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November 26

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Seremtrog na-kiskaa shinjerak

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I remember back in school in the early 1990s, at computer class, one of my classmates made a simple point-and-click adventure game called (as far as I can remember) "Seremtrog na-kiskaa shinjerak". He added a note "The name of the game means 'The black cavern of the brown death cult'" or something (I don't remember the exact words). Does this name actually mean something in some language or is it something my classmate or someone else made up? Google Translate wasn't of much help. It identified the language as Russian but could not translate a single word to English. JIP | Talk 00:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently made up, unless they had invented their own transliteration system for a language not written in the Latin script. Alansplodge (talk) 12:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 27

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Spanish diphthongs

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Does Spanish have any words where falling diphthongs occur before consonants, such as in made-up words loyto, peyre, sayl and muyche? I know no such words. --40bus (talk) 21:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know very little Spanish, but how about "aire", as in "Buenos Aires"? AnonMoos (talk) 13:09, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seis, amáis, aceite, peina, reina, vaina, deuda? It doesn't seem particularly rare, although they wouldn't typically be spelled with y. 71.126.57.88 (talk) 20:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really familar with falling diphtongs, but in Spanish the distinction between i and y is orthographic, rather than phonemic. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 28

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Clock questions

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  1. Does 12-hour clock have a written numeric form in any of continental European countries? Does it have a written numeric form in Finnish, Polish, Italian and Swedish, for example?
  2. How do English speakers say leading zero of times such as 01:15?
  3. Why does English not use word "clock" in expressions of time? Why is it not "Clock is five" but "It is five"?
  4. Does English ever use expressions such as "It is 16", "I go to sleep at 22", "The shop opens at 7"? And are terms like "15 sunset" (meaning a sunset between 15:00 and 16:00) and "19 news" (meaning a news broadcast starting around 19:00) understood in the same way as "3 PM sunset" and "7 PM news"? --40bus (talk) 06:21, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    4. Yes to "the shop opens (or closes) at seven"; no to the others. —Tamfang (talk) 20:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have also asked questions 1 - 3 on the Miscellaneous desk, where I have already answered two of them. I suggest you transfer 4 there and strike out this query or the responses might become confused. If you do so I will also address 4 there. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 07:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is the place to ask these questions, not the Miscellaneous desk. These are related to language. I posted these on wrong desk because I replied to the ethnicity question there, and forgot to go to another desk. I think that this discussion should be continued there. --40bus (talk) 07:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
40bus -- As I'm sure you've been told before, in the United States, military people sometimes say things such as "Men, we hit the beaches at oh-two-hundred hours" (i.e. 02:00) or "We have an inspection at twenty-two hundred hours" (22:00), but 12-hour AM and PM usage without leading zeroes predominates almost exclusively in non-military and non-narrowly-technical contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 13:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can only speak from a British point of view, so don't know how things are said in other English speaking countries, but
2) I would say "Oh one fifteen". This would imply 01:15 in the morning as opposed to 13:15. "One fifteen" could be either morning or afternoon, depending on context.
3) "Clock is five" isn't an English expression, however "five o'clock" is. I believe this is short for the formal "five of the clock", but that would never be used in full. "Five o'clock" could be 05:00 or 17:00, again depending on context. "Seventeen o'clock" wouldn't be used.
4) The 24 hour clock is used to avoid ambiguity, for example in railway timetables, and understood by most people, but would only be used for a precise time, for example "The train leaves at twenty-two fifteen", not "the train leaves at quarter past twenty-two".
Generally the British use the 12 hour clock, and where necessary add "a.m." or "p.m." I don't know about other countries so can't answer #1. -- Voice of Clam (talk) 13:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. George Orwell's "1984" starts with the sentence "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen", but I hope you don't want to live in that world... AnonMoos (talk) 14:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Besides "occasion" and "equation," what other word pairs sound somewhat similar enough that foreigners may intend to pronounce one word but pronounce a whole 'nother word by mispronouncing what they had intended?

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I can also think of "pretend" and "portend."

