Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 January 21

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January 21

Deciphering a language

How much written material is needed in order to decipher a language? For example, suppose no one in the world had any knowledge of Japanese, and then a trove of Japanese books was discovered in a buried chest. How much would you need before it would be possible to work out how to understand it, or largely understand it? Assume no dictionaries or specific language-learning materials. Obviously you can say "what do you mean by 'understand'", "exactly what selection of books", etc., but I'm more looking for any kind of interesting insights that anyone might have. 86.183.129.68 (talk) 02:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

You could make some deductions here: Rosetta_Stone196.213.35.146 (talk) 06:18, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand, they've still made very little headway with Rongorongo, and none at all on the Voynich manuscript. See Category:Undeciphered writing systems. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:00, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

We don't know if the Voynich manuscript is even in a language. --Dweller (talk) 12:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

The Rosetta Stone is not a relevant example for my purposes since it contains a translation. This is excluded on the same principle as "no dictionaries or specific language-learning materials". If you allow explanations of an unknown language in a known language then the question becomes a bit pointless. 86.183.129.68 (talk) 12:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes it is relevant. The Rosetta Stone was a corner stone for deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is not about deciphering the text on the stone, but the texts written in a similar language as on the stone. It gives you an idea about how much you need to know, before you understand the rest. Llaanngg (talk) 12:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, it can be reasonably assumed that a translation of "most" words in a language will enable one to understand "most" writing in that language. I don't see how that advances anything. The question is how much material do you need to figure out the meaning of "most words". 86.183.129.68 (talk) 14:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Why did you pick such an unrealistic example? Are you writing a science-fiction novel? Does your question assume that several millennia have passed since Japanese became extinct and that the earth had undergone a nuclear holocaust in the meantime? If Japanese became extinct tomorrow there would be no trouble at all deciphering it because of the millions and millions of books and other long texts available (even assuming all bilingual materials had disappeared, etc.), which include, besides texts proper, photographs, iconography, maps, all with their captions, explanatory notes, legends, etc. because of our intimate knowledge of Japanese culture, history, geography, etc., because all the inscriptions (on street and subway sings, traffic signs, gravestones, posters, etc.) would have their contexts perfectly preserved which means that even without knowing the language we would know roughly what the texts were about even before beginning the process of decipherment, because of the existence of millions and millions of objects that would carry Japanese writing and because of millions if not billions of hours of audio and video material. Needless to say, none of this is available in the historically available cases. If you were only interested in understanding the process of decipherment you couldn't have picked a more unrealistic and irrelevant example. Contact Basemetal here 14:15, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Always, someone with absolutely no imagination has to pitch in with a totally useless and irrelevant contribution. 86.183.129.68 (talk) 14:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, you know, the RD is not a forum. In principle at least, people do not come here to shoot the breeze and kill time speculating and using their "imagination", even though we all do from time to time. When I first saw the silly example you used to introduce your question I thought it was pointless to waste my time trying to answer someone who was so little interested in factual information that they didn't even bother to do the little bit of research necessary to at least gain some sense of what a realistic example was. But then I thought, maybe I'm being too harsh, maybe if I point out the problem, you'd make the effort to clarify and come up with something more sensible. But I'd say your reaction tells me I wasn't. Contact Basemetal here 15:28, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, User:86.183.129.68 seems to have little interest in understanding the information provided to him. I guess no amount of evidence about what was done on the past is acceptable to him. --Llaanngg (talk) 15:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Speculating here, but I suspect that a linguist could figure out something about the grammar by using frequency patterns to guess at what are the prepositions, the suffixes, etc. As for the meanings of words, with no context whatsoever it's hard for me to see how any progress could be made. Loraof (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Linear B is an example of that: "Kober noticed that a number of Linear B words had common roots and suffixes. This led her to believe that Linear B represented an inflected language, with nouns changing their endings depending on their case." —Tamfang (talk) 10:54, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow, I have never read a question about which I could have so much of use to say, but given the OP's attitude, about which I have so little incentive to say anything. Basemetal is on point. See Fermat's Last Theorem and WP:CIVIL. μηδείς (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Am I missing something? I really can't see why people are taking such issue with the OP's question and/or attitude. I don't know much about linguistics (other than what I've read on WP), but from what I do know, here are a few thoughts and links:

