Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 March 10

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March 10

Are Russian белый (white) and Latin bellus (beautiful) cognates?

And what is the etymology of the Russian белый? Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 02:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

No, because the Latin "bellus" actually comes from an Indo-European root *dw-ene (according to wikt:bellus) while the Slavic word for white comes from *bʰolHos (according to wikt:бѣлъ). Adam Bishop (talk) 02:24, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

See the etymology of "beluga" and the etymology of "embellish" in the Online Etymology Dictionary.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:33, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

This reminds me that there's more to the Russian association with red than mere politics. The following Russian words are all cognate:

• red (красный - krasny)
• paint, colour, dye (краска - kraska)
• beautiful (красивый - krasivy)
• excellent, wonderful (прекрасный - prekrasny)

So, "excellent, beautiful red paint" would be "прекрасная, красивая, красная краска" (prekrasnaya, krasivaya, krasnaya kraska).

See Red Square#Origin and name. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:46, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Jack, you'd probably like to read this: Бахилина Н.Б. История цветообозначения в русском языке. Москва: «Наука», 1975. Google it, there is a scan of it.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:15, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I will check that out. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 04:21, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

It's strange enough, but a Latin cognate of бѣлый is this black bird fulica, see Pokorny's dictionary[1][2]. In German it is also called Bläßhuhn from blaß "pale" and Huhn "hen".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:43, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

ß capitalization

In common German use there is no capital version of ß. Are there any other languages where only small versions (or only caps versions) of some letters exist? Also, as a general question, what scripts besides latin know capitalization (I know cyrillic does) bamse (talk) 08:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Ordinarily, the Russian letters ь and ъ don't appear at the beginning of a word. They have capitalized versions for use in all-caps. For example, see soft sign. 96.46.207.169 (talk) 09:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Ы as well, except in some non-Russian place names, e.g. Ygyatta. Lesgles (talk) 20:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

See Kra (letter) --151.41.137.10 (talk) 10:46, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Bamse -- As far as I know, the only basic scripts which have an upper case / lower case distinction are the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Armenian alphabets, as well as some forms (but not the currently most commonly used form) of the Georgian alphabet. AnonMoos (talk) 11:23, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. A few characters have three case forms -- DZ Dz dz or LJ Lj lj (the middle one in each trio is in "titlecase")... AnonMoos (talk) 11:37, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

ß's cousin Long s appears to have been used both word-initially and medially with no distinct upper-case or lower-case form. --Shirt58 (talk) 12:43, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The capitalized form of long s is the round s seen in this 1560 herbal (line 3: Stauden, next-to-last line Straßburg). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 20:28, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Half-palatalization?

Some person is arguing that there is "half-palatalization" of consonants, but I counter-argue that from the articulatory POV there is no "half-" of it, palatalization (that is rising of the tongue to the hard palate) either is or it is not. So could a half of palatalization exist indeed?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not something that I've come across in linguistics, but a Google search for "semi-palatalization" does turn up a few hits... AnonMoos (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your hint! I've looked through the search results but it did not help though. It seems this term is a Soviet/Russian/Ukrainian invention, but they have never explained clearly what they meant by it. Yes, unfortunately articulatory phonetics is not praised there, most Soviet/post-Soviet works in phonetics are very abstract in nature.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Arab references

To folks who have grasp of Arabic: what references does he cite here from 0:35 to 0:48? Are they verses from Quran or something else? According to Russian subs, Muhammad is cited, but the source is not specified. Thanks--93.174.25.12 (talk) 14:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Language learning and explicit vocabulary instruction

Hi all, when I did French in high school, some 20 years ago, as the leaving exams approached, the subject of how and what to revise came up. Someone suggested "you can't really revise vocabulary, can you?" I argued that it was a simple enough matter of finding a stash of words you had encountered, and just keeping them fresh. About 10 a day over 20 days is 200 words, not a small chunk of your operational knowledge at that level (5 years of instruction at an average of just over 3 hours a week). The teacher vehemently disagreed, and said that you should revise grammar, because the vocab has either been absorbed, or it hasn't. Nowadays I am reading in scholarly papers that explicit vocabulary instruction is enjoying some kind of a vogue at the moment. This differs slightly from the vocabulary revision that I was debating with my teacher, but would seem to proceed from the same principles. Researchers like Paul Nation (and others mentioned in that article) have promoted vocabulary as something more specific and teachable. Such a position is linked to the relatively modern lexical approach, although it is not quite the same. When I did French, the basic approach was the most obvious one - readings with vocab/ idiom glosses in one course book, and a grammar book with dialogues and a vocab section in the back. Has this changed much, and do teachers go for more focused and conscious vocab instruction (not to mention revision)? Or is the presumed trend a bit more understated, and less visible in the classroom? IBE (talk) 21:22, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Having last studied French formally almost three decades ago I can assure you my grammar is still nigh flawless and my productive vocabulary is pathetic. But I can read well when the words are in front of me. μηδείς (talk) 00:01, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I hope you get some responses from people who are experts in language teaching. In the meantime, as a language learner, I will offer the following in case it helps. These days students are introduced to a variety of real texts at quite an early stage. The hope is that they will pick up a lot of vocabulary by watching excerpts of TV news or documentaries, by reading short stories and news items etc. It can work for some people, I suppose, but others find that it isn't enough. I didn't find I made much progress in German through looking at the online newspapers every day. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:39, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply - I don't need experts on language teaching, since people who have experience in learning languages would have a good idea, as yourself. But what sort of an environment was this - is it adult night courses, or a university unit? It seems odd that what you are saying sounds like neither the old-fashioned way nor the (supposedly) more modern focus on vocab. It is more like the modern trendy approach that seems to be enjoying its own sort of vogue in so many areas. The trend towards vocab that I point to is not meant to imply that it is universal, just that my understanding is that it is more prominent than, say, 20 or 30 years ago. Hence I wouldn't expect every classroom to have adopted it, and am curious to hear about learners' experiences. If there are language teachers out there, please let me know, but language learners are a very good substitute. IBE (talk) 00:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

My German course was a university unit, and we watched excerpts of real TV. It was useful for listening at real speed, and to a certain extent for listening for the gist instead of trying to get every word. I tried to supplement the course by reading the stories in Stern or Der Spiegel, but that didn't help as much as I hoped it would. And now I've had a go at reading short stories and a whole book, and I still get frustrated at progressing slowly. However, the exact same methods help me brush up my Spanish. I seem to have a particular block in German, I think because I want to know the English cognate of every word. The idea is that the learner sees the new word in context and then remembers it, but I just don't remember it. The introduction of real materials early on -which you can see in some BBC courses and some secondary school courses -is an improvement on the really old fashioned dry approaches that are the distant past now. But adults should have a choice of methods and pick the ones that work for them. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)