What are words you can think of that sound like entirely different but similar words in any foreign accent? --2600:8803:1D13:7100:9FF:58EA:8413:22F3 (talk) 18:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign accents vary widely, so the question is quite vaguely phrased. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:54, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you don't have to cite similarities of word pairs for every accent; you can just share the ones for the accents you know. I'm hoping for a variety of answers from a variety of users. --2600:100A:B051:403F:5829:6046:7D7:35FD (talk) 03:11, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Both your examples have very different vowels (o versus e) in writing and to most people those sound very different too. Foreigners would tend to pronounce them differently. Very few languages don't distinguish front vowels from back vowels. English of course features very strong vowel reduction, so all unstressed vowels sound more or less the same. Foreigners are more likely to mishear occasion/equation than to mispronounce them.
Consider pairs differing in voicedness of a plosive. For example time/dime. In English, the t is aspirated, the d is voiceless or slightly voiced. If the foreigners native language has fully voiced d and unaspirated t (for example, French or Dutch), the foreigner's time may sound like dime to a native speaker. There's also bag/back. I think that phonetically the difference is mostly in the length of the vowel (but I'm no native English speaker and to me they sound pretty much the same), so this may be hard for speakers of languages with no phonemic vowel length.
Also consider pairs with similar vowels, like bit/beet. No problem for people who have those vowels in their native language, but if your native language only has 5 or 6 vowels (like Spanish or Italian), those are confusing. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are several languages that reguarly unvoice consonant sounds in final positions, such as all Continental West Germanic and all (?) Slavic languages (I think). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, AFAIK they unvoice their voiced obstruents in final position. That is, to the extend that they have voiced obstruents, which may be less than you might think on first sight. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might not even need to be foreigners. I once met a British girl named Ella who spoke some British accent where it seemed like the vowel sounds of bAt and bEt had merged, so I thought at first she was named Alla. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 29

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I hate modern music

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I don't actually, but I don't like it as much as the music of my teen years and twenties. Is there a word for this? HiLo48 (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you're over 70 you have impeccable taste. Otherwise it's nostalgia. Doug butler (talk) 02:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well into my 70s, so thank you. HiLo48 (talk) 02:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not a new complaint by any means:[1]Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots03:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not really a complaint. I recognise that me feelings are not uncommon, across the generations, and wondered if this has been more broadly identified and even studied. HiLo48 (talk) 04:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I always detested the sound of electric guitars in my youth, and I only started enjoying myself on the dance floor when techno appeared in around 1997, plus plenty of MDMA. And now Charli xcx, of course. Is there a word for this? Guess how old I'll be next week. ("Will you still need me, will you still feed me...?") MinorProphet (talk) 04:23, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
'Citharaphobia' apparently exists in the wild. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 07:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Slate article "Musical nostalgia" mentions several studies. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's good.. Interestingly, it mentions Katy Perry. A choir I'm in did her song Firework a few years ago, and now her music is one modern thing I'm keen on. Getting heavily involved, like learning to sing a song properly, does seem to make a difference. I feel the topic is worth an article, but it's become such a pain to create new articles here these days, I don't think I could be bothered. HiLo48 (talk) 00:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure why you think that. I created one just the other day, the first in quite a while because I've been involved in "other stuff", in which time all manner of rules and protocols could have changed - but it was quite painless. Did I do something wrong? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 01:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the encouragement. I'll give it a go. HiLo48 (talk) 01:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've heard the term "taste freeze", and experienced that myself some 20 or 25 years ago. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There seem to be quite a few articles containing that term. HiLo48 (talk) 05:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
From the title, I supposed you were talking about music by the likes of Stockhausen and Ligeti - though, I suppose they're not actually modern any more. ColinFine (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 1

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"Kadour Hachemi Karim Directeur des services vétérinaires au niveau du ministre de l agriculture"

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https://radioalgerie.dz/news/fr/content/161739.html

What would the correct title for this position in English? Trade (talk) 02:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Literally it's Director of veterinary services at the level of the minister of agriculture, but I guess you're not asking that. It is a curious formulation! —Tamfang (talk) 03:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More fully: "directeur des services vétérinaires au niveau du ministre de l'agriculture et du développement rural". Google translates this as "Director of Veterinary Services at the level of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development". This seems a fair translation but would imply that this directorial position pulls the same weight as that of a minister. That is hard to imagine; the veterinary services at the Algerian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are clearly subordinate.
Elsewhere I find his position named as "Directeur des services vétérinaires (DSV) au ministère de l'Agriculture, du Développement rural et de la Pêche".[2] It appears that Karim has been succeeded in this position by Imad Idres, also using the simpler title "directeur des services vétérinaires au ministère de l'agriculture et du développement rural".[3]
So I'd go by, "Director of Veterinary Services at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development".  --Lambiam 04:14, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

buyer's remorse in reverse

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Buyers' remorse is when you buy something and then regret doing so. What if anything is it called if you resist (say) a tempting Black Friday deal, and then afterwards regret that you didn't take it? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:C426 (talk) 11:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Non-buyer's remorse" has some Google results, like Non-Buyer’s Remorse: All the Things We Didn’t Buy and Now Regret for example. Alansplodge (talk) 12:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a retrospective "fear of missing out"? AnonMoos (talk) 23:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Korean romanization question

