Language desk
< September 2	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	September 4 >

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

September 3

"Case" in ancient languages

In Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#Per_aspera_ad_confusion above, and in Greek_alphabet there is the mention of the notion of letter "case". Upper and lower case refers to the location of the pieces of type in a typesetter's type case, that is, his compartmented tray. The capitals were on top and the, uhh, squiglier ones were below. As type didn't move until much later the terms seem anachronistic. Majuscule and minuscule seem a trifle pedantic. Is there a common-usage compliment to "capital" (which, of course, only has meaning post-minuscule) other than "lower case"? Saintrain (talk) 01:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The common-usage alternative to "lower case" is "small". However, in relation to Greek in particular, I have seen the two styles of letters called "print" (upper case) and "script" (lower case). --Anonymous, 05:59 UTC, September 3, 2008.

Real typographers dislike "small" used as a synonym for lower-case, since they generally use "small" to refer to small caps (which are not lower-case). There are a whole series of technical terms to describe various medieval handwriting styles (i.e. "uncials", "half-uncials", "Carolingian", "Insular", "miniscules" etc.), some of which were on the line of development of the modern lower-case letters... AnonMoos (talk) 11:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly this will be a stupid question, but did classical languages have what we would recognise as a case distinction at all? Uppercase letters were the ones they used in stonemasonry, and lowercase were the cursive ones. Did anyone, before the Middle Ages anyway, ever use both kinds in the same document? Marnanel (talk) 20:06, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not in Latin or Greek, at least. They didn't have minuscule forms until the 9th or 10th century. Do any other classical languages even have case distinctions today? Adam Bishop (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The modern lowercase letters grew out of medieval "hands" (as I said), so ancient Romans didn't have anything closely resembling lowercase letters in form or function. They did have cursive and shorthand. AnonMoos (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nynorsk grammar

anyone knows where to find a NORWEGIAN NYNORSK GRAMMARBOOK? i repeat, a NYNORSK(=NewNorwegian) grammarbook where i get lists that are bending the words..

like this:

A song - the song - songs - songs

i relaize I might be asking on the wrong place, but it seems impossible to find anywhere... I need a list of all words being bendt and shaped into different forms. in order to learn the lanuage i must have one... and a common wordbook is not what i am looking for..

Have a look here, especially here and on all the subpages that start with substantiv. In general, nynorsk is very regular - the main thing you have to know is whether a noun is ~~male~~ masculine, ~~female~~ feminine or neutrum (which will be mentioned in any good dictionary, along with a possible irregular plural form) -- Ferkelparade π 11:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nouns may be masculine or feminine (or neuter), but they are never male or female. —An gr 11:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, of course. I hang my head in shame at my involuntary sexualisation of language -- Ferkelparade π 14:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And people inside Berlin need to remember that not everything that's characteristic of German English is an ignorant solecism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk • contribs) 16:18, 3 September 2008

A full dictionary of Nynorsk (and Bokmål) is here: http://www.dokpro.uio.no/ordboksoek.html . After each word there's a code (like n1 for noun, neuter, type 1) and you click on "oversyn over grammatiske koder" to get the pattern for that word. Jørgen (talk) 20:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ashkenazic pronunciation in Israeli Hebrew?

When Sholem Aleichem is discussed in Israeli Hebrew, is the Ashkenazic pronunciation [ˈʃolem aˈleixem] used, or is it "Sephardified" to [ʃaˈlom aleiˈxem]? Are there any other Yiddish words of Hebrew origin that have been borrowed into Israeli Hebrew from Yiddish that retain their Ashkenazic pronunciation? —An gr 11:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In contemporary Hebrew spoken by the mainstream Israeli population, the author's first name is pronounced SHAlom rather than the Yiddish SHOlem, the accent on the first syllable being typical of Hebrew words (nouns, adjectives) used as personal names; the surname is virtually the same in both pronunciations. For your second question: it's actually Yiddish words used in Hebrew with their Yiddish pronunciation (of vowels, certain consonants, and syllabic stress), which is essentially equivalent to the "Ashkenazic" pronunciation of Hebrew (e.g. SHAbos rather than the "Sephardic"=mainstream shaBAT, TOYre vs. toRAH, BRIS vs. BREET, mishPUche vs. mishpaCHA, EMes vs. eMET, etc.). The insertion of Yiddish words and phrases in Hebrew (regardless of the Yiddish being of Hebrew origin or otherwise), as with their usage in English, is considered jocular. -- Deborahjay (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Colon_Township,_Michigan

