By analogy with the use of "(s)" to indicate a noun which can be either singular or plural, is there a standard form for representing a noun which can be either singular possessive or plural possessive? This question is prompted by my recent revision of Trail of the Whispering Giants. I revised " tribes " to " tribes' " before realizing that the context does not make clear whether the word "features" applies to one tribe or more than one tribe when one sculpture is discussed, or whether the grammatical number varies with different sculptures. I do not remember ever encountering such a form, or even thinking about this question. The forms " tribe(')s(') " and " tribe(s)'(s) " and " tribe('s/s') " and " tribe (s'/'s) " and " tribe's/tribes' " and " tribes'/tribe's " are some possibilities. (The extra spaces are for avoiding an apostrophe beside a quotation mark.) -- Wavelength (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is; if someone wants to avoid this sort of ambiguity, they usually just change word order (like "the features of all the local tribes" vs. "all the features of the local tribe"). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I propose the form " tribe's' ", pronounced the same as " tribes " and " tribe's " and " tribes' " and possibly " tribe(s) ". [I am revising the section heading.] -- Wavelength (talk) 01:02, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there's an ambiguity, you just have to show it; there's no understandable equivalent to "tribe(s)" (which is taken from questionnaires and government forms). Write "tribe's [or tribes']" or "tribes' [or tribe's]", or else recast it as "of the tribe(s)". "Tribe(s)" is not that good prose anyway, it's more of a convenience for form-framers; if I were writing good, formal prose I'd probably write "tribe or tribes" or else the slightly-less-grammatical "one or more tribes", as in

Historians don't know what tribe or tribes the war-party belonged to.
or
This huge structure must represent the craftsmanship of one or more local tribes.

—— Shakescene (talk) 01:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The noun phrase "all the local tribes features" was added by User:Found5dollar at 02:14, 7 December 2009. I have asked for clarification at Talk:Trail of the Whispering Giants. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have revised the article according to the answer provided. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[I am correcting my comment. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)][reply]

"Prince Giorgio, a bewhiskered grower of mimosa flowers from a family of mimosa growers, was seized by a glorious vision: that Seborga was not part of the surrounding Italian nation." A sentence from a New York Times article.

Why couldn't they just used whiskered?

Revoolution (talk) 01:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's the New York Times. Also, to my ears, "whiskered" sounds like it is an inherent characteristic, like of a walrus. "Bewhiskered" means it is a person with facial hair, probably shaped in some aesthetically pleasing way. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Merriam-Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary sense 3 of be- is "excessively : ostentatiously — in intensive verbs formed from simple verbs <bedeck> and in adjectives based on adjectives ending in -ed <beribboned>". In some cases, the be- word takes over completely; I don't think I've ever seen anything described as "ribboned". Deor (talk) 01:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I've always been fond of the word "mustachioed" rather than "bewhiskered", though I suppose the two aren't exact synonyms. +Angr 16:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reading a 1995 article from Nature for an essay, found in their "scientific correspondence" section, and I've noticed that all articles start with the word "SIR -", stylised with a capital S and small cap IR, followed by an em-dash. After that, the articles just goes on like any scientific article, really. What does this mean? I assume that the authors aren't addressing some unnamed person. Could it be an abbreviation?

If someone wants to have a look at it in case my description is too vague, the article is at (needs access rights)

Nature 373, 663-664

01:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by EditorInTheRye (talk • contribs)