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In the Revised Romanization of Korean, is it possible to have triple consonants like -ttt- within a word if a stop is followed by a tense consonant? (I'm not fully acquainted with Korean phonology, so my apologies if this is a dumb question.) 71.126.57.88 (talk) 20:01, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's a reasonable question. This would not happen in the middle of a single morpheme, so it would have to be at a morpheme boundary. The example I can come up with is tteok-kkochi, where we add a hyphen. This seems sensible, but I can't see that the hyphen is mandatory in Revised Romanization of Korean. So maybe yes? --Amble (talk) 19:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 2

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English suffixes

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Can suffixes like -onym, -gram, -graph and -al be added to native English words? For example if oral means "mouth", could it be also mouthal, Or if hydronym is a name of wather body, is then lakonym a name of lake? --40bus (talk) 22:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not usually, but there a few humorous coinages and "nonce words". "Burial" is a native word with an "-al" suffix -- but not from the Latin adjective suffix. Some other non-Germanic-derived prefixes and suffixes are more promiscuous, such as "re-" (as in redo"), "-able" (as in "drinkable") etc. AnonMoos (talk) 23:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also "bridal", though originally from bride+ale, is used as an adjective, according to OED, "by association with adjectives (of Lat. origin) in -al, as nuptial, natal, mortal, etc.". - Lindert (talk) 23:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See Wiktionary categories wikt:Category:English_terms_suffixed_with_-onym, wikt:Category:English terms suffixed with -nym, wikt:Category:English terms suffixed with -graph, wikt:Category:English terms suffixed with -gram. There are some examples that get used, like shadowgraph and scattergram. You can add these suffixes to a native English word if you are knowingly coining a new term, but you will probably need to tell people what you mean by it. --Amble (talk) 00:14, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But does "shadowgraph" really have a suffix, or is it an ordinary compound of the English words "shadow" and "graph"? And words like "candygram" do not really have the Greek -gram suffix, but have the second half of the word "telegram" appended to indicate a modified form of a telegram service, in exactly the same way that political scandals are often given names with the second half of "Watergate" appended. (Admittedly, that doesn't apply to "scattergram"...) AnonMoos (talk) 10:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
English is a slut. She'll consort with any suffix that comes down the pike. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” ― James D. Nicoll --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of lakonym, try limnonym. In scholarly coinage, there is an unwritten (and not always adhered to) convention that a term formed with -onym takes an Ancient Greek root as its first part. In popular coinage, there are no rules.  --Lambiam 09:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My observation has been that typical practice in popular coinage is adding a Greek affix to a Latin root, or vice versa. Folly Mox (talk) 12:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, @Folly Mox, I think that typical practice in popular coinage is adding an affix to a root, with no knowledge or interest in the origin of either. ColinFine (talk) 14:12, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We are all (I hope) familiar with Poul Anderson's seminal work 'Uncleftish Beholding'. A similar essay might involve recasting technological and similar words of modern(-ish) coinage by replacing them with pure Latin or Greek (etc.) constructs rather than bi-lingual chimerae. I wonder how many one could fit in to a coherent narrative? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 10:46, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 4

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Palatalization in Hunsrückisch?

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Section Hunsrückisch § Phonology states:

"Palatalization also occurs, with Dorf (village) becoming Dooref, Kirche (church) becoming Keerisch, and Berg (mountain) becoming Beerisch."

