From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Language desk
< November 19	<< Oct | November | Dec >>	November 21 >

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.

Contents 1 November 20 1.1 Plural Question 1.2 Hebrew Wikipedia 1.3 Questions about Spanish 1.4 Plaintext language corpora in natural languages 1.5 Norwegian name pronunciation 1.6 How many meaningful prefix and suffix does the English language have? 1.7 IPA for Ecce Homo 1.8 Quoting and Citing 1.9 research 1.10 anachronistic vocab

[edit] November 20

[edit] Plural Question

What is the plural of "corps"?

It's the same spelling, only pronounced as "cores," with the "s" sounded out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by bibliomaniac15 (talk • contribs).

bibliomaniac15 is right. See Wiktionary:corps for slight variants in dialect.--El aprendelenguas 01:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew Wikipedia

Hebrew text is read right to left. Why? I don't know. Paragon12321 01:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Arabic and many other ancient languages are written that way as well. -THB 02:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is English read left to right? In antiquity it was more ad lib. — see boustrophedon. Wareh 03:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

There is an advantage to left-to-right, since most people are right-handed. That means that most people can write with a pen without dragging their hand over the written material and smudging it. Older written languages, like Hebrew, which predate ink pens, wouldn't have to worry about this issue. I would guess that this is why only a few languages are written right-to-left. StuRat 06:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

True, and one of the reasons they used to cite back in the dark ages when left-handed children were made to learn to write with their right hand. Obviously, it would have been unthinkable to let schoolchildren use pencils. Thank God for Laszlo Biro. Incidentally, if you haven't yet, try to write in mirror image with your weak hand, whichever it is. It's surprisingly easy. --Rallette 08:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried that and it came out looking like Hebrew. Hmmmm. :) Btw, the dark ages seem to have lasted into the 20th century in the Netherlands, because my father, who was left handed, was forced to write with his right hand. Something similar still exists today, with children being forced to take in info verbally, even if they are better at reading (like me), which is actually faster, so that's even worse. But I'm going a bit too far off-topic now. DirkvdM 08:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

By the dark ages, I meant circa 1950, when this was still the case in Finland. --Rallette 09:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I am lefthanded. My own grandfather was a teacher and he slapped kids on the left hand when they were using it with a RULER! I hate it when people think everyone is lefthanded. In EVERY classroom I have seen in my elementary school and secondary school, the windows were on the left hand side when looking at the teacher. It's discrimination!Evilbu 16:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to say that being right-handed is an advantage for English-like languages. You could just write up side down.martianlostinspace 17:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Then your hand smudges the previous lines. —Tamfang 23:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions about Spanish

I've been trying to refresh my Spanish skills with a Pimsleur language learning tape. I think the people on the tape are native (Latin American) speakers, but there are a few things that seem wrong to me based on my experience with Spanish. (I lived in Venezuela for two years.) Here are some examples. I hope you can tell me what is correct, or what sounds more "native".

• They say "soy de estados unidos". I would use the article: "soy de los estados unidos".
• They ask "¿usted trabaja en Caracas?" and other questions in a similar form. I tend to invert word order when asking a question, "¿trabaja usted en Caracas?"
• They always say "Yo lo sé" for "I know", whereas I would never use the "lo".
• They always say "solo" for "only", whereas I was taught to say "solamente", and I don't understand the difference.
• They pronounce "exactamente" with an English "x" sound, which I thought doesn't exist in Spanish. (Compare "Mexico", pronounced with the Spanish "j" sound.) --Grace 03:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

"¿Usted trabaja en Caracas?" is perfectly good Spanish and the pronunciation of the 'x' in 'Mexico' is really an exception (just try pronouncing 'excepción' that way). As for the other questions, no sé exactamente, so I won't try answering them. DirkvdM 09:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