Based on "correspondence" in the section title, I would say those are letters to the editor (from readers), not articles. Letters in The Economist also all start "Sir". --Nricardo (talk) 03:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Sir" is one long-established way to start a letter being sent to an organization rather than necessarily to a particular person. Variations include "Dear Sir", "Dear Sir(s)", "Dear Sir or Madam", etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:00, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note also that scientific papers (even the ones reporting new results) were originally letters sent from one scientist to another, which eventually changed to letters to the editor of a scientific journal (which were originally set up like trade magazines). Old journals (like Nature, established 1869), may retain some vestiges of that tradition. -- 128.104.112.87 (talk) 16:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In peer-reviewed scientific journals, full-blown 'papers' (which report original research) submitted by scientists for possible publication (if they pass the journal's Peer Review process) are written with a formal structure including most if not all of the sections Introductory Abstract, Introduction, Description, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, References and sometimes Supplementary Data. If however someone wants to submit a much briefer report of some results, or observations about a previously published paper, that doesn't warrant all this structure, it is often done in the form of a 'Letter to the Editor', which by convention is begun in this way. Note that papers and letters are not strictly speaking 'articles': this term is more usually applied to pieces written by the journal's own staff or commissioned from a freelance writer. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 04:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Letters to London "broadsheet" newspapers always start "Sir-" [1] Alansplodge (talk) 13:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I searched the archives and found a great many questions along the lines of "What's the easiest language to learn for someone who speaks ______". I, on the other hand, am interested in a purely objective rating of the world's major languages along degree of difficulty. What is the consensus - if one even exists - for which major world language is the easiest/hardest first language to learn? For example, I have heard it asserted many times that Japanese is the world's most difficult major language because of its grammar structure and bolted-on writing system. However, I suspect the average Japanese fellow might disagree! Is this sort of thing even quantifiable? 218.25.32.210 (talk) 06:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no consensus in the literature on this. The closest you can get is looking at the age at which people acquire certain parts of the language...but even that is just talking about bits and pieces, not the whole language. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard it said that knowledge of something like 12,000 characters is required to read a Japanese newspaper, for the record. (Someone could be talking me for a ride, though; it'd not be the first time.) —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that is possible. In Chinese, the number is somewhere around 5,000 (and only about 2,000 for basic literacy). Japanese uses many of the same characters. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's 2000 characters for full literacy and a thousand for basic literacy in Japanese. Also, I would like to point out that the whole deal with Japanese being incredibly difficult is blown out of proportions, IMO. It's grammar is different from what we're used to, and having to learn a whole new writing/reading system doesn't make it any easier, but it's quite doable if you put your mind to it. Japanese is also far from the only language to use a non-latinic script or grammar that is not familiar to a speaker of a language that came from Indo-European. TomorrowTime (talk) 09:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's room for serious dispute that Japanese has the most difficult writing system of any major language in the world today; not only is it made up of three separate and distinct sub-systems (two different syllabaries and one large set of word-signs), but the use of Chinese characters in writing Japanese is much more complex than the use of Chinese characters in writing Chinese itself. In Japanese there are kun readings, on readings, different layers of on readings, complexities in the use of supplemental kana, etc. See chapter 9 of Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction by Geoffrey Sampson (ISBN 0-8047-1756-7). AnonMoos (talk) 11:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The 2000 "general use" characters aren't enough for full literacy. Crack open any Japanese novel and you'll find common characters not on that list. I'd put the total closer to 3000 for full literacy, and a well-educated native speaker ought to know even more. Paul Davidson (talk) 14:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Easiest to learn also depends on what you already know. If you know French, Spanish is fairly easy. If you know either of those and you're trying to learn English, you're already ahead of someone who only knows Hindi or Mandarin or, for that matter, Hindi and Mandarin. What I'd be curious about is whether language acquisition is faster or slower depending on the language. SDY (talk) 07:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They're asking about first languages. kwami (talk)