I see no palatalization. The preceding sentence describes the vowel lengthening. Is it correct to describe the further change as the insertion of an epenthetic [ə] or [i]? Pinging @NeorxenoSwang:.  --Lambiam 13:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose what the original author meant was the change from [ç] to [ʃ] implied in "Keerisch" and "Beerisch", but that's of course not really palatalization, but a fronting from palatal towards palatal-alveolar or thereabouts. And I can't see how the "Dorf" example would fit in with any of that, except with the vowel lengthening described in the previous sentence. But yes, the extra vowel would properly be described as epenthesis, I guess. Pity the whole article is unsourced. Fut.Perf. 13:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some digging strongly suggests the statement is based on: Roland Martin, Untersuchungen zur rhein-moselfränkischen Dialektgrenze, Deutsche Dialektgeographie Vol. 11a, Marburg, 1922. I could not find online access to this monograph.  --Lambiam 22:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved in an old edition at de:Hunsrückisch:
Überdies tritt Sprosslautung ein: Dorf wird zu Dooref, Kirche zu Keerisch, Berg zu Beerisch.[4]
 --Lambiam 07:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is the possessive form of "works" in the sense of a factory?

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The word "works", in the sense of a factory, looks plural in form but can be singular or plural. What is the possessive of "works" in that sense? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.242.92.97 (talk) 15:28, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See apostrophe. Probably works's. "The works's managers".  Card Zero  (talk) 17:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I can't imagine anyone actually saying that. /wərksɨz/. That would sound very strange.
I think I would go with works' for that reason, whether it's precisely grammatical or not. --Trovatore (talk) 19:12, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, as does the British Parliament in 1886; ...a Bill relating to the Metropolitan Board of Works' Fire Brigade Expenses... [5] Alansplodge (talk) 20:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I guess you can't imagine me, then. Sounds perfectly normal to me.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with Trovatore here. How does one even pronounce works's? Worksers? That's ugly. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is it any weirder than 'roses' or 'poses'?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There was a mummy passed off as the daughter of king Xerxes that turned out to be a modern corpse, and a false claim that Xerxes himself was an 8 foot tall giant. These are the Xerxes hoaxes.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Works's sounds fine to me (pronounced workses [where did you get the "r"?]). Clarityfiend (talk) 03:02, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I added the "R" to write something that would be pronounced the way I thought you would say this. I've never heard workses. HiLo48 (talk) 06:02, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably a non-rhotic R. I remember learning skat from the (British) Penguin Book of Card Games, and teaching it to my folks. The book said it was pronounced "scart", and I couldn't convince my dad to stop saying it that way. --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC) [reply]
About the same as "works is". --Amble (talk) 05:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a grammar rule English acquired from Gollumish. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We use Juniper Networks's several times in the article Juniper Networks. In Skunk Works we have Skunk Works' once.--Amble (talk) 05:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And in Karl Marx, we use Marx's nearly 100 times. --Amble (talk) 17:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Marx's sounds fine to me, works's doesn't. Couldn't tell you why.
Or to borrow a cadence from Karl the Marx/A biting chipmunk never barx
--Trovatore (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly because your sense of grammar fails to see works as a singular.  --Lambiam 10:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That could be it. --Trovatore (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 6

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What is she saying (in Hebrew)?

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The guy (Tzvi Yehezkeli, whose English is not too good) says in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDzWrFZszW0&t=1h12m54s (at 1:12:54): "We need his [Trump's] help to know our Judaism point (sic). You see sometimes you need the other to tell you where to go." Right then the lady (Caroline Glick) cuts him off with a saying (or a quote) in Hebrew which I couldn't catch. Can someone who speaks Hebrew figure out what she says? (The guy then agrees "בדיוק!"). 178.51.16.158 (talk) 01:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

אָ֭ז יֹאמְר֣וּ בַגּוֹיִ֑ם הִגְדִּ֥יל יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה
part of psalm 126:2. [6] trespassers william (talk) 03:14, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the "Then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things" part. trespassers william (talk) 03:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

