Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 December 13

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December 13

What's the name for this sort of deceptive statement?

Say, if a man says to his wife "I swear to you that I am not having sex with another woman" - meaning really "at the time I made that statement, I was not having sex with abother woman - I was sat talking to you", but leaving out that he had previously been unfaithful to his wife and would likely be unfaithful again in the future. In other words, he's not technically lying. What's that called? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.200.126.234 (talk) 02:29, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

It's called lying. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:55, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

You almost have the right word in your question... the word I think you're looking for is technicality. Fabrickator (talk) 04:56, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The OP is imposing a specific meaning on the term "lying". It's kind of the Humpty-Dumpty approach to word usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:08, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Sophistry? Casuistry? Playing the slippery eel? DuncanHill (talk) 05:49, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Lying by omission Among Us for POTUS (talk) 06:27, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

It is a mental reservation, where the hearer is led to understand something while the speaker is telling an abridged form of the truth. Elizium23 (talk) 02:32, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

The person making the statement is equivocating on the meaning of the English present progressive, insisting on a stricter in-the-present interpretation than is normal. AnonMoos (talk) 21:33, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Misleading - "Deceptive or tending to mislead or create a false impression, even if technically true." Mitch Ames (talk) 09:51, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Glig-Gamena Angel-Deod

The antiquary Joseph Strutt wrote a book called Glig-Gamena Angel-Deod or the Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. What does "Glig-Gamena Angel-Deod" mean? Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 03:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Old English: glig

Modern English: glee music minstrelsy jesting sport

Old English: gamen (gamena: plural of gamen?)

Modern English 1: game; sport; or pastime

Modern English 2: joy; mirth; or pleasure

Old English: angelþéod

Modern English: the English people; the English nation; England

This is my interpretation based on Old English to Modern English Translator.

Caveat: I have no prior knowledge of Old English (though "angel" is a fairly obvious reference to England, especially if you already know that's what you're solving for). Fabrickator (talk) 05:23, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

So  Glig-Gamena Angel-Ðeod  means "The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England".  --Lambiam 08:14, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, Ðeod, not Deod. I assumed that it was connected to Dead, at first. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:49, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Splendid, thank you all. DuncanHill (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

In Old English, the letters þ/Þ and ð/Ð had exactly the same meaning -- but D and Ð were highly different! AnonMoos (talk) 21:33, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

P.S. To be correct Old English, at a minimum the word "þeod" should be in the genitive case... AnonMoos (talk) 22:51, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Three questions

1. Are there any romanization systems for English which use ⟨j⟩ for [j] sound? I don't like that English romanization system of Russian doesn't use J at all.
2. Why letter Х is romanized to English as Kh, and not simply as H, like it is romanized in Finnish?
3. Why does Turkmen use W instead of V for [β] sound? Proto-Uralic reconstructions also use W for same sound, but why? --40bus (talk) 13:57, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

1: The point of an English transcription, as opposed to a language-independent romanization, is to be user-friendly for English speakers. The usage of ⟨j⟩ for that sound would generally be confusing for them, so why would there be one?

2: Again, user-friendliness. That letter stands for /x/, which is different from /h/. Besides, the /x/ in Russian can e.g. occur syllable-finally, which English /h/ cannot.

3: I don't know if this is the real reason, but a 1992 project for a Turkmen alphabet proposed the unusual usage of ⟨v⟩ for the vowel /y/, while the ⟨w⟩ was due to represent /β/. Later official versions dropped the ⟨v⟩ replacing it with ⟨ü⟩, and retained the ⟨w⟩ as-is. --Theurgist (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

For #2: Finnish has no /x/ too, but they use H. Why does English not do the same? --40bus (talk) 15:39, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Because English speakers would then pronounce it like an English H. Like in "happy". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:06, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

