Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 December 29

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 29

Edward VIII abdication: "I" vs "we"

In the abdication letter of Edward VIII, he refers to himself as "I" rather than "we", although he was the ruling monarch at the time. What is the reason? I have two theories. First, in the letter, he was speaking as a private person instead of a monarch, as this was a matter relating to him personally. Second, the royal "we" was simply not in style at the time. Is either of these true? JIP | Talk 03:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

He was still the monarch after he signed the letter of abdication. That letter in and of itself did not end his reign. What ended his reign was His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, which was necessary since the existing law made Edward the monarch, and only an amending law could change that. The Abdication Act was passed on 11 December, and given Royal Assent the same day. That's when he became an ex-monarch. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Interesting, but not what the OP is asking. The OP is asking why Edward didn't use the Royal we in the letter. --Viennese Waltz 09:13, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Royal we is the Crown speaking. The Crown cannot abdicate; it is unceasing. The individual currently possessing the monarchical authority can. They then relinquish this authority as an individual, not in their capacity as a monarch.  --Lambiam 10:40, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

As to the style in vogue, for his granddad Edward VII we find in the text of the Cordillera of the Andes Boundary Case: Now, We, Edward, by the grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, etc., etc., have arrived at the following decisions upon the questions in dispute, which have been referred to Our arbitration, ...^[1] The reign of Edward VIII was so short that it is not easy to find an instrument where the Crown is speaking through his voice, much like the Great and Powerful Oz spoke through the voice of Oscar Diggs, the man behind the curtain.  --Lambiam 11:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

fight with

Is there a way to distinguish between these two meanings of "fight with" when there is no context available? 1. fight against 2. fight on the same side. Thanks in advance. Omidinist (talk) 05:19, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Like in "fight with John". Omidinist (talk) 05:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Context. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.120.67 (talk) 06:35, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

No, "fight with John" is an ambiguous phrase, like "wet paint".  Card Zero  (talk) 06:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how one can hope to disambiguate an expression with several possible meanings without further information. Also, the above enumeration of possible senses is incomplete: "The boxer ditched his gloves to fight with his bare hands."  --Lambiam 10:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Even with context available, misinterpretations occur:

In Friedrich Schiller's play Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans), the English general Talbot (III,6) says: "Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens". In English, this is usually rendered as "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain" (used, e.g., as motto and in the text by Isaac Asimov in his novel The Gods Themselves).

In fact, what Talbot in the play means, is: with stupidity on their own side, even the Gods could not fight victorious, referring to his own soldiers' superstitious fear of Joan of Arc.

This is quite clear when one reads the whole play. Most people don't, so the erroneous meaning "against" ("gegen") has become proverbial - not only in English translations, but in Germany and German collections of quotations as well. --Morinox (talk) 11:26, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, yeah. The phrasing with "mot" ("against") is the usual one I have seen in Swedish translations... So Schiller coined the phrasing, he didn't paraphrase it? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:49, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure? Isn't Talbot complaining that he had to wage two battles at once, one against an enemy force and one against stupidity in his own ranks? The immediately preceding line is, Unsinn, du siegst und ich muß untergehn!. My interpretation is that he is in a way exonerating himself, saying: "If even gods cannot win from stupidity, I did not stand a chance." The well-known 1847 translation by Anna Swanwick translates the two lines as, "Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield ! / Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain."^[2] (Since she translated the whole play, we may assume she also read it.)  --Lambiam 16:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Ok, after re-reading Act 3 of the play, I must admit that it is not as clear-cut as I thought. I had relied on what I remember from reading the play at school, many years ago. I don't remember much about it, but I clearly recall that our teacher made a point of reading "Mit der Dummheit" as "Mit der Dummheit im Bunde" ("In league with stupidity"). But I don't remember details about his arguments for such reading.- I have now tried the web, but in spite of endless repetitions of the quotation as such (often enough misquoted as "Gegen die Dummheit"), I have found little about its interpretation, in fact only this (towards the bottom of the page), which again is just a statement, no reasons given.- I'll try to find more the next time I am in a good library. --Morinox (talk) 10:28, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Languages having no hissing consonants (e.g. s or sh): What's their traditional translation of the biblical verse in Judges 12 6 which distinguishes between s and sh ?