British Raj terminology

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What terms would have been used by the British to identify an Indian person during the days of the British Raj? It's for an item I'm writing and in an ideal case, there'd be a term that today sounds dated and paternalistic, but maybe not horribly racist or offensive, as it's meant to highlight the age of the British speaker rather than insult Indians. What I'm going for is the kind of obviously dated stuff Mr. Burns sometimes uses on The Simpsons. Matt Deres (talk) 02:43, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Native. See for instance the opening sentences of Kim.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Coolie although some do not consider it offensive. See https://www.coolitude.shca.ed.ac.uk/word-%E2%80%98coolie%E2%80%99 196.50.199.218 (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Card Zero above, "native" was the generally used term. British officials sometimes adopted Indian clothing and customs and were said derisively to have "gone native".
"Coolie" was specifically a labourer and could be applied to Chinese workers as well.
An educated Indian who worked in the British administration was known as a babu (or earlier "baboo").
People of mixed British and Indian heritage were known as "Anglo-Indians", "Eurasians" or "Indo-Britons". Alansplodge (talk) 10:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A more general term applied to anyone of first-degree mixed race (including Anglo-Indians) was "half-chat", meaning "Half-caste" or bi-racial. In some instances this could be intended perjoratively, but in, for example, the British army (where marriages between British soldiers and women from the countries they were posted to were commonplace), it was used purely descriptively, and was still current in the 1970s. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 13:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
About that Babu article ... should I change the Greek from papu to páppou? Then there's some Indian English going on in the phrasing of "the urban trend to call "babu" to girlfriends or boyfriends, or common-friends", in the "to call X to Y" construction and the term common-friends. Should I "correct" that, or leave it be? I guess it's still English, so maybe the usual "whoever got there first" rule applies, as well as the India-themed article context.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing I noted is that it seems to read as if the Swahili word is cognate to the Indo-European examples, which is a bit oddly phrased for a wanderwort. I'm not entirely sure on how to rephrase it, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:12, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the entire passage. All those words from non-Indian languages are quite irrelevant to that article, and the claim that they are cognates is plain false, and all of it was of course unsourced. Fut.Perf. 12:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Like Wakuran says - and I didn't know this excellent term wanderwort - they probably are really distant cognates, like mama, which usually means "mother" all over the world (or "breast", or "chew", or sometimes "father").  Card Zero  (talk) 12:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They are actually not wanderwort cases but mama–papa words, a somewhat different category. Wanderwörter actually are related, via borrowing, which can often be historically tracked with some precision. Mama–papa words aren't related at all, but believed to be independently innovated in each language via parent–child interaction in early langauge acquisition. Fut.Perf. 12:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, OK. But it's like "no officer, I just happened to be passing the bank at the time and I wear this stocking on my head for fun, ask anyone." I remain suspicious.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:14, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting; I always considered Coolie to be a pejorative for Chinese labourers, but it's clearly more broad than that. That could work - thank you! Matt Deres (talk) 16:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Sranantongo, kuli is a slur for Indo-Surinamese people. It is not used for Chinese Surinamese. Both ethnic groups were originally imported, under false promises, as indentured labourers.  --Lambiam 10:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen the term "Hindoo" used in older literature. Its obviously related to the modern "Hindu", but from the context I don't think it was exactly equivalent, and I think referred more to race or ethnicity than religion. Iapetus (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Norwegian only has 4.4m speakers worldwide, and is on DuoLingo, but why does Kinyarwanda NOT show up on DuoLingo even though it has ~20m speakers?

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How come DuoLingo gets to have Norwegian but not Kinyarwanda when there are over 10m more speakers of the Kinyarwanda language in the world than the Norwegian language?

And how can I / we get DuoLingo to add Kinyarwanda to their repertoire of available languages to train ourselves on? --2600:100A:B03B:6996:D13E:4CBE:EF0B:CD17 (talk) 23:22, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Norway is a rich, Western, European country with a big economic market and widespread digitalization. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These are both questions for DuoLingo. There is a "contact us" button on their home page. Shantavira|feed me 12:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 7

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From German to English, please translate this catchy Pippi theme song?

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Can someone translate the lyrics, please? Thanks in advance. --2600:100A:B03B:6996:D13E:4CBE:EF0B:CD17 (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here you can read the lyrics in German and here what Google Translate makes of it.  --Lambiam 09:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a Swede, I must add that this is a translation from Swedish, with the rhytm slightly altered . [7], [8]. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do the lyrics have basic multiplication done incorrectly? --2600:100A:B051:1A2B:1962:BC0E:1BE6:A1A6 (talk) 20:34, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because in-universe, Pippi is (in)famously depicted as having a horrible understanding of mathematics, she refers to the "multiplikationstabell" (multiplication table) as "pluttifikationstabell" ("muddlyplication table" or something)... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pippi’s tendency to equate all school knowledge with “pluttification” (literally “fartification”) and her capacity to outsmart the teacher during her visit at school ridicules the quantification of knowledge and formal learning outside of any practical context.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say that's a misunderstanding of the Swedish, fartification would be "pruttifikation" and "pluttifikation" would rather mean "tinyfication". As a noun, I guess "plutt" could also mean a small lump or chunk of something viscous, but it might be a somewhat strained interpretation. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
惑乱, thanks for your wonderful contributions. This here is a great explanation, and "muddlyplication" is a stroke of genius that's very hard to achieve in translations. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 15:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What does the Greek varia indicate?

