Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 27

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March 27

Toilet Words in Mandarin

I had a few Chinese friends over for dinner a few days ago and was confused by the phrase "zha (3rd tone) xi (1st)" and "zha (3rd) nn (?)" in Mandarin. Apparently they mean to pee and to poo, respectively, but I'm of Chinese descent and have never heard them before. They're from Hangzhou, if that helps- maybe it's a from a dialect?

Thanks in advance, 27.32.104.185 (talk) 06:04, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe not relevant, but rather dated but polite UK children's usage for those functions is "number ones" and "number twos". I doubt that there's any crossover from provincial Mandarin however ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 00:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

These are Wu dialect terms for urinating and defecating respectively. The first part is the verb, meaning "to expel (urine or faeces)", the second part of the two terms mean "urine" and "faeces" respectively. The Hangzhou dialect has strong Mandarin influences but these two terms are not loans from Mandarin. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Palaceguard- is it possible to get the Chinese characters? I'm interested in what the individual words are. 27.32.104.185 (talk) 08:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In Shanghainese they are usually written as 撒尿, 撒污. I'm not sure whether the first character is used phoentically here, if so then the Hangzhou dialect may choose to use a different character. The second character in the first term has two pronunciations in Mandarin, "niao" and "sui". The usual Wu pronunciation is closer to the latter. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Fukushima

It's a word in the news a lot lately, so we need to get the pronunciation right. The article Fukushima, Fukushima currently gives the pronunciation as [ɸɯˈkɯɕima], but that doesn't jibe with WP:IPA for Japanese, which doesn't use the symbol ɯ and doesn't use the stress mark. Could someone who genuinely knows please bring the transcription in the article into line with the conventions given at WP:IPA for Japanese? Thanks. Pais (talk) 13:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Japanese doesn't really have word-stress as such (though some dialects have pitch-accent, which is very different). AnonMoos (talk) 14:20, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I know Japanese but not IPA. WP:IPA for Japanese suggests u͍ and u͍̥ for voiced and unvoiced u, but Japanese phonology uses ü͍ (for voiced u, presumably), but also includes a chart that uses ɯ with various diacritics. I can't believe there's really this much confusion over the proper transcription of a common sound in a language with > 10⁸ speakers. An additional problem is that u͍̥ renders incorrectly in both IE and Firefox 3.6 for Windows (the browsers I have handy at the moment). The diacritics are superimposed but I imagine they're supposed to be stacked. Regardless, I changed the pronunciation to match WP:IPA for Japanese. A native speaker of Japanese and IPA should probably review this. -- BenRG (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's an article that should address any doubts: Hideo Okada (1991). Japanese. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 21, pp 94-96 doi:10.1017/S002510030000445X. Unfortunately, I can't access it, even though I'm at a university and thought I used to have access to this database (here's the link to it from Cambridge Journals Online). Anyone else have any luck?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:26, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the Japanese /u/ has no phonetic symbol in the IPA, and there is no diacritic that captures what makes it distinctive, which is that it has a different kind of rounding than [u]. There are many ad hoc transcriptions that try to capture it, but none of them succeed very well, including, ironically, that article in the IPA Handbook. The best they can do is capture secondary details. (Well, maybe [uᵝ] would do it, but no-one transcribes it that way.) — kwami (talk) 21:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You can hear the pronunciation at http://www.forvo.com/search/Fukushima/.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

US news readers tend to emphasize the third syllable, "Fu-ku-SHI-ma'" while Japanese news readers emphasize the second syllable, while making it basically a 3 syllable word: "Fu-KU-shma." If there is an "i" pronounced in the middle of "shima" it receives very little emphasis. Edison (talk) 23:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, English speakers tend to stress the third syllable of four-syllable Japanese names, which often sounds completely wrong (to me, anyway). It's better in this case to stress the second syllable, which in reality is pitched higher than the other three. Unfortunately there are also many four-syllable names with stress on the third syllable. I don't know whether there's a general rule to distinguish them. It's too bad that the IPA symbol for the pitch accent comes after the pitch-accented syllable—"Fukuꜜshima" looks like it has an accent on the third syllable, especially to English speakers who are predisposed to expect that. -- BenRG (talk) 03:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I think my old Webster's said that English in general tends to stress the next-to-last syllable of long words. Pres-ti-di-gi-TA-tion, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Japanese pitch accent changes, depending on what word comes after or dialect. The accent is described with high and low of morae. As for Fukushima, it's a word of four morae and the word Fukushima itself is low/high/low/low. But when it combines with other words, most of the time it changes. Fukushima dai'ichi genpatsu/Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is unchanged and l/h/l/l/-l/h/h/h-h/l/l/l. But Fukushima ken/F prefecture would be l/h/h/h-l/l/ and Fukushima ken san/produced in F pref. is l/h/h/h-h/h-h/h and Fukushima ken chiji/governor of F is l/h/h/h-h/h-h/l. Listen to this news clip. Oda Mari (talk) 05:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

