaw. It only becomes asymmetric (in the legal/customary context) if we belong to different genders. Other than that, it's the same thing in terms of blood relation. You'd perhaps be the asawa ng aking kapatid (wife/husband of my sibling) and I'd be your kapatid ng aking asawa (sibling of my wife/husband).

On the other hand, wouldn't English "cousin" also fit the bill? It's symmetric, A would be B's cousin, and B would be A's cousin. But in terms of blood, A could be B's father's niece and B could be A's mother's nephew. If so, then our word pinsan is also the same.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, bayaw is symmetric (sorry), but then you just give me the obvious example of brother-in-law and sister-in-law, which are again the case of siblings-in-law - that English already has, whereas I'm looking for examples - other than the one English has, as I have already explained in the beginning of the thread - in the section where I presented my question. Notice that I'm looking for languages which do not resemble English on that matter. As for cousin: it's really a symmetric relation, but it's also a symmetric natural relation. Actually, you could give the other example I have already indicated: spouse. However, I'm talking about symmetric relations which are not symmetric natural relations, as I have already explained in the beginning of the thread, in the section where I presented my question. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 19:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That was what I was confused about actually. A cousin can both be a natural (i.e. by blood, consanguinal) relation or a legal/customary (i.e. in-laws, affinal) relation. Another example, aside from the first cousin of Atethnekos below: the son of my father's brother's brother-in-law is still a cousin, as there's no such thing as a "cousin-in-law". Plus you did not make stipulations about gender differences. Both bayaw and hipag are symmetric or asymmetric, depending on the gender of the persons involved.

I think, the criterion is simply not that clear-cut. Words can ignore or include the actual blood relationship, depending on the context (compared to what relation, in what situations, etc.) or the culture itself. In some cases extending it to unrelated people, e.g. "son" in English. In our culture where extended families are the norm, that is actually the default. We use the same words for blood relations that we do informally for unrelated people out of respect or politeness, depending on age difference (like in Chinese, I think?), especially if we do not know their names at all. e.g. I would always call an old woman lola, "grandmother". I'd also call any male the same age as my father, tatay, "dad" (only if he too has sons/daughters), or tiyo, "uncle". In turn they'd probably call me anak, "offspring/child".

I'm now curious, how do Slavic languages avoid this? Different words depending on which person you're talking about?

Anyway, like PalaceGuard's example below, the word magbiyenan in our languages means to be the parent-in-law of the other's offspring. Literally it means "co-parent-in-law". It's symmetric, but obviously not so in terms of blood. Kumare and kumpadre, meaning "co-godmother/godfather" are also symmetric but not by blood, not by gender, and they're only usable if there are more than one godparent to the child. It literally means "co-mother"/"co-father", both are from Spanish, though their importance as kinship ties in Anglophone cultures are lesser than in heavily Catholic-influenced cultures.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 21:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Chinese has several terms for respective relatives by marriage - if my child (either gender) is married to your child (either gender), then you (either gender) are my qinjia, and I (either gender) am your qinjia. If my husband is your husband's brother, then you are my zhouli, and I am your zhouli. If my wife is your wife's sister, then you are my lianjin, and I am your lianjin.

These are the general "reciprocal" terms. In addition to these, there are some further non-reciprocal terms depending on the exact situation. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 20:19, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not think that "brother-in-law" and "sister-in-law" are the only symmetric non-natural relation terms in English as you define these properties. For example, "first cousin once removed" and other similar cousin terms would seem to represent a symmetric non-natural relation. If you are my first cousin once removed, then I am your first cousin once removed, therefore symmetric, on your terms. However, for example, you are my parent's parent's offspring's offspring's offspring, whereas I am not that of yours, but rather I am your parent's parent's parent's offspring's offspring, therefore not naturally symmetric on your terms. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

See the six basic patterns of kinship terminologies at "Kinship terminology".

—Wavelength (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Languages having one word both for son-in-law and for bridegroom, or one word both for daughter-in-law and for bride.

So far, I know of only two languages having the property mentioned above, namely: Albanian (dhëndër for the masculine, nuse for the feminine), and Hebrew (חתן for the masculine, כלה for the feminine). Interesting enough, because Albanian is an (isolated) Indo-European language, whereas Hebrew is a Semitic language, i.e. from a totally different language family.