There are several issues here. There's learning one's native language. Then there's learning the national standard of your native language, which is often quite a different thing. Then there's literacy, another thing again, though related to the second. I take it you're not interested in those aspects of language learning which require a formal education (national standards, like High German in Switzerland, or literacy, like Chinese characters), but only those you pick up at home or on the street/in the field? If so, the others are correct: there is no consensus on this. However, there are aspects of certain languages which take a long time to learn. The formal register of Japanese, for example, is not generally mastered until after people leave home in their 20s. But I'm not sure you could argue that means its difficult, only that it's not required of a speaker until they're on their own. If it were required of 8-yr-olds, they'd pick it up too. Also, to become a truly good speaker of any language, in the sense that other speakers remark, Wow! S/he's a really good speaker! not only takes decades, but takes an unusual degree of talent/interest, and most people in any language don't make it. kwami (talk) 07:31, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"All languages have about the same complexity: They're all tremendously complex." This is what several of my linguistics professors have told me, and they all took it for granted. It's even written in some textbooks, like Language Files, 8th edition, Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University. --Kjoonlee 10:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's pretty much it. Like blind men touching an elephant, you can call any language "complex" depending on what part of it you look at. Chinese has a lot of characters, Arabic has crazy verb conjugations, lots of Mesoamerican languages have complicated agglutinative verb morphology, Wolof has a complicated noun class system, Russian has tough phonology...etc. People who don't quite know what they're talking about have called all of these "the hardest" at some point or another, because they're just looking at one feature that's difficult and not looking at the language as a whole. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 10:22, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a myth that all languages are equally complex. There is some truth to it, in that a language that is simple in one area may be complex in another, but basically it was a white lie intended to counter the formerly prevalent racist notion that "primitive" people spoke "primitive" (that is, simple) languages, and consequently that ethicities who spoke simple languages were intellectually deficient. Well, I say "formerly", but there are still people who think that way. But really, there's no reason at all to think that all languages are equally complex. In fact, many "primitive" languages are actually more complex in many ways than the languages we're familiar with: polysynthesis is certainly not simple; perhaps the linguistic mixing and unstable influences in the histories of major language-family expansions have eradicated some of their former complexity, whereas small peoples who have been isolated and stable for millennia have had time to accrue all sorts of complexities and irrugularities. kwami (talk) 15:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Kwamigami here -- all languages are equally expressive (as far as can be determined), so there are no "primitive languages" (spoken by groups of adult cognitively-normal people), in the Lévy-Bruhl or whatever sense. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that all languages are equally complex. In fact, if some language develops a particular subsystem significantly beyond what is revealed by linguistic typology to be common among languages generally (such as certain Khoisan languages which have many distinct click consonants, or the abstract consonantal roots of the Semitic languages etc. etc.), then that language is objectively complex with respect to that particular linguistic feature. Also, linguistic opacity -- such as a lot of inflectional morphology following a number of separate conjugational/declensional patterns with additional irregularities piled on top (as found in many older Indo-European languages) -- takes up memory space without any corresponding gain in communicative power, and so may be considered to add to language complexity. And there's one type of language, the creole languages, which are noted for generally lacking any major complexities with respect to linguistic typology or linguistic opacity, so that such creoles are can be considered less complex than most other languages (though not necessarily less expressive, which is a different matter). Esperanto has a few creole-type characteristics, but also many "Standard Average European" characteristics (i.e. features which make Esperanto easier to learn for speakers of some European-origin languages, but not for speakers of many other languages). AnonMoos (talk) 20:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is all correct. The main point I was trying to make is that it's not constructive to try to say one language is "the hardest" just by looking at one cherry-picked feature and putting on blinders to the rest of the language, which is what a lot of people tend to do. If you Google "hardest language", you will find a lot of random people's blogs making uninformed arguments that all pretty much amount to "X is the hardest language because it has the most complicated Y". Depending on which Y people choose to pay attention to and which they choose to ignore, almost any language could fill the place of X. