Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 December 4

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December 4

Esperanto

How do you say "I'm a non-Indian Hindu" in Esperanto? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.59.100.28 (talk) 13:09, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Google translate gave me "Mi estas hindua kaj mi ne indian" - I started with "I am Hindu and not Indian", figuring that would match better with automatic translating and Esperanton grammar. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the intended meaning if heard by Esperanto speakers. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:43, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

But if you put a capital I on Indian you get "Mi estas hindua kaj ne hinda". -- Q Chris (talk) 16:22, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Which is grammatical; the first isn't. —Tamfang (talk) 08:51, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Adding n to a noun in Esperanto makes it accusative; if you want to make it an adjective, change the o to a. —Tamfang (talk) 08:51, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

"India" in Esperanto is "Barato", so the most literal translation would be "Mi estas nebarata hinduano". But you can also follow SemanticMantis's idea to avoid the word "non-Indian", which has the advantage that you can express the fact that your combination counters the expectation with the word "but": "I am Hindu but not Indian" = "Mi estas hinduano sed ne barata". — Sebastian 21:37, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Barato is not in my dictionaries (1967, 1969); how long has it been in use? — Note that some country names (Anglujo, Italujo, Hindujo) are derived from names of peoples (anglo, italo, hindo) and some are roots, from which the word for an inhabitant is derived (Nederlando, nederlandano). If Barato is the country, an inhabitant should baratano. —Tamfang (talk) 08:51, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Interesting, Tamfang! My Konciza Etimologia Vortaro of 2003 doesn't have it, either. (But then again, it doesn't even have Usono.) http://en.lernu.net/ has it, too, so we're not alone at Wikipedia!

About "barata" vs "baratano": Both are possible in this sentence; the former is just the general adjective. (In Esperanto, as in most languages, one can use adjectives in a predicative way, which actually has become popular especially for girls' names, since it allows the ending "-a".) So, just as one can say "La barata ĉefministro estas Narendra Modi", or "La tablo estas granda", one can say "Narendra Modi estas barata." But your suggestion is more precise. — Sebastian 19:47, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Kiu baras lin? —Tamfang (talk) 01:30, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

That's actually a good point, which deserves to be in non-small font. The "-at-" makes it sound like it is derived from the verb "bari" - to obstruct, to bar*. It's another argument for preferring your solution, which adds clarity. — Sebastian 14:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Hindu question

Do you know of any individuals who are Hindu but are not Indian? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:48, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

"Lol", Have you never been to Leicester? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Can't say I have. But that article is useful. Nearly all of the Hindus there are of Indian ancestry. But it lists a few celebrities who converted to Hinduism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:16, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

This might surprise you, but most of the British Hindus in Britain are British. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:20, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. All humans have African ancetry. By British nationality law, it doesn't really matter if your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were not British in determining if you are. So there are MANY British Hindus. And many from other countries. Hinduism by country indicates that there are about 60,000,000 Hindus who are NOT from India. That's less than 10% of total Hindus (over 90% of Hindus are Indian), but 60,000,000 is still a sizable number of people. --Jayron32 15:48, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Of that 60 million, how many are not of Indian ancestry? Clearly there are some. But the Leicester article indicates most of the Hindus there are of Indian ancestry. Unlike Christians and Muslims, Hindus don't generally try to convince (or force) people to convert. So it's likely that the expected few non-Indian-ancestry Hindus have come to it by free choice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Quite a few; I'd imagine that a sizable number of the 23 million Nepalese are native Nepalese and not from India, and the same for the 13 million Bangladeshi, and 4 million Indonesians, and the 3.6 million Pakistanis, etc. Many of those people have no direct ancestors from India. Indonesian and Malay Hindus, for example, trace back many centuries to native converts from over 1000 years ago, during the Srivijaya and Medang Kingdoms. Those are not recent migrants from India. --Jayron32 19:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Category:People with acquired Indian citizenship contains people who became Indian by citizenship but were not Indian by ancestry. Many of them would be Hindus. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:54, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry Jack, I'm not convinced by your logic. There are more Anglicans in India than in England for example. Alansplodge (talk) 23:44, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness widely proselytises in the West, George Harrison was a notable convert. Alansplodge (talk) 23:44, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