1. Most languages are part of a family of related languages. By studying known languages, people can reconstruct their unknown ancestors. If this newly-discovered cache of documents were written in a language related to a known language, and used the same or similar alphabet, then it would probably quite easy to decipher. If it used a different alphabet or writing system, I imagine it would be a lot harder, and if it was a Language isolate it then this method probably wouldn't work.
2. You said "no dictionaries or specific language-learning materials". Does that still allow encyclopedias? Anything with illustrations would probably help a lot, whether childrens' books, comics, encyclopedias, other information books, etc.
3. Japanese (as a specific example) has a number of features that could make it easier (or harder) to decipher. Japanese has several ways of writing things. Kanji are Chinese in origin, and represent specific words and concepts, and Kana represent syllables. If all knowledge of Japanese is lost, but knowledge of Chinese remains, then the meaning of anything written in Kanji will be known, but how they would have been spoken would be unknown. The Japanese also sometimes write in the Latin alphabet, so if Western languages are still known, the pronunciation of anything in Romaji should be roughly determinable. Iapetus (talk) 10:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

All good answers above. Small note: The amount of written material would differ very much depending on how like it is to any other language. If it is not like any existing language, then no amount of written material would be enough. A language is much more than just words and grammar. Star Lord - 星爵 (talk) 18:11, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Is "defrosted" a synonym of "thawed" in the context of freezing and thawing samples?

I am reading a manuscript concerning analysis of human sample material. The following sentence strikes me as odd: "Within 18 months the samples were defrosted and re-analyzed." Is "defrosted" an acceptable synonym of "thawed" in this context? A site-specific Google search for "defrosted" on Pubmed gives about 2000 hits, the corresponding search for "thawed" gives about 72,000 hits. On the other hand, the first Google suggestions I get when typing "defrosted" refer to keeping thawed, previously frozen, food in the refrigerator. What is the difference in meaning between the two verbs (if any)? --82.164.37.199 (talk) 09:09, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I've heard "defrosted" as a synonym for "thawed", but it's slangy. In the old days before frost-free refrigerators, we had to "defrost" the freezer from time to time, and that's a more accurate usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:41, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Or your windshield. But in the context suggested by the OP I think they're synonymous. Another synonym would be "unfreeze". I don't know if "slangy" is the right word. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say that in some (more literary) contexts, you would use "thaw" rather than "defrost" or "unfreeze". For example a sentence such as "the coming of spring began to thaw the frozen Siberian rivers" sounds better to my ears than "the coming of spring began to defrost the frozen Siberian rivers". Contact Basemetal here 12:41, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Many people (Americans, at least) use defrost as their usual word for the "unfreezing" of frozen foods or use thaw and defrost indiscriminately as synonyms for that activity, and I don't think that there's anything "slangy" about the usage. See, for example, the section "What is the best way to thaw ground beef?" a little more than halfway down this U.S. Department of Agriculture page. (The Wiktionary entry lists Bugs's "defrost the freezer" sense and the "thaw" sense as definitions 1 and 2, with no usage label for either.) I also don't see anything exceptionable in the usage cited by the OP. Deor (talk) 12:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

The "de" prefix in some syntactical constructs may to be contributing to the suggestion that an action is being performed, reinforcing the suggestion of a controlled process. Consensus has it apparently so much divergent that you can even find "dethaw" in the wiktionary. --Askedonty (talk) 13:38, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