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A very good point. My native Slovene is often touted as "extremely difficult" because it has the dual case. A long time ago I used to have an American flatmate, and his comment to this was: "well, I've learned 26 case paradigms by now, I don't see why the 27th should be that much different." TomorrowTime (talk) 07:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that summary completely. When I was studying Russian, my friends would ask me "But why Russian? Isn't it incredibly difficult to learn?". On examination, this perceived difficulty turned out to be the Cyrillic alphabet, which is mastered surprisingly quickly. Other aspects of the language did indeed prove to be harder nuts to crack (and I never did master verbs of motion, mainly because my teacher primed us for weeks beforehand by telling us how hard most students find them, so like a very obdedient student I proceeded to find them very hard). But overall, it's not the behemoth of complexity that many westerners seem to assume it is. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Cyrillic thing is a great example of how perceptions of difficulty can vary from person to person. Personally, I find Cyrillic (handwritten, at least) a pain--although, granted, I hardly ever use it so I'm not very experienced. On the other hand, I know some people who find it very easy. When I was first learning Uyghur, which can be written with Arabic or with Cyrillic, I had a classmate who was already fluent in some other languages written in Cyrillic. Thus, when we got to the end of class and were going to spend a little while learning the Cyrillic (we had spent most of the class using Arabic), it was killing me, whereas the other guy was beside himself with excitement for how much easier the language suddenly got when he would use that alphabet. One person's difficult is another person's easy, I guess. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article Hardest language, but there are perpetual debates on its talk page, and I'm not sure that it's been steadily improving... AnonMoos (talk) 11:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of "easiest to learn as a first language", a reasonable candidate might be sign language, since it does not require fine vocal control, which is tough in any spoken language. Kids can learn sign language earlier than any spoken language because of this, see Sign language in infants and toddlers, and sign language(s) is/are fairly major languages worldwide. Also there are conventional languages specifically designed to be easy to learn, such as Esperanto, and by all accounts they succeed at this as a second language. But there are at least a few people who were taught this as their first language - see for example George Soros - so it might be a good candidate for "easiest spoken first language", though not a major one. LouScheffer (talk) 14:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are over 7,000 languages on the Earth. To say one is harder than the other is impossible to judge. TomA8 15:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Esperanto was designed from the outset to be easy to learn, but I think you have a head start if you know a Latin-based language already. Alansplodge (talk) 17:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Coincidentally, today (the 15th) is indicated as the "birthday" of Esperanto, on Google. However, it's actually the 150th birthday of Esperanto's inventor, L. L. Zamenhof. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ironically, even though I myself am a bit of an Esperanto enthusiast, it should be noted that all things being equal, Esperanto is not a terribly easy language to learn, unless you happen to be a speaker of an Indo-European language to begin within. Its phonology isn't particularly intuitive (at least for English speakers or for non-Indo-European speakers) and its vocab and grammar are entirely biased toward Western Europe. However, it is simplified and regularized in a way that make it a bit easier than learning what is called a natural langauge (i.e. all non-artificial languages). Perhaps this doesn't help the original poster, of course, who was interested in first languages....though for that you could see George Soros (an esperanto native speaker).-71.111.194.50 (talk) 10:54, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be interesting to compare the length of time that the diplomatic service of various countries allocate to teaching a language from scratch. So if, for example, the US give their staff 18 months to get up to a given standard in Arabic, but only 15 months for Russian, that data could be mapped against what the Russians and Arab states give their staff to learn Chinese and French. Anyone up for the job of data massaging? Or finding the data in the first place? BrainyBabe (talk) 19:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ithkuil is very hard. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