What's that, Alan? More Anglicans in Bengal than in Bradford?? Martinevans123 (talk) 01:02, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Alan, Baseball Bugs is only after one example, presumably to use as a counter-example. Is the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi a Hindu now? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:54, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I confess that I've given up trying to disentangle BB's jokes and I'm still none the wiser. Alansplodge (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• What follows is unsourced, so take it for what it's worth, but, as far as I know, not all Hindus accept that one can in fact "convert" to Hinduism. Some (though not all) believe that you have to be born that way. I once talked to a European researcher in Sanskrit who was working on some Sanskrit manuscripts found in the Indian state of Kerala. He told me that at some point he had to visit some place in Kerala that only allowed Hindus in. But becoming a Hindu in a way that was acceptable to that place was extremely easy, you just needed to have some form stamped, and presto you were allowed in as a Hindu. In his case, he didn't actually need the form, as he had some sort of prior official conversion (not this sort of "drive by" conversion) but I don't know with what Hindu community and if it was in Europe or India, but used the form anyway, as it was easier. On the other hand, he told me there are places (he specifically told me about one temple he wanted to visit in Orissa (now spelled Odisha) and another one in Nepal) where no amount of arguing that you'd converted to Hinduism will get you in, and if you try to get in anyway you will risk some serious problems. He even told me that in Nepal he was with a guy who was a Nepali Muslim. He was astonished to realize that the Muslim would have had no problem getting into the temple, even though it was obvious the guy at the entrance knew that guy was a Muslim not a Hindu, whereas he, who supposedly had converted to Hinduism, couldn't. In that particular case the criterion seemed to have been purely racial and/or linguistic. Historically there were barriers even between categories of Hindus. For example not all castes were allowed in all temples, in some cases women were not allowed, etc. That became illegal and now pretty much anyone who looks or sounds Indian will be allowed anywhere. However the discrimination against entry by non-Indian looking/sounding people has not been outlawed, or if it has been, that is ignored. It'd be interesting to compare that with what goes on in Hindu temples in the U.S. or Europe, if anyone knows anything about that. Contact Basemetal here 02:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

On the other extreme, I once heard that (some) Hindus consider all religions to be subsets of Hinduism! —Tamfang (talk) 08:56, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Much of Southeast Asia (Hinduism in Southeast Asia) was at one time or another Hindu, including the Austroasiatic Khmer Empire and Malayo-Polynesian Champa. Most of the Khmer temple ruins dotting mainland Southeast Asia, including Angkor Wat were Hindu temples. Today's Khmer, Thai and Lao are "officially" Theravada Buddhists but still include elements of Hinduism in their folk religions such as venerating Phra Phrom and various other Hindu supernatural beings as well as practicing Hindu astrology. The Cham people still living in modern-day Vietnam continue to practice Hinduism. Also, the Balinese people of the Indonesian island of Bali are predominantly Hindu.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:28, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Gautama Buddha was raised as a Hindu, so it would be surprising if Buddhist practice did not include traces of Hinduism. —Tamfang (talk) 08:56, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Is this trolling? Of course there are tons of non-Indians who practice Hinduism. Go into any New York yoga studio and you'll find some. Here is a fictional example, although of course there are many real examples as well.
On top of that, I fail to see what this has to do with the language reference desk, as Hinduism is a religion, not a language. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:40, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, it started as a language question, about Esperanto, from an unsigned ip (thread above), and then BB jumped in questioning the validity of that question, and then this thread got split off. So really it's a sub-thread of the Esperanto one. I think we can assume it's all in good faith. (lol) Martinevans123 (talk) 22:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, I hadn't seen the history. Stricken (I know BB isn't actually a troll, that was meant more in like an "are you shitting me?" kind of sense, but yeah) rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:53, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Nah, I ain't shittin' ya, dude. But I feel kinda stricken too. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2015 (UTC)