Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 July 24

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[edit] July 24

[edit] Continuation of above: Transcription

Who can transcribe the following names:

William Chen
Metehan Ozten
Michael Shaner
Megha Manjunath
Keith Avery

to Arabic, Russian, modern Greek, and Hindi? And can anyone provide a transliteration of the transcription? --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 00:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do you post this separate "continuation"? It is confusing. Above you already have transcriptions to Arabic and Russian. Let's keep the discussion there.  --Lambiam 00:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] HEBREW words or writing

Good Day!

I would like to know how FAITH HOPE and LOVE are written in HEBREW. From what I have read there's proper spacing and some other things to consider otherwise it would have a totally different meaning.

THank you very much for your time and patience. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ants4three (talk • contribs) 01:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


A good day indeed! Faith, love and hope are written very easily in Hebrew. If you would like to see (I assume you mean the Heb. equivalents of faith, hope and love - transliterations in Heb. are particularly awkward):
  • (אמונה (אֱמוּנָה = Faith
  • (תקווה (תִקְוָה = Hope
  • (אהבה (אַהֲבָה = Love
In the brackets you have the word with the vowels, or without - writing without vowels is common in Hebrew.
- СПУТНИКCCC P 02:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Good day again!

Thank you very much for the reply you had given. It is very much appreciated. Another question would be if i were to write them VERTICALLY, how would the correct way be or look like? Also is it true about the spacing that if it is incorrectly written it would mean a totally different thing?

Thank you very much sir/ma'am.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.7.209.160 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 24 July 2007.

Before you have these words tattooed, you should double check and triple check you've got them right. I'm used to browsers mangling the appearance of non-Western scripts, for example getting confused about the direction of writing, but also substituting incorrectly shaped characters. Also, are you sure the Hebrew translations have the connotations you are looking for? The entry on the Hebrew Wikipedia for אמונה, for example, corresponds to our English article for Belief, which does not have quite the same meaning as Faith. Also, are these words exactly the same in classical Hebrew (which I assume you are interested in) as in modern Hebrew? For the latter, you might want to know which words are used in translations of 1 Corinthians 13:13. Note that the latter text was actually written in Greek, not in Hebrew.
Hebrew is written from right to left (unlike English), or vertically from high to low (like English). So for the word אמונה, for example, the letter on top is א, followed by a מ, and so on, and all three words have a ה at the bottom.  --Lambiam 04:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
And oh, about the spacing, that's just as in English. If you insert a space in a word like issued to produce is sued, you change the meaning.  --Lambiam 04:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


Thank you very much for the information regarding the HEBREW writings. Would you be able to help me with the words FAITH LOVE and HOPE then? I would very much appreciate all the help I can get.

Thank you very much for your time and patience. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ants4three (talk • contribs) 06:17, July 24, 2007 – Please sign your posts!

I would also strongly advise against getting tattooed in a language that neither you nor your tattoo artist is likely to know. If you check the Hebrew translation of Cor. 13 (yes, there are Hebrew translations of the New Testament!), you get this:
  • וְעַתָּה תַעֲמֹדְנָה שְׁלָשׁ־אֵלֶּה אֱמוּנָה תִּקְוָה וְאַהֲבָה וְהַגְּדֹלָה בָהֵן הִיא הָאַהֲבָה
which is exactly what I gave: 'And now stand these three things; faith (emunah), hope (tiqvah) and love (ahavah), and the greatest of them is love.'

However, if you want to have them in the original language of Corinthians (which may have been your original intent) you might want to consider them in Greek:

  • νυνι δε μενει πιστις ελπις αγαπη τα τρια ταυτα μειζων δε τουτων η αγαπη
πιστις (ΠΙΣΤΙΣ) - faith
ελπις (ΕΛΠΙΣ) - hope
αγαπη (ΑΓΑΠΗ) - love

Hope this helps. СПУТНИКCCC P 14:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Except that the Greek you give is devoid of diacriticals and thus misspelled (in demotic, it would be old-style diacriticals including breathings at the beginnings of ἐλπίς and ἀγαπῆ. Donald Hosek 16:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ease of pronunciation

I would like to create a name for a company that is intended to go international, and want to ensure that the name is easy to read and pronounce in any language that uses our alphabet. It seems that each language omits certain sounds that are natural to native speakers of other languages, and those sounds are often difficult to pronounce if you've not grown up with them. I would like to avoid letters or letter combinations that are on any language's "difficult" list. It doesn't matter if the pronunciation differs wildly from one language to another, so long as it is easy to pronounce the word upon reading it. Does anyone know if there has been a linguistics study of these sounds, so that I can get a list of them? Thank you. 152.16.188.107 04:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