—copied from the Humanities Reference desk:

Is there an English translation of heer ranjha, sohni mahiwal, sassi punnun and mirza sahiba? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.117.60 (talk) 02:20, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sahiba can be a term of address for females, much like "madam" (it's the female form of sahib). Mirza can be a name in South Asia. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 13:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think they're referring to the Punjabi/Sindhi (not Hindi-Urdu) "tragic romances" (as the article Heer Ranjha calls it). Since these are essentially folktales, I'm sure there are plenty of English interpretations of them. If you start from the Wikipedia articles on them, I'm sure you'll be able to find something. Bʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{Speak up!} 19:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any site where I can generate a glossary from a list of words? I know several online dictionaries, but none where you can just copy-and-paste a list of obscure words and get a list of common synonyms from it.ProteanEd (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you have some sort of corpus in text format that already has definitions in it, it should be easy to do using a programming language like Python or Perl. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you're on Linux or similar, you can do:

for word in `cat my_words.txt`; do
  lynx -dump "http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/$word" > "$word.definition"
done

--Sean 14:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I mean like astronauts, CEOs, basically a word to describe the personality type/quality that connotes both ability and drive in large amounts. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 18:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

High-flyers, high achievers, excellers? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 18:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Type A? (Though that's not one word.) Clarityfiend (talk) 18:58, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Supercompetent? --Anon, 20:42 UTC, December 14, 2009.

Übermensch? - or perhaps that's going a bit too far...Alansplodge (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Go-getters, the pro-active. In the past this may have been desribed as having "spirit" or vigour. 78.145.22.247 (talk) 21:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Mover and shaker
• "mover"--64.138.237.101 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well-adjusted? Bus stop (talk) 22:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some are. Some aren't!--64.138.237.101 (talk) 22:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Driven. (Opposite of "slacker.") Bus stop (talk) 23:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't mean that they can afford chauffeurs? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it means that too. But they don't wash their cars. They tend to send their late model Bentleys to the dry cleaners. Bus stop (talk) 14:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Vigo(u)r" is as good as any. Teddy Roosevelt, one of the most "driven" Presidents we ever had (fueled in part by consuming a gallon of coffee every day), talked about his lifestyle as "the vigorous life." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A gallon of coffee, huh? Makes me think of that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer got free coffee in a legal settlement. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Masterly. Perhaps the root meaning of Master meant this, but has come to mean someone being in control of others. 89.241.43.33 (talk) 13:36, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The is also Sisu. 78.146.200.137 (talk) 11:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What are the kanji and roumaji for inferno, thunderstorm, and blizzard? --70.245.187.130 (talk) 22:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to try wiktionary or a Japanese-English dictionary. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I went to the Japanese Wikipedia, they had the kanji but not the roumaji. --70.245.187.130 (talk) 23:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The English wiktionary has pretty extensive entries for most kanji, including the romaji. Just enter them in there. Indeterminate (talk) 00:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