According to my dictionary, "solo" (without an accent) is an adjective, meaning "alone", whereas "sólo" (with an accent) and "solamente" are adverbs, both meaning "only" or "exclusively". So you would say: "Estoy solo en casa." ("I am home alone"), and I suppose "Solamente pienso en salir" and "Sólo pienso en salir" would be synonymous. --N·Blue ^talk 13:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I might be wrong here, but an impression I got is that "Solamente pienso en salir" would be "I'm only thinking of leaving", and "Sólo pienso en salir" "I'm just thinking of leaving", clearly different connotations... 惑乱 分からん 14:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you may be right. Any native Spanish speakers around to resolve this? --N·Blue ^talk 18:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong -- but I thought only as an adjective or noun is único, as in el único, "the only one", or la única página, "the only page". Isn't solo only (heh) for only as an adverb and alone as an adjective? --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 20:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

As stated above, "solo" as an adjective means "alone", not "only". "Estoy el único en casa" would mean "I am the only one at home"; "Estoy solo en casa" means I" am home alone" (Still no natives around?). --N·Blue ^talk 20:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

No lo sé is normal in Spain. I've heard No sé from Latin Americans, but I wouldn't say it's universal there. Sólo is indeed only. mnewmanqc 20:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

According to my Colombian friend,

1. Both Soy de los Estados Unidos and Soy de Estados Unidos are both acceptable, but the form with los is more formal.
2. Both forms of the question are acceptable, but the inverted form is more formal.
3. Both forms are acceptable, but yo lo sé sounds more like written Spanish.
4. Sólo can often be used instead of solamente, but in most cases solamente is more natural.

Nohat 18:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

For the pronunciation of "x", take a look at this entry for X from the Spanish Academy's dictionary [1]:

"representa un sonido consonántico doble, compuesto de k, o de g sonora, y de s, p. ej., en axioma, exento, que ante consonante suele reducirse a s; p. ej., en extremo, exposición. Antiguamente representó también un sonido consonántico simple, fricativo, palatal y sordo, semejante al de la sh inglesa o al de la ch francesa, que hoy conserva en algunos dialectos, como el bable. Este sonido simple se transformó después en fricativo, velar y sordo, como el de la j actual, con la cual se transcribe hoy, salvo excepciones, como en el uso mexicano de México, Oaxaca."

So according to this, x is like English x ([ks]), except when before a consonant, where it is [s] or in certain Mexican words, where it is pronounced the same as Spanish j [x]. Lesgles (talk) 05:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plaintext language corpora in natural languages

I'm working on a neural network to classify natural languages, and for training I need large samples in various different languages. Is there anywhere I can freely (as in beer and as in speech) get samples of different languages - the more the merrier, but at least, say, 10? Samples would preferably be long enough to be representative of the language - thousands or tens of thousands of words each or longer. ASCII is obviously insufficient for most languages, so unicode is preferred. Thanks, ^L_Wizard @ 04:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't you use text from wikipedia? All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Skarioffszky 09:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

That's certainly a possibility, and one I've considered, but it's surprisingly hard to get the text from Wikipedia into easily-usable form. The raw code has all sorts of annoying links and markup, and I can't seem to find any easy to way to dump the body text as rendered to a usable format. ^L_Wizard @ 10:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If you use Lynx (web browser), you can do: lynx -dump 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&printable=yes' > dumped_page.txt to save HTML to text.

Oops, sorry. It doesn't handle Unicode very well.. :( --Kjoonlee 14:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it does. The problem is the language setting of your console where the dump is dumped to. -- 85.179.15.106 19:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

You might now something I don't, because I can't get it to work with LANG=en_US.UTF-8. --Kjoonlee 04:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource then? Less markup, fewer links. And another idea: the rejected European constitution, in 21 languages. It would be nice if someone found a use for it. Skarioffszky 11:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg has entire free books in a number of languages. They usually come in plain text. --Grace 11:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Norwegian name pronunciation

How is the Norwegian name Trygve Lie (the first Secretary General of the United Nations) pronounced?

Is the last name a long "i" sound (as in a falsehood), or is it like "lee", or is it "lee-eh", or something else?

What are the vowel sounds in the first name? One or two syllables, and which gets emphasis?