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The character ` (Greek Varia) is represented by the Unicode codepoint U+1FEF.[9]. But what is it good for? BTW, it's not listed in the disambiguation page Varia. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 08:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

varia is a modern (?) transcription of βαρεῖα (bareia), the greek name for the grave accent (see also the odd redirect Bareia (accent)). --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Modern Greek referred to as βαρεία, also for use in other languages such as French. The original /b/ pronunciation already turned into a /v/ in Byzantine Greek.  --Lambiam 09:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But of course - thanks, Wrongfilter! I now see that it's already in the disamb page.
That said, the current link to Greek_diacritics#Grave_accent_rule could probably be improved. Either to subsection Greek_diacritics#Accents or to Ancient Greek accent#Grave_accent or to Grave accent, but then the name “varia” should be added to the linked section.
Thanks also to Lambiam; i read your post after an edit conflict. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 09:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okinawan and pitch accent?

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Your article Okinawan language does not say a thing about pitch accent. Did you forget to mention it or does the language not have one? If the latter I would submit that pointing out the fact explicitly would make it clearer. There are Japanese dialects with no pitch accent. (For example the one spoken in Miyazaki). 178.51.16.158 (talk) 16:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You ask "did you forget . . .", but the article has existed for over 20 years and has had (if I've got the maths right) over 300 contributors, so the absence of mention is suggestive.
On the other hand, web searching the question retrieves (for me) AI assertions (unreliable) that it does, but only a weak statement by a speaker that they think it does (not very convincing) and no positive human-written passage detailing it.
Our article on Ryukyuan languages (of which it is one) states (in more than one place) "Many Ryukyuan languages, like Standard Japanese and most Japanese dialects, have contrastive pitch accent" (or similar wording): of course, "many" implies "not all".
Overall, this seems to me to be inconclusive, and needing the input of a genuinely knowledgable linguist. Anyone? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Okinawan is considered a lexical pitch accent language".[10]  --Lambiam 23:33, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi. i was wondering if there are any featured articles that are not on the former featured article list since they were actually deleted. I see redirected ones but not deleted ones. Please let me know. Thank you. 50.100.44.204 (talk) 19:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why this is on the language refdesk, but I remember spoo, which was originally a nice-looking page about the animal/foodstuff from the Babylon 5 universe. Jimbo famously hated it because it was poorly sourced (not sure it had any sources really), but I don't think he put his thumb on the scale, and it was later deleted by the regular process. It's been recreated as a disambig page. --Trovatore (talk) 19:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 8

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Please translate from Korean to English, the lyrics to this beautiful-sounding song "Saranghaneun Iege"

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What are the lines that the man sings, and that the woman sings? --2600:8803:1D13:7100:DF19:733C:C7D3:4BD4 (talk) 05:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For a translation, see here. The two singers sing alternate lines of one running text; it is not a kind of dialogue between them.  --Lambiam 17:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 10

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I happened to come across this recent article on sv-WP. The word is also on Urban Dictionary [11] and Wiktionary [12].

Does this word exist in English or other languages? Or something close? Google translate on the sv-WP article suggests "woolling" or "wooling", but I don't know if that's valid. There's some logic in it, I'll say that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's from ollon, Swedish for glans penis, calqued from Latin. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I knew that. But does the a word for the act exist in for example English. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Word for definition of requiring excellence

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Is there a word for this type of problem. This is an example. A company wants excellent employees. They require that all applicants have a college degree with perfect grades. As a result, all applicants come from paper mill universities where you get a perfect grade just for paying for the course. Instead of getting excellence, the company gets worse employees than before imlpementing the rule that was intended to increase excellence. In general, I'm looking for a shorter way to say: The action you are implementing to get a good outcome will instead bring about the opposite. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's a word for an editorial comment disguised as a question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots13:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Backfire 196.50.199.218 (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perverse incentive.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I got to that from Backfire, also Unintended_consequences#Perverse_results with many more examples of the type of thing I am trying to define. I will test it on a few people, but I feel that use of the word "perverse" will make it harder to understand than easier... a perverse result in itself. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]