Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 5
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Language desk | ||
|---|---|---|
| < February 4 | << January | Feb | Mar >> | February 6 > |
| 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 |
[edit] February 5
[edit] User languages
I have just discovered the Babel function on Wikipedia for User pages, and as I am a native English speaker, a reasonable French Speaker and a poor German speaker, I have inserted that on my user page. My question is is there categories for other languages on Wikipedia - for example I am an excellent speaker of Neo-Melanesian and an intermediate speaker of Bahasa Indonesia. Can I install tese as languages on my user page too. Thanks John D. Croft 08:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Hello, John D. Croft. Wikipedia:Babel lists existing templates for language userboxes. Here's the section for Bahasa Indonesian templates. Here's the section for Tok Pisin templates. ---84.75.119.250 09:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Wali al-'Asr
- What is the literal meaning of it?
- Does it refer to Mahdi?
--Patchouli 09:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- ولي العصر (walī al-‘aṣr) means something like 'guardian of the era', which sounds like a title for the Mahdi. — Gareth Hughes 13:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you.--Patchouli 13:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
-
- Couldn't help noticing that this has been copied directly into the article as a "Shia source", which seems -- no offense to Gareth -- a bit fishy. Tesseran 18:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- No offense taken. To be honest, I thought that my wording was sufficient for this to be taken as preliminary opinion rather than the presentation of fact. Maybe I should remove it until someone confirms that it is in fact a title of the Mahdi. — Gareth Hughes 18:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Couldn't help noticing that this has been copied directly into the article as a "Shia source", which seems -- no offense to Gareth -- a bit fishy. Tesseran 18:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
-
- Hughes was almost definitely right. See wikisource:Constitution_of_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran#Article_5 [1].--Patchouli 19:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Present/perfect mixup
One thing that strikes me about the Germanic languages is that the Germanic present has some similarities to the Latin perfect. Two things especially: The Germanic 2nd singular indicative ending "(e)st" seems just like the Latin perfect ending "-isti"; and the Germanic languages often use the labial stem for some of the present-tense forms of the verb "to be", just like Latin did for the perfect tense: "bin, bist" versus "fui, fuisti". (About "est/ist/etc." there seems to be no confusion though.) So my question is: what is the ultimate origin of these mixed-up features (2nd person "-st" and the labial stem of the verb "to be"), and how did they get mixed up? --Lazar Taxon 17:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- For information about verb in the common (reconstructed) ancestor, see Proto-Indo-European language#Verb. — Gareth Hughes 17:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Cool, thanks. --Lazar Taxon 17:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- To answer one of your questions quickly that isn't addressed on that page, the similarity between Germanic 2nd sg. present -st and Latin 2nd sg. perfect -isti is a coincidence. For one thing, the Germanic ending wasn't originally -st at all, it was -s; the t that both German and English added to it came from the pronoun þū when it was placed after the verb. The Latin -istī is from the PIE perfect ending *-th2e with some stuff of obscure origin on either side of it. —Angr 20:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Interesting. This also explains forms like early modern English "wilt" and "art" ("Where art thou?") and Dutch "bent". Thanks. Marco polo 22:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- To answer one of your questions quickly that isn't addressed on that page, the similarity between Germanic 2nd sg. present -st and Latin 2nd sg. perfect -isti is a coincidence. For one thing, the Germanic ending wasn't originally -st at all, it was -s; the t that both German and English added to it came from the pronoun þū when it was placed after the verb. The Latin -istī is from the PIE perfect ending *-th2e with some stuff of obscure origin on either side of it. —Angr 20:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Cool, thanks. --Lazar Taxon 17:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Cemet Nosce
what does "Cemet Nosce" mean? --Shanedidona 20:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
It appears near the beginning of the Matrix Revolutions (the oracle gestures towards a sign with that text) --Shanedidona 20:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- I think it should be Temet Nosce. See the article on Know thyself. ---Sluzzelin 23:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks :-) I was very curious --152.7.60.125 02:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
- That is me ^ --Shanedidona 02:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