By "our" alphabet I assume you mean the 26-letter Latin alphabet. If you also want the name to sound the same as it would be pronounced by an English speaker, you may have a problem. If it's just ease of pronunciation, the following rules should work for most languages. (1) Stick to single vowels a, e, i, o, and u, alternating with single consonants, but ending with a vowel. (2) Relatively safe consonants are b, d, k, m, n, p, s, and t. (3) You may insert an n in front of an intervocalic d or t, and an m in front of an intervocalic b or p. Some examples: Abondi, Tamputo, Eseko. It may be important to check that your fantasy name does not mean something bad in a possible market. There is the urban legend that the Chevrolet Nova didn't do well in Spanish-speaking countries, where no va means: "doesn't go". For some reason I think the successful French brand Pschitt wouldn't do so well in English-speaking countries. And a name like Abondi will produce associations for many people with meatballs, which may not be the kind of association you want. Others may think of lifeguards. And existing companies already having that name[1] may raise legal impediments.  --Lambiam 05:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Does wikipedia have a list of these marketing failures? Is there a word for them? I have always thought FCUK quite explicit for such a large brand. I have heard of English brands that are rude in other languages, and vice versa. Also I heard of the car Cedric that didn't sell so well; well of course, which man would want to drive a Cedric? What about a term for intentionally using your name differently to originally intended, such as the FTV ads that say "I want to f with you" etc. Sandman30s 12:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Although accidents and cultural blunders happen, most of these stories turn out not be true (see for instance this urban legend page) or grossly exaggerated. It is quite common for brand names to change when crossing borders (see, e.g., Snuggle#Internationally), so a mishap is usually not a big deal anyway (see, e.g., Mitsubishi Pajero). I always thought FCUK to be an intentional attention-getting fcuk-up. Of course, the company name of an multinational corporation is less easily changed across borders, but then people usually don't care much about pronounceability (Daimler-Chrysler, Schlumberger, GlaxoSmithKline).  --Lambiam 16:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of Snuggle, a very similar bear-mascot of Mexican extraction pimps white bread to children in my area, under the brand name "Bimbo". :D --TotoBaggins 20:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Those are very good suggestions. Alternating single vowels and consonants would automatically avoid most pitfalls I had imagined (difficult combinations, silent letters, etc.) that wouldn't easily cross the language barrier. I especially like the hint about ending the word with a vowel. I hadn't thought of that, but that is very important. Are there any languages that never start a word with a particular letter? 152.16.59.190 07:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Certainly. Spanish very rarely begins a word with Ñ, as far as I know, and Russian very rarely starts a word with Й, and never with Ь or Ъ. (I am sure this is also true of at least one major language that uses the Latin alphabet, but I'm less familiar with them.) Tesseran 08:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
No Turkish word starts with a "soft G", written Ğ, one of the letters of the Turkish alphabet.  --Lambiam 15:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I would avoid ending with e, too, because of the English "magic e", ambiguity would be introduced (for example, "Adobe", there must be people out there who don't pronounce the e). Capuchin 09:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

We have some articles that might help: phonotactics and syllable. Some of this has been said before, p t k b d g m n are common consonants, and i e a o u are common vowels. Sounds made with the tip of the tongue are easy as well; for example, "New Zealand Story" is pronounced only with td sz n l r j. You might want to keep out s or z. BTW, "th" sounds (as in this or thin) are uncommon so they should be avoided. V and w are also problematic in some languages. --Kjoonlee 10:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a delightful anecdote by Otto Jespersen where people from around the world are trying to construct a universal language, easily pronounced by everyone. They start with the form skribar for "write". After some back-and-forth about the problems of the letters 'b' and 'v' in Spanish they decide that "skriar" is an easier and more suitable form. Then a Finnish person objects, pointing out that the initial consonant cluster doesn't exist in Finnish and would be simplified, yielding the form "riar". At this point a Chinese representative objects to the letter 'r' and suggests "lial" instead. The 'l' is, in turn, denounced by the Japanese and the final form becomes "ia". The story is the second text here: [2] (written in a proposed international language) Haukur 14:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Not a real story, I presume. If some consonant clusters don't usually occur in your language, you can always use epenthesis instead of deletion. --Kjoonlee 15:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
A made up story, yes, certainly. Haukur 16:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Mentioning epenthesis gives me the idea that the OP might get some ideas by looking into how English words are rendered in katakana, a script designed for much simpler syllable structures. —Tamfang 17:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Just call it "mom". I think that's a pretty universal syllable. Gzuckier 14:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Not possible in Japanese.  --Lambiam 17:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Not possible in Japanese? That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. Why wouldn't that syllable be possible in Japanese? 152.16.188.107 03:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Many (most?) languages have a limited number of phonemes a word can end in. /m/ is not in the end-phoneme inventory of Japanese (/n/ is, though). The same holds for Greek, if I recall correctly. Haukur 13:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Indo European seems to have been quite fond of final /-m/ (almost all accusative singulars and genitive plurals), but while Latin retained these Greek and most other I-E languages systematically changed them to /-n/. Intriguingly, Latin has hardly any words ending in /-n/: a few little words like 'in', and the nominative-accusative singular of the ancient (and I-E) class of neuter nouns in '-men', like 'nomen' and 'flumen'. --ColinFine 23:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need Help with a Romanian word

