Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Language/2006 August 29

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[edit] Cook Islands Maori

Ethnologue seems to list Cook Islands Maori as several different languages. Also, there is a long vocabulary list in the same article which many have suggested should be moved to Wiktionary. Could someone please work these out (or point me to where the work should be requested)? Mo-Al 00:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Word Count

When reading the translation of a book in different languages, one would notice that some languages require more words or syllables when compared to other languages (for example when a novel is translated into French or German from English, the French and German versions are usually thicker). So, is there a most efficent language where the same amount of information can be written or spoken in the least amount of words or syllables? What is the language, and is a language being efficent a good thing?

An esperanto dictionary would probably be the thinnest (about 1/3 of one for a natural language) and that is one form of efficiency, but not the kind you're asking about. DirkvdM 05:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It often I think depends on the information being transmitted... A phrase that takes several words in English could be reduced to one word in another language, and vice versa. Linguofreak 05:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy in a language is a lot of the time a good thing. We don't always get the whole message (noisy rooms, the person talks too fast, you get distracted, etc...), so it helps to be able to understand it even with only part of the message. As for which language is most efficient... hmm... I'd say Japanese is the most succinct I can think of (and, every one of their letters counts for about two of ours, so even as an alphabet they've got us beat)... Someone's probably done some sort of study on this. I don't know offhand though. - Rainwarrior 05:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, semi-redundant words allow for more word choices. My guess is that complex languages such as English are better for writing poetry than simpler languages such as Spanish. Λυδαcιτγ 05:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Um, so what's this about English being a "complex" language and Spanish a "simpler" language? --RiseRover|talk 11:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, every language is enormously complex. The notion that some languages are more complex than others is simply not true. (Except for very young pidgins, but they'll probably mature into creoles or die, so it's a moot point.)

Let me quote from Language Files from the Department of Linguistics of the Ohio State University, 8th edition, 2001. On the first page of the introduction, it lists "Every language is enormously complex" as one of the "very general principles of human language that will be explained and illustrated throughout this course." It's first on that list. "[t]hey are the underlying themes of many of the lectures you will hear and the assignments you will read."

Every language is enormously complex.

They should teach this in school. --Kjoonlee 06:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

English is huge. It's full of German, French, Latin, and Danish words for all of the same things. We have way too many synonyms. - Rainwarrior 15:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

In answer to your original question, efficiency can be both good and bad. An excellent example is Newspeak, which was (according to our article) based on Orwell's complaints about English in Politics and the English Language. Orwell realized that efficiency could be good, by making writing concise and to-the-point, or bad, by eliminating all shades of meaning from a language. Λυδαcιτγ 06:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking at bilingual and multilingual displays, I've noticed English often uses fewer words than some other languages to express the same concept. The comparison is especially marked when you compare English to Romance languages. For example, the French translation of Ontario's Workplace Safety & Insurance Board is Commission de la sécurité professionnelle et de l'assurance contre les accidents du travail. Romance translations are often longer because you can't use nouns as adjectives like you can in English, and because they use more articles than we do. On the other hand, translations into Slavic languages aren't that much longer than English ones. Slavic languages don't have articles, and you can use the genitive case or throw an adjectival ending on a noun to translate "insurance board" with two words. (In Czech, výbor pojišťovnu or pojišťovací výbor.) The tightest language would probably be a variety of Chinese, where each character is a morpheme and is pronounced with one syllable. -- Mwalcoff 23:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it would be výbor pojišťovny (with a y) in Czech. However, I don't think any Czech-speaking individual would understand what is meant by that. It's also not true that Slavic languages don't have articles; of course they do, but the articles are used in a different way. Generally, they are less frequent than in English. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 23:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Russian does not have articles. JackofOz 04:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Indonesian doesn't have articles either (except for stress or reference, like 'buku itu' meaning 'that book there' or 'the book you were talking about') . As a lingua franca it has a very simple structure. But to make a plural it doubles the word. For English it matters which version you mean. American English can be a bit lengthy with its political correctness ('native American') and over-politeness and some phrases I don't get like 'at this point in time'. Why not simply 'now'? And then there's questions like 'what about your drink sir' when I never ordered a drink, but that's not relevant here. :) I once heard that Dutch is a very efficient language, but I believe that had to do with redundancy leaving garbled texts legible, so that's quite the opposite of what is meant here. DirkvdM 05:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I would wonder if starting a sentence with "at this point in time" in conversation was a way of stalling to have time to think. - Rainwarrior 17:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and that French translation of the 'Workplace Safety & Insurance Board' is just showing off. It could also be translated as 'Commission de securite et assurance professionelle'. And the English version cheats by replacing 'and' (which is one letter longer than the French 'et') with '&'. :) DirkvdM 05:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, that's the translation the board uses. Yes, pojišťovna is feminine and gets a "y" ending in the genitive. But Czech does not have articles like English does -- it has demonstrative pronouns equivalent to "that" or "this." Sometimes, Czech uses those words where English would use "the."
Here are the number of words used in Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