A multi-syllabic word must have a main-stress assigned to some one syllable in order to be pronounceable in English at all. Japanese words with four open syllables seem to often be adopted into English with vacillating second- or third-syllable stress, with tendencies to lengthen the vowel of the stressed syllable (especially if i or u) and reduce the vowels of many unstressed syllables. So "Hiroshima" becomes either [hɪrəˈšiːmə] or [hɨˈroʊšɨmə]. I would tend to doubt whether there's too much correlation between the original Japanese pitch-accent and English stress in such cases... AnonMoos (talk) 09:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Lao help: Seattle Public Schools

At http://www.seattleschools.org/area/bfc/lao/Lao%20Services.htm

Can someone tell what the Lao name is for Seattle Public Schools? The commons at is at Commons:Category:Seattle Public Schools

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 14:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

"Normally"

I have recently had the wonderful opportunity to speak with a number of different French speakers. My French is okay, and their English is by and large excellent. I have noticed however, on numerous occasions with at least three different people, that the word "normally" seems to convey a different sense than what I understand that word to mean. Examples: "Normally we turn it [one time assignment] in tomorrow." or [in regards to a one-time meeting] "I will bring normally three people." Is there a meaning to the French word "normalement" that would lead to this usage in English? It seems to be a very common and recurring thing. Thanks! Falconus^{p t c} 18:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

As noted in EO,[1] the root word norma refers to rules and standards. Where they're saying "normally", we might say "as a rule" or something similar. (I typically say "typically".) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

This page appears to directly answer your question. -- BenRG (talk) 19:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The French "normalement" can be translated as the English modal verb "should" in these contexts. So, the first example would be: "We should hand in our assignments tomorrow". I guess you could call them false friends. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. That makes more sense to me, as I was wondering if I was misusing the word "normalement" in French. Falconus^{p t c} 23:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting link to "False friends". I remember a press report about the Channel Tunnel and co-operation between British and French firefighters. In the UK, firefighters attend a fire, whereas attendre means "to wait" in French. Having the same word which meant "stop" on one side of the Channel and "go" on the other was obviously a bad idea. Alansplodge (talk) 13:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

This reminds me of a flap when, if I understand right, Gérard Depardieu mentioned in an interview that he had once assisté at a felony (rape?), meaning that he had witnessed it. —Tamfang (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Is the term normal school related to this usage ? StuRat (talk) 22:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that explained in the first paragraph of Normal school#History? Deor (talk) 22:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Not really. It says it comes from the French "normale", meaning roughly "model". That sounds related to the French "normalement", but, not being a French speaker, I could be wrong. That's why I asked. StuRat (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Ask a fuzzy question, you may or may not get a fuzzy answer. —Tamfang (talk) 00:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I think I've heard C'est normal! meaning "obviously, that's natural, that's to be expected". —Tamfang (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

A lot of non-native speakers also use "of course" in places where natives wouldn't, and that's no doubt because the equivalent expression in their languages is used more widely. For example, if I'm asked a neutral question to which various answers could reasonably apply, such as "Do you often shop here?", I would never say "Of course", because that could easily be taken the wrong way to mean "Obviously, and how stupid of you to even ask such a question". But I've heard non-natives give that reply to that sort of question. In their cases, it means "Oh yes, very much so", and it has nothing to do with obviousness or putting the questioner down. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"That" as relative pronoun

I have been having a discussion with a user called "Aaron" at stackexchange/english (arising out of my answer to a particular question). At one point he startled me by asserting "'That' is never a relative pronoun." I challenged him, and he offered this online textbook, which I see does argue the case: even in relative clauses, "that" is a complementiser not a RP, but a rule ensures that at least one of "that" and the RP gets deleted.