What does the word Clipe (as in the 3rei Sud Est song "Clipe") mean? Nat Tang ta | co | em 06:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It means "moments." --Cam 04:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] why grammatical gender

Just came from the grammatical gender, couldn't find an answer to my random idle curiosity; why grammatical gender? Assuming for some reason, like just to be difficult, an ancient primitive language wanted to classify words into different groups with different properties, why not just make up two new classes instead of using gender, of all things? how did it happen that somebody looked at a chair and a table and decided 'you know, the chair looks female, and the table looks male'? Gzuckier 14:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Grammatical gender is pretty much a division of words (nouns, adjectives, pronouns) into classes. It's a major feature of inflecting languages. The classes don't have to have anything to do with natural gender, but that is the way it has developed in a number of different language families. One theory (particularly positted for Proto-Indo-European) is that there were two classes, animate and inanimate. The former also included natural phenomena, like fire and water, that may be considered 'living'. The latter didn't have a real plural number but a collective plural. This inanimate plural also worked as a singular for abstract nouns. At some point, a feminine gender developed from the inanimate plural, while the old animate became exclusively masculine. This kind of application of noun classes is found in Australian, Caucasian and Niger-Congo languages. — Gareth Hughes 14:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The term 'primitive languages' might be simply meant to imply old, but language, perhaps counter intuitively seems to be one of the things that has become simplified as civilisations have developed. English certainly used to have five cases and was inflected (i.e. different word pronunciation rather than word order was used to change meaning). I think it also had at least two genders. How the uneducated masses coped with a language as grammatically complex as the latin only the scholars new I don't understand? As a native (modern) English speaker the idea of gender seems perculiar, I wonder though if those who speak a language with gender see it as totally normal? Cyta 15:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
That's a pretty implausible hypothesis -- that language is always getting simpler -- because how would the complexity have gotten there in the first place? In particular, the book The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher refutes this idea. Languages gain complexity in some places while losing it in others, but people don't tend to notice the increasing complexity because it comes in the form of idioms that they either internalize or ignore. Think of ESL students in 50 years or so trying to learn the grammatical role of "hella", the pronunciation of "pwn3d", or how many times you should say "is" when beginning a sentence with "the thing is is". (Not that these are certain to be lasting features of the English language, but you never know what will be.)
And Latin had lots of cases, yes, but it also had few restrictions on word order. And the scholarly Latin you learn in school or hear in church bears little resemblance to a language people actually spoke.
Finally, of course those who speak a language with gender see it as totally normal. In contrast, you speak a language where the spelling and sound of a word have very little to do with each other, and you think that's normal. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
There's this book called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff; if you're interested in grammatical gender I think you'd find it interesting, although I personally think the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is garbage. --Kjoonlee 15:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
For the record, so does Lakoff. — Zerida 21:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
on a more general level, human language fundamentally works by grouping things into classes (and sub-classes, sub-sub-classes etc.). First you have "nouns" vs. "verbs" etc., and then you are free to apply various categorizations within the "nouns" category. Such tree structures actually develop because it makes the language easier to learn, not harder. Later, they become fossilized and a nuisance that has to be learned extra, until some lazy new generation drops them altogether (perhaps at the same time introducing new classes). "Gender" is just one instance of this. It appears that one good idea is classing things by sex, since that is one dichotomy very close to our heart so to speak, so that grammatical gender often ends up somehow oriented along the lines of biological sex. But the grammatical category is by no means directly or strongly bound to the biological dichotomy, the relation is fuzzy and more of the nature of a "general idea", the categorization is really a language-internal thing and evolves according to its own set of rules. dab (𒁳) 16:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, that may be your private pet theory, but I don't think any professional linguists would subscribe to it.  --Lambiam 16:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Noun classes such as gender entail a need for agreement. This adds redundancy, which helps to guard against miscommunication. Gareth Hughes has presented a plausible hypothesis for the emergence of grammatical gender in proto–Indo-European (the ancestor of most of the languages of Europe and India) from a simple set of two noun classes: animate and inanimate. Bantu languages do not have grammatical gender, but they have a system of up to 20 or so noun classes (some of which are paired singular/plural forms) grouping words referring to humans, plants, fruits, animals, inanimate objects, verbal nouns (including abstract concepts), and so on. Marco polo 17:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
May I ask why you say "Bantu languages do not have grammatical gender" when noun classes are just that? Just because there are a lot more of them (Xhosa has more than 10 if you count plural classes separately -- which is standard). --196.7.19.250 09:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Having nouns divided into multiple classes can help speed up the recognition of words. The technical term for the phenomenon is "gender priming." I can't seem to find a Wikipedia article on the subject, but you if you Google the phrase you can find articles like this one. It seems to be a tradeoff between more work on the part of the speaker (in terms of having to produce adjectives, verbs, or case endings that agree in gender with the noun) vs. more work on the part of the listener (in terms of not having any clues to the noun that's following). Highly inflected languages (such as Russian) place a higher cognitive burden on the speaker, whereas relatively uninflected languages (such as English) place a higher cognitive burden on the listener. Katya 17:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
A side point: grammatical gender isn't always so arbitrary. In Arabic, there is at least some kind of system, though it isn't reliable. All I remember about it is that things which occur in pairs (e.g. the eyes) tend to be female, presumably because of the "femine" concept of co-operation. I thought it was a delightful little artistic touch. One day maybe I'll even get to learn the language properly, *sigh* 203.221.126.227 00:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hebrew translation for english word FAITH

