Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 August 29

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August 29

Translation request - Japanese to English: WWII era medallion with some unknown characters.

Please don't multipost. This query was also posted to the Humanities Desk here and there have been answers in both places. Since there has been more material posted in response there, I'm moving the responses from here to there. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Polish

Is there a word in Polish like miva/myva/mila/myla/miba/myba?

The word should be common in other Savlic languages as well, and mean something like "sweetie' or "sweetheart". Do you know this? Thanks, 79.179.50.98 (talk) 11:33, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• wikt:miła, feminine for 'nice'; common in Slavic indeed. Шурбур (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

According to the book "Teach Yourself Serbo-Croat", the Serbo-Croatian language (which may or may not even exist anymore) has an adjective -- masculine mio, feminine mila -- meaning "dear"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

P.S. See also wiktionary:Special:WhatLinksHere/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/milъ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:34, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Just to expand on the answers provided above, the adjective miły (masculine) / miła (feminine) / miłe (neuter) does indeed mean "nice, pleasant", but may be also (in the masc. and fem. genders) used to mean "dear, beloved". I would describe this other usage as archaic or poetic. It is related to the noun miłość, "love", which is very much used in modern Polish. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)