Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 March 19

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March 19

Why do these characters sound so different?

Usually when two Chinese characters are the same syllable with different tones, they sound like the same syllable with different tones (examples are sān/三 and sǎn/伞). However, the syllables rendered as “er” sound like radically different syllables. Ér/儿 sounds a bit like a filler word (the exact sound of the E here is hard to describe), but èr/二 has the E a lot more A-like, ending up sounding closer to the English word “are.” Why do these characters sound like totally different syllables as opposed to the same syllable just with different tones? It’s been a long time since I heard 耳 and I’ve only encountered 尔 very few times (almost exclusively in writing), so I don’t 100% remember what I heard them as, but I think they were closer to 儿. Primal Groudon (talk) 14:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I can confirm that the vowel quality is often quite different in èr compared to the other tones. (Not in my idiolect, though.) Erhua claims (but without a citation) that this is a change that took place in recent decades. Double sharp (talk) 14:55, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Appositive pronoun cases

There are 4 situations where one case of a pronoun is prescribed in formal writing but where another case is used in everyday talk. These are:

1. Compounds (e.g. you and me)
2. Appositives (us followed by a noun)
3. Predicate nominatives
4. Who or whom

The second of these I see no references to anywhere in Wikipedia. Does Wikipedia have an article talking about the use of "us" followed by a noun as a subject?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Who vs. whom isn't really comparable to the others, since in this case the old object form is slowly leaving the language and being replaced by the old subject form -- while in the other situations, the object form replaces selected uses of the subject form, but there is no tendency for the subject form to be eliminated from the language. In some cases when this happens, the object pronoun is being used as a disjunctive pronoun, but I'm not sure that explains conjoined pronouns... AnonMoos (talk) 18:29, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

By the way, "It's I" is rather stylistically discordant (elevated formality of pronoun vs. the more relaxed level of speech of the contraction), while "It is I!" might be used by a melodrama villain to announce his arrival on stage, but not in too many other contexts. It's hard to get away from "It's me" and sound at all natural in 21st century English... AnonMoos (talk) 18:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The only character I can think of who regularly uses the phrase is Monsieur Roger Leclerc. DuncanHill (talk) 02:08, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

P.S. A very culturally prominent use of "us" + appositional noun in the mid-20th century U.S. was Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens... -- AnonMoos (talk) 02:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Shiver my timbers! Them chickens can talk!  --Lambiam 08:19, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

If we were not chickens, would you say "nobody but we"? --Tamfang (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The only way that "we" would be formally correct there would be if "but" were a conjunction, rather than a preposition, which seems doubtful. AnonMoos (talk) 01:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

There is nobody here except we chickens. DuncanHill (talk) 02:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

"There is/are naught here save we chickens"? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.241.39.117 (talk) 06:26, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

That would work against the ethnic nature of the joke. Plus it might make the farmer even more suspicious. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 02:23, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

There's an old joke that someone at an office picks up a ringing telephone and says "To whom am I speaking?", and the caller says "Did you just use the word `whom'? Sorry, I must have misdialed" and hangs up... AnonMoos (talk) 05:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Duncanhill -- According to Wiktionary, the word "except" is also a preposition... AnonMoos (talk) 05:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Translation of a Ukrainian memorial plaque, please?

I'd be so grateful for a translation of this memorial plaque. I know it commemorates Stepan Kovnir from eternity to eternity in the mind of the grateful city of Vasylkiv for building the church, but my Ukrainian is not good enough to capture the spirit of the writing. Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

For people wanting to give it a try, the text on the plaque is

з глибини віків
у глибінь віків
хай славиться
ім'я
Степана Ковніра
1695•1786
творця храму
окраси міста нашого

---

вдячні нащадки
земляку своєму
у знаменний рік
1000
ліття
Василькова
1993

With the help of Google translate [and Theurgist], this is, more or less,

from the depths of the ages
to the depths of the ages
let be glorified
the name
Stepan Kovnir
1695•1786
the creator of the temple,
the ornament of our city

---

the grateful posterity
to their compatriot
in the special year of
the1000'th
anniversary
of Vasylkiv
1993

 --Lambiam 11:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC) [edited 20:36, 22 March 2024 (UTC)]

A couple of things:

• It actually starts "з глибини віків / у глибінь віків". The words глибина, -и and глибінь mean the same thing.
• The actual word is нащадки nashchadky 'descendants'.
• "у знаменний рік" seems to be a way of introducing an anniversary. This bilingual document translates "у знаменний рік 20-ої річниці" as "in the special year of the 20th anniversary".

--Theurgist (talk) 11:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, so changed – except that Wiktionary gives a sense posterity for the plural of нащадок, so I have left that since the grateful plaquists are not likely to be descendants of the architect.  --Lambiam 20:36, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that "descendant(s)" can only be used in the literal sense. Meanwhile I fixed the romanization from nashchadki to nashchadky, using the standard representation of и /ɪ/, as opposed to і /i/. --Theurgist (talk) 00:14, 24 March 2024 (UTC)