good morning!

hi i need the hebrew translation for the english word FAITH , not belief, like for example faith in oneself or faith in God. I need it with and without vowels.

Thank you very much!

Have a nice day :)--Chrissie1210 15:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A very similar question was asked just slighty higher up the page (and asked in a very similar style), here. Lanfear's Bane

[edit] Pluralisation question

Hi all. I am putting a form together; I need it to say List the galaxy(s) spotted.

However, I realised the plural of galaxy is galaxies - is what I currently have correct? I don't have room on the form for it to say List the galaxy or galaxies spotted. Thanks muchly. Neil ╦ 15:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

How about 'List any galaxies spotted' — it covers the possibility of just one being spotted. — Gareth Hughes 15:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
But also implies they may not spot any - they'd only be filling in this form if they'd spotted at least one. Neil ╦ 15:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
'List all galaxies spotted.' --LarryMac | Talk 16:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
List the [galaxy|galaxies] spotted.? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 19:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Or "List each galaxy spotted". (Are there any spotted galaxies ?) StuRat 22:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I think I've seen galaxy/ies or rather the equivalent somewhere or other. 203.221.126.227 00:24, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I like List all galaxies spotted. Thanks LarryMac, and thanks all. Neil ╦ 11:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do titles need initial cap?

For example, maharaja? See some edit war on a few shitty articles. Unnithan, Valiathan etc. 17:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