Whoever thought that one up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FrontdoorFreddie (talk • contribs) 13:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it's after Cristóbal Colón? -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to this source, it was named because the adjacent river and lake form the shape of a colon (punctuation). Marco polo (talk) 16:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He said "exactly". Judge for yourselves. Looks more like a reflected map of New Zealand to me. Marnanel (talk) 20:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Was it like that because of irrigation?--ChokinBako (talk) 19:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ChokinBako - go to your room. Wanderer57 (talk) 03:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that one of the local lakes is Sturgeon. Or to give it its full title: Colonic Sturgeon lake —Preceding unsigned comment added by TrapdoorTrevor (talk • contribs) 21:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's otherwise known as the a***hole of the world. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other word

Hi, what's other word for harmful? It starts with the letter N? I'm not from English-speaking country and don't have a dictionary now, so I really need your help. thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atacamadesert12 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Noxious? Fribbler (talk) 16:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Noisome? DuncanHill (talk) 16:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nixon? — OtherDave (talk) 17:26, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Noxious or maybe Narcotic —Preceding unsigned comment added by FrontdoorFreddie (talk • contribs) 17:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nasty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.11.251 (talk) 21:18, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

D sounding like j and t sounding like tch

What do you call the process in which the d in graduate, becomes j when spoken. For example, it would be pronounced like- gra-jew-ate. It may be the same process, but what do you call it when the first t in flatulate, becomes a tch, like this- fla-tchoo-late. This can also be seen in congratulate and constituate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.86.0.130 (talk) 18:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Palatalization --ChokinBako (talk) 18:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Constituate? Does any such word exist? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. Algebraist 22:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that there are a number of processes (both historical and phonological) referred to as "palatalization." In this instance, the alveolar stop (/t/ or /d/) assimilates properties from a following "y" (palatal approximant) sound; I've heard this attributed to the fact that a single articulation tool (the tongue) is compromising between the two target points of articulation. The "ch" and "j" sounds are postalveolar, which is indeed an area between alveolar and palatal. I suspect, however, that for many speakers that this is no longer a phonetic or phonological feature and instead the "y" sound has been altogether deleted in the process so that in speakers' underlying representations, flatulate is /ˈflæ.tʃu.leːt/ rather than /ˈflæ.tju.leːt/. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the word we are looking for is affricate? Duomillia (talk) 19:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Affricate is the name of sounds like "ch" and "j", it's not the name for the process of changing "d" to "j". —An gr 20:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could turn affricate into a verb, but that doesn't fully describe the process. turning /t/ to [ts] and /d/ to [dz] would be accurately described as affrication. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It always gets me how it's often assumed that everything that can be described must have a name. I looked up 'affrication' and most sites listed something identical or nearly identical to 'The conversion of a simple stop consonant into an affricate,' which doesn't mention anything about POA, so while Æµ§œš¹'s thought on the subject is understandable, this phenomenon would also fit the definition. I suppose if you wanted to differentiate the two phenomena, you could maybe call this 'retractified affrication' or 'affricated centralization' or whatever. I hope you get my point. In my old phonology class we would simply make a rule that defines the behavior and the environment it occurs in. In this case, just going on our limited examples (excuse my text editor shorthand):

Alveolar Stop [α voiced] -> Postalveolar Affricate [α voiced] / æ(n)_u

Actually, that vowel environment doesn't work because '-ation' brings an /eɪ/ and '-entiate' brings an /ɛ/ and an /i/. Actually, this could turn into quite a project and we might find out that in some or all cases the affricate is actually the underlying phoneme and the orthography just doesn't represent it. I don't have a compelling reason to go through this exercise myself and find out which is the case, but unless you can persuade me somehow then I hope I gave you enough to go on. - Lamba jan 20:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Americans

Why do they talk through their noses? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.11.251 (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Previous offensive reply deleted -- SGB

The question is probably an attempt to be offensive to Americans. However if the question is treated seriously then the answer is that they mostly don't, they use their lungs to push air through their vocal cords and the sound mostly passes through their mouth where it is shaped and processed to form words and other sounds. Some of the sound will pass through the nose. A blocked nose obviously causes a differnt type of sound to be made. As for "Why", generally folk learn to speak by mimicing those around them, so if those around speak with a particular dialect or patois then the individual will tend to do the same. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because we haven't mastered the art of sounding like we have a hot potato in our mouth? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is from the book "Deutsch heute: Grundstufe" (1974), page xxxii.

