Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 September 24

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September 24

Aleksei Vysheslavtsev: Russian captions

Can someone help me translate the captions in these images: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Aleksei_Vysheslavtsev? Please also help transcribe the Cyrillic as well so I can incorporate those into the file description. So end results should be Cyrillic (English). Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk)

For me, they're next to unreadable. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:35, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes. That's one other challenge as well, but there are not many copies of the book. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 07:01, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it's doable. For example the caption of the first picture reads: мысъ Доброй Надежды which means "Cape of Good Hope" (in current spelling: мыс Доброй Надежды). It would take me a lot of time to go through all of them since I'm not a native speaker so I can't guess nearly as well as a native speaker could. So I'll leave the rest to a Russian native speaker (User:Любослов Езыкин where are you?) or to Sluzzelin. Basemetal 10:56, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

@KAVEBEAR: Done.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:00, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks so much! There are illustrations from the 1862 editions I need to find.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Jack and the Bean talk

Mr. Bean doesn't speak, exactly. He utters sort of guttural grunting noises that sometimes sound vaguely like words but sometimes not.

I've seen this elsewhere, such as in Futtocks End, in which all the actors do this. What is this form of speech called, apart from "incoherent mutterings"?

(PS. I just noticed I've used the words utter, guttural, futtock and mutter. Maybe I'm a nutter.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:42, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it is probably gibberish[1] but, looking at our Pingu article, the overall performance may be grammelot. Thincat (talk) 11:04, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Jack, take a look at Stanley Unwin (comedian) and Google some of his videos. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 00:07, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Not sure that's it, but thanks anyway, CBW. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think 'gibberish' applies, as this is – by definition – unintelligible, whereas the non-verbal utterances of Mr Bean. etc., do convey meaning by their intonation and because some are routinely used as adjuncts to normal speech. Paralanguage seems to be relevant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 10:58, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds about right. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

Accents in Russian orthography

The Russian Wikipedia's article about Ivan Kramskoi is entitled ru:Крамской, Иван Николаевич, but the first sentence says that his name was "Ива́н Никола́евич Крамско́й". Why wouldn't the article instead be entitled ru:Крамско́й, Ива́н Никола́евич, with accents over three of the vowels? I thought of checking а́, but that doesn't exist as an article, and а doesn't say anything about accents. Nyttend (talk) 13:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Accents are not a standard part of Russian spelling (like they are in say Spanish or modern Greek). They are only used to specifically indicate a pronunciation, in grammars, dictionaries, etc. or in books meant for foreign learners of Russian. Basemetal 13:23, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

And putting them in article names makes them difficult to find unless redirects are created. Moreover, accented variants of vowels don't exist as encoded characters, they are just vowels with combining diacritical marks, which I think are not accessible on Russian keyboards. That's why you can't find specific articles about them. --Explosivo (talk) 13:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

How do they compare to Hebrew vowel points? Obviously the Cyrillic script is an alphabet, not an abjad such as Hebrew; I'm wondering if Russian accents' non-standard status is comparable to the non-standard status of the niqqud. Nyttend (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

It is indeed very similar in usage. That's why you won't find any niqqud in article tiles on hewiki, but they're not uncommon in first sentences -- e.g. he:שטפן וולה, he:חיל ים, he:חולון. --217.140.96.140 (talk) 09:12, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd rather compare it with the usage of diacritics in English, or better still, in Latin. Whereas one normally writes in English without any diacritics, in many instances English uses them, not only in foreign words, but in the English ones (e.g. learnèd). The system of the Latin diacritics is more elaborate, but quite until recently it has not been used in Latin at all, and even today more than half of Latin texts is published without them, however, you'll sure find the diacritics in textbooks, dictionaries and all such materials. There are as well some English publications (most notably some editions of the Bible, an example) where non-English words are accompanied with no less elaborate system of diacritics to assess the right pronunciation.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:26, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

The above is a figment of Любослов Езыкин's imagination; lawiki doesn't use diacritics, neither in titles nor in lead paragraphs. In the same way, enwiki article on Learned doesn't use the grave accent, and enwiki article on Zoology doesn't use the diaeresis, -- even though these words may appear with the corresponding diacritics somewhere else. That is to say, unlike Russian accents and Hebrew niqqud, the use of diacritics in Latin and English is a matter of a publisher's own style, and not a generally accepted convention for the language. --51.9.188.8 (talk) 06:36, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect Wikipedia to have an article about the word learnèd, though Wiktionary might. —Tamfang (talk) 07:36, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly my point. Latin diacritics, too, are used in Wiktionary, but not in Latin Wikipedia. That's what highlights the difference in usage between these diacritics and Russian accents / Hebrew niqqud: the latter are used in the respective Wikipedia articles. --217.140.96.140 (talk) 08:37, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

@51.9.188.8: You must watch your manners and choose your words when you characterize other people's statements, especially when those people may know the subject better than you. And before you rush to say that other people are wrong you must read their statements before. I did not say a word about Wikipedia, so it is rather your imagination that made you misinterpret my words and try to disprove what I did not say.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:28, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Nyttend's question concerned the use of accent diacritics in Wikipedia, not in far-fetched editions of the Bible. But don't worry, when somebody actually asks about diacritics in the Bible, you'll have a chance to demonstrate your self-proclaimed learnèdness. --51.9.188.8 (talk) 15:38, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

@Nyttend: See discussion.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2016 (UTC)