According to our MoS, the answer is, in general, no, unless they are used with a name. E.G. King Louis XVII was king of France. However in the articles you refer to I cannot pass a judgement because I do not clearly understand the nature of these words. For example if one was talking about the clans of Scotland one would (might) write "Since that time the family has been considered Cambells." Here the word Cambell is clearly a proper noun and the word "Cambells" I suppose a collective proper noun in the same way we might write "Founding Fathers". I look forward to more knowledgeable insight on this matter. Rich Farmbrough, 17:39 24 July 2007 (GMT).
As I understand it, titles are capitalized only when they refer to specific ones. For example, "Some generals wanted to overthrow the government, but General Washington talked them out of it." By the way, Farmbrough, the WP:MOS#Titles has “Louis XVI was King of France”. Clarityfiend 17:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the difference is when you say "Louis was king fourteen years." — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
As Laura says. I'd also argue for
"17 kings of France were named 'Louis' "
"Louis XVII was a king of France"
and (to the tune of "La Marseillaise")
Louis XVI was the king of France in 1792
He was worse than Louis XV
He was worse than Louis XIV
He was worse than Louis XIII
He was the worst
Since Louis I
--Jerzy•t 06:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
_ _ Rich may well know his Cambells from his Campbells, but mentioning them may encourage more of the numerous misspellings that i've just finished correcting: the vast majority of about 150 uses of "Cambell" in the en.WP.
_ _ In any case, collective nouns include "pack" and "congregation", and are grammatically interesting bcz some of us would say "the congregation was singing the anthem" but "by and large, the congregation were amused by the sermon" (while others would use a singular verb come hell or high water). On the other hand, "Cambell" being a surname and thus a proper noun, in every case i know of, "Cambells" is simply a plural proper noun.
_ _ I find "The Founding Fathers" interesting because to me it's kind of a false plural: i've never heard anyone say "Franklin was a Founding Father", and i'd say he was "one of the Founding Fathers", or, (if i were pontificating more pontifically than i usually do) "a founding father of the American state". Altho "Founding Fathers" is a less formal title than "King of France", i think Rich is onto something in paralleling the two. Yet i would feel the same way about the expression "the town fathers", or for that matter "the powers that be": I'd almost say that these last two are false-plural titles that are so informal that capitalization is not appropriate. I in turn would look forward to more enlightenment (if this were not an archive).
--Jerzy•t 06:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RUSSIAN TRANSLATION? Is this translator worth a darn?

Can you help me ? I need to get someone who is expert in tranlation of english to russian to tell me what this says? thanks ! (its a software translator that has had comments that it is horrible_)


Как дела? Я только задаюсь вопросом, работает ли этот переводчик правильно? Или это производит мусор? Спасибо!
Я мог бы быть в состоянии отправиться в Россию когда-нибудь, но не уверен когда. Стоимость настолько высока, это заставляет меня думать вдвое о прибытии там.
Имейте замечательный день! Да благословит вас Господь для того, чтобы помогать мне, чтобы понять это.

Jd

(Removed indents to make text line up and eliminate unintentional boxes, all for greater clarity, I hope. Bielle 19:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

This is what Google translate makes out of it:
How are you? I just wonder whether this translator correct? Or is this garbage? Thank you! I might be able to go to Russia someday, but not sure when. The cost is so high, this makes me think twice about the arrival there. Keep a great day! Yes God bless you for helping me to understand this.
Kind of understandable. Remember, when going to Russia, that the vodka is good, but the meat is rotten.  --Lambiam 21:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it will be perfectly understandable; it's just a very literal translation, that's all. I'm an English speaker who knows some Russian, and I had no trouble reading the message. Of course, an opinion from a native Russian speaker would be the most valuable. --Reuben 23:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

THANKS A LOT !! --TripleBatteryLife 13:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah; I don't understand every word of the original, but the translation certainly matches everything I do understand. That's Google? I'm surprised, because it doesn't do that good of a job with French or German or Italian, that I have seen. Gzuckier 14:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] grammar checking a sentence

sir could you please check the following sentence for any grammatical mistakes- 'We watched you make us happy throughout the function'61.1.238.108 20:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. --Richardrj talk email 20:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
It's grammatically correct, but it doesn't sound very natural. I'm not sure what it means. Perhaps it would sound better in context. --Reuben 20:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it is not clear what the meaning of this sentence is.  --Lambiam 21:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
It may mean something like "we all saw that you tried your best to entertain us throughout the function."--K.C. Tang 01:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
"Tried your best" suggests that he/she did not quite succeed in making them happy. I agree that the original sentence as written is not natural for an English speaker. Maybe one of the following would work better: "You entertained us throughout the event". ("Function" suggest a very formal and rather joyless occasion. "Event" is more neutral; it suggests the possibility of a good time.) "We enjoyed watching you throughout the event." Marco polo 01:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I second the fact that "function" is formal and perhaps joyless. Consider "event" or "celebration" (if it was a celebration). Naming the function would also work, e.g., "reception," "party," "dance," etc. It would also be good to change "We watched...." If the "seeing" was important, "We saw you worked hard to keep us all happy throughout the evening." could be good. If the "seeing" is less important, "We all felt you kept us happy during the graduation." Maybe even, "We were all happy during the event because of you." or "...due to your efforts."  — gogobera (talk) 02:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

For clarity, Gogobera's sentences could also be written "We saw that you worked hard..." and "We all felt that you...", though this is less colloquial. Tesseran 05:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)