Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 January 30

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January 30

need help translating Kanji album cover

link --> https://img.discogs.com/xffouchGHMx0c0l0boXkLpx-kVo=/fit-in/600x601/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4949421-1451338983-6970.jpeg.jpg

I want to write an article on this band/album. What does the cover say in English, please? 50.111.33.12 (talk) 08:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Here is the text left-to-right in digital form: 海は荒海∙向うは佐渡よ∙すずめ啼け啼け∙もう日はくれた∙みんな呼べ呼べ∙お星さま∙出たぞ. I have separated the original columns by bullets, but it looks like the last two columns together form one sentence. My Japanese is insufficient to translate it. This is what Google translate produces: "The sea is rough seas, the other side is Sado, the sparrows are crying, the sun is gone, everyone can be called, the stars have come out." Sado is a city and an island. Are these the lyrics of a song on the album?  --Lambiam 21:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

It says nothing in English, other than the word Trio. You're welcome. —Tamfang (talk) 03:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

It's a well-known song. There's likely to be a good translation somewhere, but in my own I-really-ought-to-down-one-more-coffee-before-trying-this translation:

     The sea is choppy;
     Over there is Sado.
     Chirp, sparrows!
     The sun has set.
     Call everyone!
     The stars have come out.

In Japan too, sparrows chirp in daylight; so this ingredient is a bit odd. (On the other hand, you might say that it's after dark when they need instructions to chirp.)

Just one note on what Lambiam writes. Sado, aka Sadogashima, is administratively a shi: thus, "Sado-shi". This is conventionally englished as "city" (so Lambiam isn't wrong), but it has only the most tenuous relationship with "city" as the word is used elsewhere. Simply, nobody who isn't already accustomed to the concept of shi would recognize Sado as a city. -- Hoary (talk) 23:19, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

"Sunayama" (literally sand dune(s)) is the title of the poem, which is by Hakushū Kitahara. Just one half-sentence from the Japanese WP article on the verse: "The record of Sunayama, as set to music by Shinpei Nakayama, sold 150,000 between 1945 and 1960". -- Hoary (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

On the sparrows. So how's the article coming along, 50.111.33.12? -- Hoary (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Klingon and Kazakh

How do you say toothbrush in Klingon and Kazakh?68.129.97.180 (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Тіс щеткасы is the Kazakh word. --Jayron32 18:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

In Klingon it's Ho' teywI' according to the Klingon Language Institute. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Klingons use toothbrushes? I would have assumed they'd just swish around some blood wine. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:40, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

It's probably just a borrowing from a conquered species. With all their biological redundancies they probably just regrow the teeth that fall out. 93.136.59.172 (talk) 11:12, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Ho' means "tooth" and is in the original 1985 lexicon. tey is not in that lexicon but must be a verb meaning "to brush". -wI' is a verbal suffix that converts a verb meaning "to X" into a noun meaning "one who/which does X", like the English "-er" suffix on "lover", "runner", etc. The Klingon H represents the voiceless velar fricative /x/, and the two ' symbols represent the glottal stop, which is phonemic in Klingon; for example teywI' (a brush) is a different word than tey'wI' (a confider) . CodeTalker (talk) 19:00, 1 February 2020 (UTC)