English -- 30
French -- 34
Czech -- 25
Indonesian -- 26
Chinese -- 39 characters
Turkish -- 21 (some words quite long)
Esperanto -- 26
Mwalcoff 11:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Czech does have articles just like English, both definite and indefinite. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 17:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Really? What are they? I always thought Czech had no articles, which is why Czechs have so much trouble with them in English. -- Mwalcoff 04:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Ten, ta, and to are the singular definite articles (masculin, feminine, and neutral). Nějaký, nějaká, and nějaké are the singular indefinite articles. Czech native speakers have trouble with them in many foreign languages (e.g., German, French, and of course English), because in Czech the articles are used differently; mostly, you need no articles to express specific/non-specific meaning. Their usage is rather irregular, and I think that is why Czech people have problems with the usage of articles in other languages where they are used quite regularly. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 07:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
IANA linguist, but my understanding was that ten, ta and to are demonstrative pronouns that are sometimes used like articles are in English, while Nějaký, nějaká, and nějaké translate better as "some" or "several" than as "a" or "an." -- Mwalcoff 08:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
It depends on the context. However, generally, these are the equivalents of definite/indefinite articles. There are other words to express that, some, or several (e.g., tamten, někteří, několik). Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 11:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etruscan - related languages

I just searched and read Etruscan language article, including "less common theories" for any relationships to other languages. It would seem I wasted some hours last month reading web articles attempting to demonstrate a link to Slavic languages.

Have you heard of any such theories? and how 'far out' would they need be to escape your site?

Oh dear. I hope the articles were at least entertaining. For mentioning such theories here, it does not matter how far out they are, but rather how notable they are. If they have been written about in multiple independent reliable sources that we can refer to, we can report on them. We also have articles on the Flat Earth Society, Pyramid power, and Specified complexity, and, to stay closer to home, an extensive account of Phaistos Disc decipherment claims. It is easy to find all kinds of theories on the web about links of Etruscan to other languages, put forward by enthusiastic amateur linguists who use naive and superficial similarities to bolster their pet theories. If you're fed up with the Slavic link, then here (1.8MB PDF file) you can read that Etruscan is obviously related to Hungarian. But wait, how can that be? Because here it is proved in full detail that Etruscan is a member of the Dravidian language family. Right now it seems unlikely that these theories will attract enough attention to become notable enough that we will report on them. --LambiamTalk 05:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Learning Japanese script

Any good on-line resource to learn it? Thanks.

Try learn-japanese, or possibly japanese.about. Good luck! -- the GREAT Gavini 11:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Are you talking about kanji or kana? Be aware that kanji takes several years to master properly... 惑乱 分からん 18:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Not just kanji: kana as well, especially for people like me! -- the GREAT Gavini 19:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Ehhh, how much interest do you have in Japanese? I learnt it almost fluently in just a few months. =S 惑乱 分からん 19:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
"Not just kanji"? Kana is easy, kanji is hard. For the first, it helps if you know some Japanese, for example to understand when は is wa instead of ha. For the second, you really need to know Japanese (or learn it at the same time). --LambiamTalk 20:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

  • Does the term "African-American" refer specifically to black Americans, or does it also include non-black Africans, eg. Arab/Egyptian, white South Africans, etc? If not, is there a collective noun for such groups? Rusty2005 12:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • The term only applies to blacks. There is no collective name for the rest, so refer to them by country, as in Egyptian-American, etc. StuRat 13:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that "African-American" tends to be used with regards to ethnicity, to the point where non-Africans/non-Americans are being called "African-American" (recently immigrated Africans, people from the Caribbean etc.). Let's face it, how much does an average American think about Charlize Theron's background? ColourBurst 13:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks  :-) Rusty2005 16:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
If I remember the story correctly, there was one interview with Nelson Mandela where the american journalist asked him how he felt about being Afro-/African-American, and he didn't understand the question... 惑乱 分からん 18:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I had a prof once who referred to both Djimon Honsou and his character in Gladiator as "African American". Adam Bishop 20:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

All those things never made sense to made me. First of all, why is there no such thing as African European? And if I would want to be "correct" about a black coloured African, .... would I have to say African-African? The use of African to denote blacks is so weird...Evilbu 21:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no language regulator for English that can officially decide what a word means. However, I doubt many Americans would refer to someone whose ancesters were North African Arabs, Ugandian Indians or Afrikaners as "African American." The US Census Bureau's 2000 questionaire included a checkbox under the "race" question for "Black, African Am., or Negro." -- Mwalcoff 22:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"African-American " is a term which IIRC came into widespread use in the US in the 1960's as a replacement or euphemism for "negro" or "black." In a US high school a couple of years ago a white student born in Africa ran for some African-American office and won, and was suspended by the administration. Edison 04:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

