Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 25

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October 25

Why are "who" and "where" swapped in German?

I'm German, and I've always wondered why the meanings of "wo" and "wer" are swapped in English. If you want to ask for a place, you'll say "Where is ...?" in English and "Wo ist ...?" in German. If you want to ask for a person, in English it's "Who's ...?" and "Wer ist...?" in German. Why is this? --U-Bahnfreund (talk) 15:14, 25 October 2014 (CEST)

I was going to mention that perhaps it's German that's swapped, not English. But then I saw that you'd written it that way in the title. So I'm just going to mention that "where" is "var" in Swedish, "waar" in Dutch, "hvor" in Norwegian etc., while the translations of "who" seem to differ between most languages in the family. There's an arcaic word "ho" in Swedish though, that translates to "who". /176.10.249.240 (talk) 13:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd reckon that it's German that has it backwards, not English. Plus, you have to keep in mind, in many senses it is German that is unconservative linguistically, not English. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 14:40, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

According to Kluge's etymological dictionary, the forms of the personal question pronoun all go back to proto-Germanic forms with a final inflection *-z (Engl. who < OE hwā < G. *hwaz; German wer < G. hwiz), ultimately cognate with the IE. *-s (cf. Latin quis). The change of the Germanic z consonant into r is regular in West Germanic; why it was instead lost in English, I couldn't say off the top of my hat. The locative question, in conrast, had an actual *-r already in Germanic, so in this case r got preserved in English but lost in German (and again, I couldn't say why). Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:18, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

See also wo and wer. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:32, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise -- Germanic -z in absolute word-final position normally disappears in the line of development leading to Old English, so Germanic *hwaz becoming OE hwa does not require any special explanation... AnonMoos (talk) 19:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

• The extent of rhotacism in the West Germanic languages differs between three groups which seem to have been differentiating at the time the sound change (s>)z>r was occurring. English and Dutch have who and where and wie and waar, as opposed to the German wer and wo.

The West Germanic people were divided into three tribes in early classic times; the Ingvaeonic who are the ancestors of the Anglo-Frisians, the Istvaeonic, who are the ancestors of the Franks and modern Dutch, and the Irminonic, who were the ancestors of the High Germans. (This is a grand over-simplification, see Old English and its Closest Relatives for an overview.)

The Irminones tended to preserve and generalize the 'r' forms, while 's' or 0 was generalized in Ingvaeonic. For example I was is Ich war in German. Another example is "to lose" This had an original alternation between an s form in the present and an r form in the past participle; the -en ending made the s sound intervocalic, which meant a change to z, then to r. In English, the ess form became generalized in both present and past. In German the verb (with a strengthening prefix) became verlieren (pres) verloren (past). Modern Dutch preserves the alternation, verliezen, verloren. Nevertheless, English does preserve a hint of the variation in the archaic adjective forlorn which came from the old but now lost rhotic past participle. μηδείς (talk) 18:00, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

English "was" vs. "were" is Verner's law variation, which has been levelled out in German, but allowed to persist in English, where "to be" has become a kind of super-irregular verb... AnonMoos (talk) 19:36, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

As I am sure you know, Verner's law applies to pre-proto-Germanic, nor Western Germanic, nor English. BY '"generalize" I was alluding to analogical change. I am afraid our being this technical may scare the young'ns. μηδείς (talk) 23:41, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I know just enough about linguistics to avoid the Dunning–Kruger effect, and I can tell you I find this terrifying.--Shirt58 (talk) 04:25, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

French p

Regional handwriting variation

>The French way of writing this character has a half-way ascender as the vertical extension of the descender, which also does not complete the bowl at the bottom.

I would like to see an illustration of this, as I can’t really imagine this in my head. --66.190.99.112 (talk) 14:17, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Here are some images: [1], [2]. 184.147.131.89 (talk) 15:07, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Those two examples don't use the half-ascender, though. Here's one that does. The first line of the body text (third line altogether) reads "Je profite du jour de la". You see this style of P again in "Je me porte toujours" in the bottom line on the left, and in "petite nièce qui vousp" near the end of the text. On the other hand, in the signature the bowl of the P is closed. --174.88.134.249 (talk) 15:10, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not just French. I've seen this (even more extremely) in hand-written legal documents in the US in at least a chunk of the 19th century. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:24, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I remember being taught to write a lowercase p that way when writing in cursive in English. I thought it was standard in cursive writing. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:29, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I was taught to write cursive p's like that back in the 1960s, it's not just French. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 22:18, 27 October 2014 (UTC)