"To make these long German vowels sound right, pronounce them with a lot more energy than the corresponding English vowel sounds. Our English vowels sound lackadaisical and funny to Germans. They say we talk as if we had a hot potato in our mouths--because we pronounce our vowels with so little energy."

-- Wavelength (talk) 18:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A Frenchman I know says Brits talk like they have a hot potato in the mouth and Americans sound like the adults in the Charlie Brown animated cartoons. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whether the question was intended to be offensive or not, it is true that some American accents (e.g. Western New York State) nasalize some vowels (especially /æ/) spontaneously (i.e. even when they're not next to nasal consonants). I remember hearing a local TV news reporter from Binghamton, New York, pronounce his own surname, Catlin, in such a way that I thought he was saying "Cantlin". And I've heard someone else pronounce the name "Patsy" so it sounds like "Pantsy". But it would be a tremendous overgeneralization to say all Americans do that. —An gr 06:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Nasalization, Nasal consonant, and Nasal vowel. This is common in many, even most languages. Some perhaps more than others, though I don't think English or even American English is all that extreme compared to all other languages. Probably somewhere in the middle. Pfly (talk) 10:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Detailed information about nasalization in different languages is available at WALS - Feature/Chapter 10: Vowel Nasalization.

-- 18:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(I made the last comment, but my username did not appear. [1] -- Wavelength (talk) 18:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to take this question at face value, and comment on it in a serious vein. I am an American, and while in my youth I lived in Finland for a while. I hardly ever heard English spoken, and very rarely American English. However, I could be walking down a busy crowded street in, say, Helsinki, and if someone were speaking American English a block away, I would be able to easily hear it above the babel and noise of the crowd. The reason for this is precisely what the op was talking about - Americans tend to "talk through their nose", so that their speech is "twangy" sounding. This sort of sound, because it is unique and high-pitched, can easily carry through a crowd of people speaking in other languages. I'll leave it to others to go into the finer details about why Americans speak this way (I have a personal theory that we get it from the Scots Irish), but I do have to say that this is indeed a noticeable phenomenon. Saukkomies 08:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Results" speak

I have observed that if someone enters 5 events, wins 3 and loses 2 that an American (USA) will say "3 and 2" whilst an Englishman will say "3 out of 5". Is my observation accurate? How did it arise? What do other countries do (even non English speaking ones)? Is there a wikipedia article about any of this? -- SGBailey (talk) 22:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My experience of collectable card game tournaments in the UK is that one speaks of someone as being '3 and 2'. This may be a result of American dominance of the industry though. Algebraist 22:07, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After Umteen decades, the first time I ever came across "3 and 2" and understood what it meant was this summer. I had heard it before but never realised that it was a report of some results. (I'm UKish.) -- SGBailey (talk) 22:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"3 and 2" sounds like a matchplay score. DuncanHill (talk) 22:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the term for the "3 and 2"-type scoring is Win-Loss Record, although that page currently points to an article on Baseball, which could explain why it is prevalent in the US vs. the UK. You'll also sometimes see the number of tie (draw) results given as a third number, which leads to the pun in the gameshow title Win, Lose or Draw. -- 128.104.112.147 (talk) 00:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are a couple of reasons why this form would be more common in the U.S. First, soccer ranks teams using "points" rather than strictly by a won-loss record. So while a baseball fan may say the team is 3-2, a soccer fan is more likely to say the team has 9 points through five games. Second, British sports standings use the form wins-draws-losses, so the team in question would actually be 3-0-2. Baseball and basketball have no ties (draws), while hockey and American football put draws at the end: 3-2-0. Ties are so rare in American football that they're usually left out. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Mwalcoff. See also Group tournament ranking system. I think soccer usage has influenced British usage in sports like rugby and boxing where draws are rarer. jnestorius^(talk) 13:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Filipino

What are some Filipino words that were included in the International English Dictionary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.224.52.44 (talk) 23:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dunno about that dictionary, but we have an article List of English words of Tagalog origin. Fribbler (talk) 10:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]