If 'black' and 'Indian' are 'African American' and 'American American' 'native American' then 'white' is 'European American'. No? Oh, hold on, in the US there also appears to be an important distinction between 'Latino's' and, ehm, well, 'normal people', so that would be 'south European American' and 'north European American'. Being politically correct is one thing, but try to get it right then. :) DirkvdM 05:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
What's "right" in PC-speak? African-USians? JackofOz 06:06, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Citizens-of-the-Federal-Republic-of-the-United-States-of-America-who-are-of-African-origin? -- the GREAT Gavini 06:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
'South of the Sahara African USians"? DirkvdM 06:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a new PC term used in the US..."people of color", which apparently means everyone except "those damn white devils who are the sole source of all evil in the world". Then the term "minority" apparently means everyone except "those damn MALE white devils who are the sole source of all evil in the world". (Somehow women are called a minority, even though there are more women than men.) :-) StuRat 10:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Although brown-black is in no way more of a color than the pinkish-yellow hue of white people, when you think about it, and the term has also already led to the famous response "You have the nerve to call me colored" (albeit with ironic usage). 惑乱 分からん 15:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Africans north of the Sahara and white Africans aren't the only problem. There are also Pygmys and Bushmen. Don't know if there are any of those in the US (or America, for that matter). And then there are two types of blacks in Black Africa; Bantus in the west and south and a quite different people in the east. Oddly, I can't find a name for them. I thought they were called Nilo Hamites, but all I can find is Nilo-Hamitic languages. Anyway, they're quite different from Bantus, taller, straight nose, actually white except for the fact that they're black. So if these two groups are to be grouped together (which in everyday life will certainly happen) then the most logical name is 'black'. Problem solved. If only everyone else would see that. So problem not solved. DirkvdM 06:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll agree to consider that argument if you agree to stop avoiding the use of "American" to refer to the nationality of a person from the USA. JackofOz 07:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
If I agree to do something that is a running issue, you'll agree to consider to do something about something tha has never been an issue afaik? DirkvdM 06:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I always thought you sounded like a nut when you say USian, but, then again, you are a nut, so why not sound like one ? StuRat 07:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image credit

When using someone else's image in a text (not specifically Wikipedia), I want to give the source credit in the end of the caption. Which is the best way to do that? I can think of a few suggestions:

  1. [Image credit: NASA–JPL]
  2. (Image credit: NASA–JPL)
  3. [Image credit: NASA–JPL]
  4. (Source: NASA–JPL)

There are of course several more possible combinations, but I think you get the idea. So what is the proper style of an image credit? —Bromskloss 14:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Would the Manual of Style help? -- the GREAT Gavini 14:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid not, neither does Wikipedia:Captions. I guess it's because, here at Wikipedia, credit is given on the info page rather than in the caption. —Bromskloss 16:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm sure it won't matter which one you choose. All include the relevant information anyway. -- the GREAT Gavini 17:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure my point would get through somehow, but I want a recommended style to follow. —Bromskloss 08:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there is a "recommended style". -- the GREAT Gavini 10:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The following from the CMS may be helpful:
Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., 12.42: Placement. A credit line usually appears at the end of a caption, sometimes in parentheses or in different type (or both). A photographer's name occasionally appears in small type parallel to the bottom or side of a photograph.
37.1. The myth that all children love dinosaurs is contradicted by this nineteenth-century scene of a visit to the monsters at Crystal Palace. (Cartoon by John Leech. "Punch's Almanac for 1855," Punch 28 [1855]: 8. Photo courtesy of The Newberry Library, Chicago.)
Ibid., 12.46: Material obtained free of charge. For material that the author has obtained free and without restrictions on its use, the credit line may use the word courtesy.
Photograph courtesy of Ford Motor Company.
Ibid., 12.49: Material in the public domain. Illustrations from works in the public domain may be reproduced without permission. For readers' information, however, a credit line is appropriate.
Illustration by Joseph Pennell for Henry James, English Hours (Boston, 1905), facing p. 82.
Reprinted from John D. Shortridge, Italian Harpsichord Building in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 225 (Washington, DC, n.d.). —Wayward Talk 12:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hyperbole?

If the nickname of Einstein was given to a person who thinks they are smart, but who is not smart; would that be using a hyperbole?

If it isn't a hyperbole, is there a language term that fits this scenario?

Thanks in advance for your reply, Robertk5

An ironic nickname? 惑乱 分からん 20:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Sarcasm? --π! 20:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Facetiousness? Dar-Ape 21:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Calling someone an Einstein would be a hyperbole if they were smart (but only if they were not at or above the rank of genius) — [Mac Davis] (talk) (Desk|Help me improve)
I certainly wouldn't call it hyperbole - the meaning is the same even if said to someone who really is as smart or smarter than Einstein. I'm pretty sure there is a term for proper names used as nouns/verbs/whatever (e.g. bork), but I can't recall what it is. -Elmer Clark 02:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
you mean eponym?--K.C. Tang 06:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
A superbole? DirkvdM 06:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
There is metaphore - comparison - and irony - implied negation : our figure of speech page needs a name for that mix (and plenty of other figures just don't show). -- DLL .. T 18:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)