I'm looking for additional languages that have that property (indicated in the title). 84.229.239.89 (talk) 18:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In Persian the first one is /dɒːmɒːd/ and the second one /æɾuːs/. --Omidinist (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Btw, it's not hard to find a phonetic connection between the (Indo-European) Persian /dɒːmɒːd/ and the (Indo-European) Albanian dhëndër: Just drop the suffix ër (really a suffix only?), and you get "dhënd", which could easily have emerged from "dhënad", so the only significant difference between "dhënad" and /dɒːmɒːd/, is the n/m replacemnet, which is very reasonable, because both n and m are nasal consonants. 84.229.239.89 (talk) 19:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Romanian has ginere for both son-in-law and bridegroom, although the use of the word to mean bridegroom is a bit antiquated: nowadays we usually use mire (which according to the dictionary is a cognate to Albanian mirë, meaning "good"), the female equivalent being mireasă (daughter-in-law is noră). 92.80.36.80 (talk) 19:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In Chinese, xifu can mean both daughter-in-law and wife (or bride, if you like). However, it is possible to avoid the ambiguity by using alternative terms for each -- erxi for daughter-in-law and qizi for wife (xinniang for bride). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 20:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

See the six basic patterns of kinship terminologies at "Kinship terminology".

—Wavelength (talk) 23:22, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

However, the classic "Morgan" kinship classification is based on cousin terminologies, not in-law terminologies... AnonMoos (talk) 00:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I would like to chime in with Hungarian: son-in-law (husband of one's daughter) is vő [vø:] and daughter-in-law (wife of one's son) is meny [meɲ]; bridegroom is vőlegény ['vø:lɛgeːɲ], a compound of vő + legény (meaning young man, lad, bachelor (unmarried)), and bride is menyasszony ['mɛɲɒsːoɲ], a compound of meny + asszony (a word for woman). 94.21.47.245 (talk) 12:46, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

In German my spouse's sibling is my "Schwager" (m) or "Schwägerin" (f) but the relationship between my partner's sibling and my own sibling is referred to as his/her "Schwippschwager" (m) or "Schwippschwägerin". (I hope I've explained this lucidly....)

What are they talking about here?

This page is a discussion page on the Japanese Wikipedia about spoiler warnings. I'm not exactly sure what they're talking about, and Google Translate didn't help at all about understanding it. Can somebody help me here about what they are talking about? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know Japanese but see Wikipedia:Spoiler for the concept of spoiler warnings. There have been heated discussions about them in the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I know that they are talking about spoiler warnings, I just don't get exactly what they are talking about. I don't know if they are talking about abolishing their use (like what happened here) or if they want to change some of their policies on them (like the ability to hide spoiler warnings). Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 15:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

They are talking about creating a new template at #2, stopping the use of all the templates for 6 months and see what would happen at #3, and revising a template at #5. Please don't ask me to translate. It's too complicated. Oda Mari (talk) 17:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Gigs?

Is 'gig' used as a unit of duration? For example, 'three gigs ago'? --Analphil (talk) 14:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Meaning what? Three performances ago, if you're a performer? - filelakeshoe 14:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

You don't mean click, do you? That's military slang for a kilometre (which is admittedly not a unit of time ...). Maybe you could provide more context, such as a sentence you've seen it in. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Musicians perform on stage in something that is often called a 'gig'. 'Three gigs ago' obviously refers to events that happened at a past performance, but no, a gig is not a unit of duration since the time between gigs is variable (from a few hours to several years). Astronaut (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In some SciFi contexts, they have transitioned to metric time. This takes the form of SI prefix + seconds. So instead of saying "The Klingon/Kilrathi war ended a hundred years ago", they might say "... ended three gigaseconds ago", or, if you want to abbreviate in speech, "three gigs ago". -- 71.217.13.130 (talk) 15:44, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, how enlightening! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:35, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess it could also be an abbreviation for "gigabyte" if you're downloading a large file from a slow server. "You don't need to download that linux distribution again, I've already got it on my USB stick" "You should have told me that 3 gigs ago". 59.108.42.46 (talk) 03:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)