I can see the theoretical value of the argument, but introspectively it just seems wrong to me. I can't believe it hasn't been challenged and discussed back and forth. Can anybody point me to such a discussion? --ColinFine (talk) 22:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It's been a while, but I think the CP chapter of David Adger's textbook Core Syntax (2003) might talk about this. I think the "that as a complementizer, with a zero pronoun" perspective is what the Minimalist camp subscribes to. 13:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

"Gadhafi"-"Gadaffi"-"Ka-daffy"

How many different spellings of this dictator's name are presently used in the world, in the English language press (with cites, please)? Is there a "standard?" Why does this name have more variant transliterations to English than the name of "The Prophet?" which range from "Mohammed" to "Muhammad" to "Mahomet?" By comparison, from some Asian languages to English there are only 2 or 3 different versions, but this dictator has over 30, by some reports. Mainstream US news media, even, use many different spellings. Edison (talk) 23:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Previously discussed here. --ColinFine (talk) 23:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The core problem is in trying to transliterate from a foreign alphabet, possibly complicated by variant pronunciations within that foreign language. One guy that immediately comes to mind is Mao Tse-Tung, which is now rendered something like Mao Zadong, but I doubt his actual name was changed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Mao's name never changed - it's that the new Romanization system (Hanyu Pinyin) is preferred over the old one (Wade-Giles). WhisperToMe (talk) 01:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. And I doubt Qadaffi's name has changed either. Nor Muhammad's. The discussion cited by Colin leads to good detailed info about the various attempts at rendering Qadaffi's name in English. I think it turns out that he himself used Gadafi when writing in English. That would be the most obvious guide, but various news organizations have their own approaches. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

As previously mentioned, the most "standard" transliteration of قذافي — in the sense of most accurately reflecting classical Arabic norms of pronunciation — would be either Qadhdhāfī or Qaððāfī (depending on whether you favor digraphs or IPA characters to represent the Arabic ذ letter). However, if various people transcribe various vernacular Libyan (or in some particular cases, probably Egyptian) dialect pronunciations of the name with informal ad-hoc transcriptions into English letters (without using diacritics or professional linguistic expertise), then it's easy to understand why there are many divergent spellings in newspapers etc. AnonMoos (talk) 09:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Edison: have you looked at our article on this? Muammar Gaddafi#Name. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I recently heard an angry but possibly mixed up caller to a local shock-jock calling him President Mugaffi. HiLo48 (talk) 19:14, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The BBC uses "Gaddafi", as does The Times, The Guardian, FT and the Daily Mail (all online versions). I think that's by far the prevailing consensus (I saw it spelled with a "Q" the other day in a mainstream paper, can't find which one). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:52, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The Economist (which describes itself as a newspaper, though many would call it a magazine) uses Qadaffi, as here for example. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 19:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it was that, I was reading it the other day. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:03, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Like The Economist, The New York Times uses the spelling Qaddafi. (See this article, for example.) So I don't think that there is a consensus on the spelling. Marco polo (talk) 23:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The most sensible thing seems to be to use the English transliteration of his Arabic name that he and his government use in English documents. The English press does not persist in "Muscovy" rather than "Moscow", or "Peiping" or "Peking" rather than "Beijing," or "Bombay" rather than "Mumbai," so why do various papers have to use many different transliterations of this man's name? It is arrogant in the extreme for some English language writer to claim that he knows better than the dictator how his name should be spelled in English. Edison (talk) 01:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Except that he has used multiple versions of his own name at the same time. At one point it was noted that his official website had three different spellings of his name in English. Rmhermen (talk) 03:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Edison -- That would be the sensible thing to do in many analogous cases, but it really does not overwhelmingly commend itself in this particular case. Anyway, the Russian form of Moscow is "Moskva", and I'm afraid we still do use Munich instead "München" etc. (see Exonym)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

True. We have the expression "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Well, the Romans have no such word as "Rome". They call the place "Roma". We should practise what we preach and say "When in Roma, do as the Romans do". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:43, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Or we should say "si romae fueris romano modo vivito" (IIRC) --ColinFine (talk) 22:41, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

A few days ago, a quiz was posted on the trivia site Sporcle inviting the user to try to name as many (actual) spellings of his name as possible. Kansan (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

(Value judgement alert): the NYT's and the Economist's "Qaddafi" is, IMO, a fine compromise between a hardcore philological transcription of standard Arabic and the actual abilities of the typesetters. The majority choice "Gaddafi" sux. While fully recognizing the right of Libyans to pronounce standard Arabic q as [g], Arabic is still officially considered a single language and ought to be transliterated in a unified way regardless of dialect. The best basis would be the existing standard phonological system, which includes the phoneme /q/ as separate from /g/. Taking all the local pronunciations into account would just result in chaos. It's a bit like "transliterating" the same English language name as "Tom" or "Tahm", "Richud" or "Richurd" depending on whether the person is from Britain or America. US president Jimmy Carder, the PM of the UK Mahgret Thatchah and so on.--91.148.159.4 (talk)

When I've heard Japanese speakers pronounce the name of the ex-President "Jimi Kata," I've wondered if it sounds like a typical Japanese name. Edison (talk) 19:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Which standard Arabic /g/ is /q/ distinct from? —Tamfang (talk) 02:41, 3 April 2011 (UTC)