I mean, languages like Tamil - having ch only, as well as Maori Hawaiian and Tahitian - having no fricatives at all - except for f, v, h. HOTmag (talk) 16:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

They can substitute whatever corresponds in their orthography to /sj(i)/. An example is Icelandic, which does not have a postalveolar fricative, and uses sjibbólet.  --Lambiam 16:58, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

In Gilbertese, which is very consequent in the phonological nativization of loanwords ("Joshua" > Iotua) and only has [s] as an allomorph of /t/ before /i/, the word pair Shibboleth/Sibboleth is translated[3] as Tiboreta ([siporeta]) vs. Teiboreta ([teiporeta]). –Austronesier (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

In Japanese, sh should traditionally always be followed by an i, so it seems the distinction is made between シボレテ [shiborete] and セボレテ [seborete]. [4] (I'm not sure on why the words end in te instead of the usual epenthetic to.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:47, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, @Austronesier:, for your instructive example about Gilbertese, in which - the phonetic distinction between s and sh - becomes the phonetic distinction between s and t. Quite interesting ! HOTmag (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The translation problem you noted will occur not only in languages that completely lack sibilants, but also in languages that have some sibilant but lack the contrast between /s/ and /ʃ/. The Greek of the Septuagint is such a language. The Septuagint avoids the problem by not rendering the crucial word and its variant pronunciations at all, but just paraphrasing as "they told them: say the password, and they couldn't say it in this way" ("καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς Εἴπατε δὴ Σύνθημα· καὶ οὐ κατηύθυναν τοῦ λαλῆσαι οὕτως") [5]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

From what I can see online, the Modern Greek version handles it by using a variant with a consonant cluster, Σχίββωλεθ, and one with a single consonant, Σίββωλεθ. --Theurgist (talk) 15:11, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I guess 'Σχ' should theoretically be pronounced as /sx/, according to Greek orthography, like Dutch 'Sch', but I'm not sure on how native speakers would interpret it in practice... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:48, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

It's exactly that. Greek has words with /sx-/, for example σχολείο /sxoˈlio/ 'school'. --Theurgist (talk) 03:28, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

OP's comment: As far as I hear (e.g. on GoogleTranslate), Modern Greek speakers do use some contrast between /s/ and /ʃ/ as two allophones of the same phoneme Σ, so those speakers tend, to pronounce "Σι" more like /si/, and to pronounce "Σχι" more like /ʃxi/. Anyway, that's what I hear on GoogleTranslate, for Σίββωλεθ and Σχίββωλεθ. That's why I did not ask about Greek or Japanese or icelnadic or Gilbertese, but rather about languages having no hissing consonants. So it seems that Theurgist's response about Ancient Greek, that realy has no contrast between /s/ and /ʃ/, is the best one so far. Thank you @Theurgist:, and thanks also to the other editors for the information about the other languages. Now I wonder if the solution adopted by the Septuagint was also adopted, by languages having no hissing consonants, or by other languages (besides Ancient Greek) having no contrast between /s/ and /ʃ/ - even not as allophones only. HOTmag (talk) 09:00, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I did not comment about Ancient Greek; it was Fut.Perf. who did. I don't hear that kind of difference in Google Translate, and even if there is one, it's not phonemic, so they're the same sound as far as a native speaker is concerned. --Theurgist (talk) 11:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

So, thanks mainly to @Future Perfect at Sunrise:, but also to the other editors, including you. Of course the difference is not phonemic, but I do hear /ʃx/ in Σχίββωλεθ, as opposed to Σίββωλεθ in which I hear /s/. HOTmag (talk) 14:43, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

In Māori, which has no 's' or other sibilants, the name is given as Hiporete and the mispronunciation as Iporete.[6]-gadfium 20:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you so much, @Gadfium:. What's the level of your Māori language? Native? Near-native? HOTmag (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Very low fluency, unfortunately, although I have a little academic understanding of the language.-gadfium 23:52, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

All right. HOTmag (talk) 00:17, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

By the way, I was wrong about Tamil translation, which turns out to make a distinction between: ஷிபோலேத் pronounced "(T)SHipolet", vs. சிபோலேத் pronounced "(T)Sipolet". HOTmag (talk) 09:18, 2 January 2022 (UTC)