Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 10

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June 10

Obligate carnivores

Is the "obligate" in obligate carnivore from the same root as obligatory? Dismas|^(talk) 03:39, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes (see definition 5). Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:06, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Great! Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 04:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

FYI Dismas et al., this sense of 'obligate' is used in a wide variety of ecological descriptions of plants and animals (and their behaviors). The opposite term is 'facultative.' Compare e.g. obligate parasite to facultative parasite. There's also Obligate_aerobe, obligate hibernators, etc. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:24, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

French -> English translation requested

Resolved

Would anyone be able to tell me what Fontaines à dévotion might be called in English? "Fountain of devotion" does get a few hits, but I wonder if there is a better term? Best, Sam Sailor ^Sing 07:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I believe it is Holy well.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it. In fact, the French article could be used to improve the English one, which at the moment is excessively focussed on the situation in the UK and Ireland. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:21, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both, WilliamThweatt & AlexTiefling. Best, Sam Sailor ^Sing 09:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

universal human language

Why did languages develop so differently from one another? Like, everyone knows that smiling means happy and crying means sad, these are universal. So why didn't a universal human language develop along the same lines? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.9.135.151 (talk) 10:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

If language were as uniform across humanity as basic facial expressions, then all of it would have to be coded directly into human genes, and there are a number of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea. To start with, this would almost certainly drastically curtail overall vocabulary size, and the ability to coin new words. If cultural practices strongly vary between human groups, then it makes sense to allow languages to vary between groups (though there are constraints on possible natural human languages)... AnonMoos (talk) 11:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Languages may be similar but due to isolation they may take on characteristics particular to themselves that inhibit ready comprehension upon immediate contact by non-native speakers but as any language can be learned it seems evident that languages are largely similar. Bus stop (talk) 11:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

...and before new media (I'd count radio as "new"), some degree of "isolation" was the de facto standard, and anything else involved long, slow travel. Only the most wealthy individuals could afford that, and even to them, it was very time-consuming. Books used to be rather expensive, too, and didn't provide any hint to the way the foreign words were pronounced, nor did they give any insight into the average citizen's daily life.

Oh Internet, blessed be thy silicon soul;) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 14:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Might want to check out the various disciplines and sub-fields associated with structuralism, which is based on the idea that language can be scientifically studied (beginning with Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics) and that universal structures can be found in the way we create meaning through language (this is a gross simplification, but I don't want to go off on a tangent). --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  14:38, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

...Also interesting may be universal language, [mostly] synthetic attempts to fix the problem OP brings up. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  14:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

The idea that "smiling means happy and crying means sad" is not universal. See Smile#Cultural differences and Tears#Social aspects. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 18:31, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

A smile is not always the same? Well, that explains why you'd build this. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 11:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

One element of "language" or verbal expression that appears to be universal is Laughter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• To answer our blocked and actual troll, Historical linguistics is the science that describes and explains the origin of linguistic diversity, for example, sound change, over time. It may not offer a specific explanation for a specific instance of change, but it does name and classify them and compare them. For instance, the not closely related languages of German and Russian both have a phenomenon where final -b, -g, and -d become -p, -k, and -t unless some other sound/ending intervenes. In German, the verb schlagen "to strike" has the singular imperative schlag! which is pronounced "schlack!" English even has this phenomenon. A helpful but I would guess illiterate clerk with a very strong "urban" accent asked me if I had tried /bɪk laʡ/ for an item her store didn't cary. It took me a few secons, and I said, do you mean "big lot"? Over time changes like this cause divergence between isoltaed dialects, and Latin becomes French and Spanish, etc. μηδείς (talk) 01:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Isn't math considered a universal language? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:00, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, kind of, yes. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

the poetry of Chaos

The following is what I read in Martin Amis' novel "Lionel Asbo":

"To evoke the London borough of Diston, we turn to the poetry of Chaos:

Each thing hostile

To every other thing: at every point

Hot fought cold, moist dry, soft hard, and the weightless

Resisted weight."

Would you tell me who wrote the verse and what is the basic idea it conveys. Thank you a lot! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.217.97 (talk) 13:13, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It's from Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes. As for the idea it conveys, that's a matter of individual interpretation - there is no one set meaning. --Viennese Waltz 13:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

You may want to read Chaos (cosmogony) and Classical element#Greece. Ovid is describing the state of affairs that obtained before a creator sorted out the inchoate stuff out of which the universe was formed. Deor (talk) 14:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Since many people won't know what that word means, here's the def: Wikt:inchoate. StuRat (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah thanks for that, but I think most people are perfectly capable of looking up a word in a dictionary if they don't know what it means. Your edit, implying as it does that the previous poster used an unnecessarily obscure word, was both unwelcome and pompous. --Viennese Waltz 22:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

So, are you really saying "Thanks for nothing", VW? Let's leave the personal stuff off these pages, eh. That sort of remark is best confined to user talk pages. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:52, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Providing a definition, or at least acknowledging the need for one, can indeed be helpful. I'm reminded of a couple of examples. On one of Groucho Marx's appearances on The Dick Cavett Show, he was singing the "titwillow" song from The Mikado. Just after he sang the line, "And if you remain callous and obdurate" he stopped the music and asked the audience if they knew what "obdurate" means, and continued singing after someone piped up with the answer. Then there was Tom Lehrer, in an intro to one of his songs, discussing his friend "Hen3ry" who wrote "a heartwarming story about a young necrophiliac who finally achieves his lifelong ambition by becoming coroner." Noting the murmur in the crowd, Lehrer added, "The rest of you can look it up when you get home." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I believe there's a Wikipedia standard somewhere that says we should avoid using terms which many people won't know, and, if we must use them, we should provide a link to explain them. The "just look it up" approach fails if each word somebody looks up has another word or two they must look up, etc. So, it's critical to use the simplest words that get the job done. In the case of "inchoate", I would suggest substituting "embryonic". As for being pompous, I suggest using unnecessarily complex words and telling people to go look it up is being pompous, as it seems designed to prove your superiority over them. Note that I don't blame Deor for this, as people who use obscure words often don't seem to know they are obscure. Many Wikipedia science articles are written in a way that is totally inaccessible to the average reader, yet the authors seem unaware of this fact. StuRat (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)