For example, word горах would be gorah, and English speakers would not pronounce h, and would pronounce it as [goʊ̯.ɹə], rhyming with Sarah. --40bus (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Does that Russian word sound like the English name "Sarah"? Or does it end with a different sound? And how are other Russian words that end in that letter pronounced? And how are Russian words that begin with that letter (or have it in the middle) pronounced? Again, as Theurgist said, romanization systems for English are designed to be easier for English speakers to use. "What sound would a native English speaker most likely associate with that letter/group of English letters?" and "What letter/group of letters would a native speaker most likely use to represent that sound?" are the operative questions. Whether it makes sense to speakers of the language being Romanized (or any other, for that matter) is completely irrelevant. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:07, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Also to #1) There are functionally close to zero native English words, and essentially zero common borrowings from other languages, that use "j" for the Voiced palatal approximant. "J" in native English words are is always the /dʒ/, and you'll also see English speakers using j as /h/ for Spanish words (like Jalepeño), and as ʒ for French words (as in bonjour). The /j/ phoneme in English is essentially always written with a "y". --Jayron32 18:44, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Why English opted different letter for /j/ sound and different sound for letter J than other Germanic languages? In my proposed English spelling reform, J stands for /j/ sound and /dʒ/ sound instead written by digraph dc, as in joke (current yoke) and dcoke (current joke). --40bus (talk) 19:15, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@40bus Why, occasionally, don't you attempt to find things out for yourself? Try reading the article on J. Bazza (talk) 19:20, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The current situation of J comes from French, but I think that it would be better if English J had come from Germanic J and adopted letter names from Germanic (e.g. name of G would have a /g/ sound at the beginning). --40bus (talk) 19:33, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Not to be too rude, but nobody gives a flyin' f*** how you think English spelling should be reformed. It is as pointless and offensive as it would be for me to try to tell you how to write your native language. Please stop. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:45, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there any language spoken in Africa, Oceania or native American language which uses letter J for /j/ sound? And why didn't Old English speakers create letter names and English inherit them? The name /giː/ would be better for G to avoid confusion with J. --40bus (talk) 08:09, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

No language written in the Latin alphabet created its own letter names, as far as I know. As for the English name of the letter 'G', I believe it was imported from Old French (where pronunciation differs depending on palatalization. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:23, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

@Wakuran:: Basque calls ⟨x⟩ ixa Basque pronunciation: [iʃa] reflecting the Basque pronunciation rather than the Romance names. Spanish has eñe, elle and che extending the pattern of other consonants. --Error (talk) 01:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Basque, alright, although it just seems to be a single counter-example. For Spanish, I don't really count it, since Latin didn't have ñ or ll and ch as digraphs to the same extent. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:29, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

40bus -- I'm pretty sure that I've linked to the Africa Alphabet in one of my past responses to a thread you started, and I also gave a lengthy explanation of the early origins of Roman alphabet letter names. The name of the letter "G" in English is a straight phonological development of the old Latin letter name [ge] as it went through Old French, Middle English, and Modern English, where the affrication of the consonant occured in French, and the raising of the vowel occurred due to the Great Vowel Shift. "J" of course didn't exist as a separate letter until the 17th century, so its name is much later. I'm not sure exactly where the English letter-name "jay" came from, but it's very naturally acrophonic in nature (i.e. begins with the sound which the letter most commonly writes). Native English-speakers are not usually confused by this, so I'm not sure why you should be...

In any case, the letter "J" writing the sound [j] is basically confined to a kind of Central European and Balto-Scandic zone, which includes the written Germanic languages other than English (and Yiddish), and then an adjacent geographical strip of languages of diverse affiliations from Finnish down to Croatian. Of these languages, only Dutch had any significant effect in expanding "J"=[j] overseas, as seen in Afrikaans and the old orthography of Indonesian (abandoned about 50 years ago). AnonMoos (talk) 23:05, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Norwegian pronounces the letter as [jeː] (instead of [jiː] as in Swedish). I'm not sure whether it might be due to analogy with other consonants, or as a way to differentiate it from I ([iː]). Alternatively, it's 'jodd' [jɔd], as in English Yod. (Although when looking it up, an [i] / [i:]-ending seems rare outside of Swedish and French, anyway...) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:26, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