This is my understanding, but I'm not a speaker of Norwegian, so I'd be happy to be corrected:

/ˌtɾygʋə 'liə/

Rather /ˌtɾygʋə 'li:ə/, anyway... (Roughly "lee-eh"). By the way, he's a popular fellow in Norwegian crosswords... ;) 惑乱 分からん 14:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how to represent the pitch accent. Informally, the last name is like "lee-eh" but the second syllable is very weak, like the first "a" in "around". The first name has two syllables, of which the first gets the stress. The "r" is not trilled, but a single flap, almost like a "d". The "y" is like French "u", German "ü". The "v" is soft, like a "w" but also a bit like initial "r" in English. The final "e" is again like "a" in "around".  --Lambiam^Talk 08:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Here is the pronunciation by a native: Image:Trygve lie.ogg. --N·Blue ^talk 12:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

And here's an audio link: Norwegian pronunciation (help·info) --Kjoonlee 14:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How many meaningful prefix and suffix does the English language have?

As topic tittle59.149.91.57 13:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think most if not all prefixes and suffixes are meaningful. Can you give an example of one that is meaningless? --WikiSlasher 05:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA for Ecce Homo

Though I'm not familiar with IPA, I think the Late Latin would be /'ɛktse 'homo/. The current version at Ecce Homo has an Italian-influenced version as first. Thoughts? --Brand спойт 15:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I had assumed it'd be similar to /'ɛke 'ho:mo/ , but that might perhaps be earlier Latin... 惑乱 分からん 15:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it's probably intentionally modern Ecclesiastical Latin that's given, rightly or not. My question would be, for the more Classical pronunciation offered (and possibly the later one too), shouldn't the first "o" be rather ɔ? Wareh 15:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I've remembered it is clearly Latin, not Late Latin pronunciation of "cc" combination (kts, e.g. Koktseyus for Cocceius). --Brand спойт 01:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quoting and Citing

How do you quote and cite an author when you're listening to an audio format of a book instead of reading it. Is there an MLA format for that? Am I going to have to buy the book to be able to quote him appropriately in an essay?

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/10/ try this page. You can cite it for sure without buying or picking up a copy of the book. 152.3.73.203 21:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] research

Hello, My name is Laura Palmer and I do my second to last year of schooling with the New Zealand Correspondence School. For English we have to get resources for research on a topic. My topic is on an area where language has changed and am doing it on changes in gender issues in language..I was just wondering if you could please give me any helpful information on this or any links to sites and books etc where useful information could be found.

Thank you for your time, Laura Palmer

ps could you please email me on (email removed) with your reply

I can't email you, but maybe you could look at Gender-neutral language in English for one possible topic. I found that by going to language and looking at the see also list at the bottom. As for finding sources, first pick a topic, then check online for scholarly articles or make your way to a public university for some literature. By the way, I wouldn't use Wikipedia as a primary source for anything serious, but as a means to sources or for topic hunting, it's a decent portal. 152.3.73.203 21:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, you might want to look at the addition of male names to hurricanes, which were formerly always female. StuRat 07:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] anachronistic vocab

What is the term for a word in curent usage which is inherently arachronistic? eg dialing a phone number on a touch tone phone. --AHI 20:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not an anachonism, really. I'd look at it from a different viewpoint. The meaning (or rather one of the meanings) of dialling has simply changed over time. This has happened to many words in the language over time: look up garble or nice in a dictionary for examples. Can't remember the technical term for this, though. Probably something greek. :-) Rob Burbidge 11:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Polysemy was the word I was striving for. Or look up semantic change Rob Burbidge 16:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sure this isn't what you are looking for but "anachronism"? 152.3.73.203 21:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If a word is in current usage, it's not anachronistic. That said, however, there are certain phrases that have anachronistic words like "snug as a bug in a rug" (where rug means blanket) or "kith and kin" (wtf is kith?). Also, and I didn't realize this until after I'd taken a syntax class, the song lyrics "baa baa black sheep have you any wool?" is syntactically anachronistic (for American English speakers anyway) since we don't invert the verb have like we do be. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the term you're looking for is a fossilized expression (Google)—that is, one that has "frozen" into a conventional shape despite the changes going on around it, to which it ought to have been subject. Wareh 00:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Didn't know that rug was anachronistic. It's in common use in England. But your point stands. Rob Burbidge 16:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I think he meant something like this: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 November 8#The word "rug" --Kjoonlee 02:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)