Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 June 20

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June 20

Kyrgyz or Kirghiz ?

After a discussion at here and there, I am thinking to change the name of my file.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 04:07, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

In the Kyrgyz language: кыргыз (kırgız). I use Kyrgyz. —Stephen (talk) 05:10, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

This is not strictly a language issue, but a nomenclature issue: Kirghiz SSR, while it existed, was primarily known as such in English, even though the spelling in Kyrgyz language was different. For another example, see how Kiev was primarily known as such in Soviet times, and as Kyiv thereafter. --109.186.223.27 (talk) 06:04, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

The predominant spelling in English is still "Kiev", and on English Wikipedia, "Kyiv" redirects to "Kiev"... AnonMoos (talk) 03:18, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

With no intent of bringing the decade-old debate to the RD, may I withdraw my previous example, and point instead that Kishinev currently redirects to Chișinău, with the change in English spelling matching the political changes. --109.186.223.27 (talk) 11:26, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Interesting that the Kyrgyz orthography is not phonetic but phonemic and does not represent all the nuances of the pronunciation. While the form Kyrgyz may better represent the vowel [ɯ], it fails to properly represent the consonants. The actual pronunciation is IPA: [qɯrˈʁɯz], so the form Qyrghyz may better show how it is actually said. Other Romanizations, such as Turkish-influenced Qırğız if Anglicized would have rendered into Qirgiz, not very far from another form Kirgiz. If we try to preserve the quality of ğ by writing it gh, we may end up with Qirghiz which is exactly one letter different from Kirghiz. Also worth to note that other Central Asian nations, namely Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Tajiks, does not bothered very much with the fact that their names came into English through Russian. And, of course, Kyrgyz will definitely find no luck in persuading others to use only the spelling they like: Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians, etc. will continue to use their established forms (Kirgisisch, kirghize, kirguís, chirghisa, etc.) whatever the political circumstances.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 11:47, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

"Feature" as a verb

Is the following grammatically correct? (or, should that be "Are the following grammatically correct?")

• Each X features Y
• Each of the Xs feature Y.
• X and Y feature Z.
• Every X features Y.

What is the rule of grammar that governs this? —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 06:27, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Sentence 2 is considered incorrect by traditional normative grammar, since "each" is considered singular no matter what post-modifiers follow it. It seems to be quite common in practice though. You could call it a kind of "proximity concord", where agreement is not dictated by what is the syntactic head of the subject phrase, but by the plural noun ("Xs") that stands nearest to the verb. This blog post [1] seems to have some useful pointers. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:34, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise -- the traditional terminology for proximity concord is "agreement by attraction" or (slightly more opaque) "agreement attraction". Wikipedia article is Attraction (grammar)... AnonMoos (talk) 03:14, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that link -- its new to me. (Same OP, new IP = 107.15.157.44 (talk) 22:20, 21 June 2018 (UTC))