and then an adjacent geographical strip of languages of diverse affiliations from Finnish down to Croatian -- and even further south, to Albanian. Of these languages, only Dutch had any significant effect in expanding "J"$=$[j] overseas -- the Norse speakers expanded it to Greenland and Iceland; and Sicilians, to Malta. --213.137.66.28 (talk) 12:21, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I included Icelandic above, since it's a written Germanic language with strong Scandinavian connections. AnonMoos (talk) 22:49, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, our article on Baltoscandia claims that it does include Iceland, but it's illustrated with File:Euler Diagram for Baltoscandia.svg which claims that it doesn't include Iceland, so its belonging is somewhat ambiguous. --82.166.199.42 (talk) 12:32, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Is Maltese only non-Indo-European and Uralic language which has "J"=[j]? And Й should be transliterated as J. --40bus (talk) 19:30, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

How Й is transliterated depends on which language it's transliterated to. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:45, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@40bus:: Help:IPA/Basque says:

The realisation of the grapheme j varies depending on dialect and can be [j, ʝ, ɟ, dʒ, ʒ, ʃ, χ]. The last, resembling Scottish English loch, is typical of Gipuzkoan, and it has also become common in eastern varieties of Biscayan and the Sakana variety of the Upper Navarrese. However, the standard pronunciation ruled by Euskaltzaindia is [j], and is the one followed in this help.

-- Error (talk) 01:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Greenlandic language, already mentioned above, is another non-Indo-European, non-Uralic example. A century ago, there was also Jaꞑalif for Soviet Turkic languages, as well as a few related non-Turkic alphabets, e.g. for Chukot and Buryat language, which were all replaced with Cyrillic (using Й) in the 1930s. --213.137.66.36 (talk) 08:43, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

There is also Esperanto: although based on Indo-European languages, it isn't itself classified as an Indo-European language. --2001:BF8:200:396:DD2C:DB8D:92FA:D42B (talk) 07:57, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you could send a letter to the creator of a given language and tell them to change it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:17, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, trying to look at it objectively, as an intellectual experiment, I guess I can find the endeavor interesting. If it's meant a proposal to alter the orthography, it's likely altogether futile. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:26, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Anyway, "I" and "J" were actually the same letter until the 17th century... AnonMoos (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I have seen Russian transliterations using J and H in English texts, but not often.

Hallelujah, Jägermeister, Jarlsberg cheese. But yeah, not common. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Have you seen any using J and X?

Among common borrowings, there's also fjord. Double sharp (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't recall ever seeing J + X. — kwami (talk) 07:31, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

It would certainly help using ⟨j⟩ and ⟨x⟩ in transliteration of Ukrainian, which unlike Russian has both /ɪ~j/ and /ɦ~x/ oppositions, which the conventional transliteration doesn't handle well: e.g. Zelenskyy's last name ends in /-ɪj/, unhelpfully represented as ⟨-yy⟩. --82.166.199.42 (talk) 12:32, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Romance grammatical cases

Two questions about Romance grammatical cases:

1. Is there any non-Romanian Romance language which has retained grammatical cases?
2. Whiy did Romance languages lost grammatical cases?

--40bus (talk) 19:35, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

From memory, all Romance languages keep grammatical cases for pronouns. I think they are suppletive in some forms. In Spanish, compare yo, me, mías; quien, cuyo. I think you have to go to Romance-based pidgins, creoles and auxlangs to find pronouns that keep their form in all cases.

Already in Latin, some of the roles that are assigned to cases in other languages were expressed with prepositions. Romance languages carried it further, perhaps because of the erosion of the word endings

--Error (talk) 10:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there any non-Romanian Romance language which has retained grammatical cases in nouns, adjectives and numerals in addition to pronouns? --40bus (talk) 10:40, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Case systems similar to that of Romanian are found in nearby closely related small languages: Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian. --Theurgist (talk) 15:39, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I think that Romance linguistics should cover your questions. MinorProphet (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2022 (UTC)