BrEng/OR alerts. Personally, I'd use "defrost" as a synonym for "thaw" only in the case of items that have been deliberately frozen. Even if they haven't deliberately been unfrozen. So if my freezer stops working, its contents defrost. But when the snow melts, items in my garden thaw. But if my fridge was full* and I stuck a bottle of milk in said garden to keep it cool and it froze overnight, I'd bring it in the house and defrost it. --Dweller (talk) 12:58, 21 January 2016 (UTC) *full of the stuff that defrosted when my freezer broke, obviously

Strictly speaking, I suppose, defrost means to remove frost that has accumulated on something, whereas thaw means to unfreeze something that has become frozen. However, I'm sure the terms are loosely used as synonyms, especially since it could be argued that something which has frozen would have frost within it and on its surface. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

You're on to it. Yes, to me "defrost" means to remove a layer of frozen water from the surface of something, such as the inside of an old freezer (as I said) or the windows of a car (as Basemetal said). If not slang for "thaw", then it's at least imprecise. But it seems to be commonly used. And as it turns out, the words "frost" and "freeze" have a common root,[1] arguably making defrost and unfreeze synonyms for thaw. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree, if the OP is editing this manuscript, changing defrost to thaw is the best choice, since the first word is ambiguous. Anyone who's cooked a roast knows that a big meat item set out can be quite frost free, yet still frozen solid on the inside. But if this is just a matter of reading comprehension, it's obvious from the context that the author meant "fully thawed". μηδείς (talk) 17:44, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

It might differ in using chemicals to decrease the freezing point for the frozen material or apply heat to it. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 17:43, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

When I (BrEn) take food out of the freezer to thaw it, I call it "defrosting". When it's ready, then it's "defrosted". I never use "thaw" for this. Examples at [2], which also suggest this usage is applicable to North American English. Bazza (talk) 18:28, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Flanders and Swann had a bit of business in At the Drop of a Hat about how Hegel or someone - the attribution is disputed - said "architecture is frozen music", but Donald Swann's music has been described as "defrosted architecture". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, User:Bazza 7, even my silly American GE microwave has a "defrost" setting. But the issue is that while both thaw and defrost are sometimes used to mean fully unfreeze in American English, to "defrost" can simply mean to remove the frost from a surface, whereas "thaw" always means unfreeze. For example, "spray defroster" is simply a way of removing the surface frost from car windows, not a way of raising the temperature of the glass itself above freezing. μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Your answers have been very helpful. --82.164.37.199 (talk) 20:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC) (OP)

Using "defrost" as a synonym of "thaw" might be ambiguous, but I don't think it is slang.Iapetus (talk) 12:02, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Chinese/Japanese kanji characters on Japanese flag

Reading hand written Chinese is really hard for me (I'm a little better with print). Can someone help me translate all of the text on this flag? I believe the majority of the top characters are 久長運武 (I know it's from a Chinese idiom about war). But I can't figure out what the one in the middle is. Thank you in advance for those who help. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe the middle character is 祈 . Marco polo (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree. The top horizontal line must be 久長祈運武. But really, your best bet is to find a native Japanese speaker. You may try one of these even though few or none of them may be active on WP any longer (check the dates on their latest contribs). The link for the Japanese reference desk is this. You may ask your question in English. If all else fails you may go here where you may also ask your question in English (in principle the likelihood there'd be some English fluency is greater for the second link) but there it is better if you can come up with some sort of WP related excuse for your request as that page is not strictly speaking a reference desk. Contact Basemetal here 01:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

It's read the other way around, 武運長久 = "martial fortune lasts long", approximately. 祈 means "pray". Together, it simply means "praying that [our/your] good fortunes of war lasts for a long time", or "praying that the fortunes of war be forever in your favour". Something like that. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I am curious about the story behind the text at the bottom of the flag - 大義滅親 means "destroy your own family for the greater good". Is the recruit related to this flag being sent to arrest his/her own family?--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:28, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Isn't that's a Good Luck Flag? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes but not quite like the more commonly seen ones carried by soldiers into battle: this was addressed to a member of a keibodan, a sort of civil defence auxiliary formed from the fire service during World War II. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:17, 25 January 2016 (UTC)