inferno: 猛火 mouka

thunderstorm: 雷雨 raiu

blizzard: 吹雪 fubuki

Paul Davidson (talk) 05:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone help me with the text in the accompanying image? I know what the overall structure of the diagram is, and what the gist of the meanings are, since this is a Scandinavian-language version of the Shield of the Trinity diagram; however, I'm curious as to some of the wordings which would appear to go beyond a simple translation of the usual basic diagram text (for an English-language version of the diagram, see File:Shield-Trinity.svg). Thanks! -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if anyone has any ideas as to its probable date (beyond my guess of sometime in the 19th-century), thank you. AnonMoos (talk) 04:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't help with the date, but the words that appear are: Fadren 'the Father', Sonen 'the Son', (can't make out the one for the Holy Ghost, which is normally den Helige Anden, but here appears to say Iben Helige Anda which I don't understand; 'anda' would be a misspelling in modern Swedish), Tre äro ett 'Three are one', ett äro tre 'one is three', och de tre äro ett 'and the three are one', är 'is/are', Gud eller יְהֹוָה 'God or Jehovah'. For what it's worth, äro is archaic Swedish. --Diacritic (talk) 06:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be "Then Helige Anda", with an archaic spelling of the article den. Also, äro is third person plural, so "ett äro tre" seems to be an error, perhaps the decorator was not entirely literate and was just copying from memory?--Rallette (talk) 07:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And according to the website of the church, the ceiling is from 1804.--Rallette (talk) 07:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's just symmetry "Tre äro ett, ett äro tre, och de tre äro ett" just sounds better than "Tre äro ett, ett är tre, och de tre äro ett". Obviously the whole point here is that the singular-plural thing isn't quite that simple! :) --Pykk (talk) 09:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so the diagram is then actually a little "unorthodox" in not including a negative in the three links connecting the three outer nodes. Thanks for the info... AnonMoos (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why are Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian in a different language family from all other major European languages? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 07:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of sounding tautological, because they're not descended from Proto-Indo-European. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What Aeusoes said. They are Finno-Ugric languages and stem from a different source than the rest of the main European languages. --TomorrowTime (talk) 07:56, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but what exactly is the story behind their difference? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 08:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why is your next-door neighbor not your brother? What exactly is the story behind his not being your brother? Through a complex and lengthy chain of events, the Indo-European language family came to be where it is today. Through a different but equally complex and lengthy chain of events, the Finno-Ugric language family came to be where it is today. Pre-history being what it is, we don't have a whole lot of information about how these things happened, but, like the stories of you and your neighbor, we can imagine that the stories of these two language families were quite separate until the two families came into contact with each other. --Diacritic (talk) 09:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To put it a little more cut-and-and-dry, we can imagine two ancient "homelands" (Ur-Heimats). The Indo-Europeans originated somewhere in central Eurasia, possibly east of what is now Ukraine. The Finno-Ugric peoples also had their homeland somewhere in what is now Russia, I believe (a huge possible expanse, I realize). Eventually they migrated, separately, into Finland, Hungary, while the Indo-Europeans migrated into Europe, Iran, and South Asia. Through invasion and intermarrying, both groups of languages became dominants in the places their respective ethnic groups settled. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 10:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish philology's most beloved crackpot, Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa, concluded that the Proto-Europeans were in fact "degenerated and acclimatized Fenno-Egyptians"...--Janneman (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is thought that the original homeland of the Proto-Finno-Ugric language was in what is now Russia in the taiga on either or possibly both sides of the Urals. From this original homeland, the language and its descendants spread to the east and west across the taiga. To the west, carriers of Finno-Ugric languages settled across what are now northwestern Russia, Estonia, Finland, and northern parts of Sweden and Norway. Meanwhile, speakers of Proto-Indo-European lived somewhere to the south, possibly in the steppes of what is now southern Russia bordering the Black Sea and the Caucasus, or possibly along the Black Sea in what is now Turkey. Speakers of Indo-European languages likewise spread east to what is now India and even western China and west into Europe. Eventually, Indo-European languages spread across almost all of Europe, except the Finnic-speaking far north and the land of the the Basques. Meanwhile a group of Finno-Ugric speakers had moved south onto the steppes of central Russia, possibly into a region earlier inhabited by Indo-European speakers. These were the ancestors of the Hungarians. The Hungarians then migrated gradually westward until, in the 10th century AD, they invaded and occupied what is now Hungary and some neighboring areas. They displaced or intermarried with earlier Indo-European (probably Slavic) speakers in that area. And that's why most of Europe speaks Indo-European languages, but a few parts speak Finno-Ugric languages. Marco polo (talk) 20:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"he was a man with pruttuial manners" Kittybrewster ☎ 11:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That was presumably from here, the one and only google hit for that word. "Pruttuial" does not appear in Mrs Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words, so I would hazard a guess that it's a mistake on the writer's part or a typo on someone else's part. But I cannot imagine what word the writer was actually meaning. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It might be an idiosyncratic formation from 'Prut' - ". . . (Echoic, representing a slight explosive sound, as of breaking wind) An exclamation of contempt . . .", or, slightly more plausibly, 'Prutenic' - ". . . (obsolete) Prussian . . ." (both OED), but neither is likely in the context. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your pruttuial reply. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In which sense do you mean that? :-) 87.81.230.195 (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the word in mind was "preternatural." The thesaurus lists preternatural as a word meaning something similar to "exceptional." Maybe unimpeachable, impeccable, or irreproachable. Bus stop (talk) 15:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prudential, presidential, crucial, brutal, Prussian, mutual ... probably not (x 6). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this is a candidate for the LLPO (Linguistic Lost Property Office), the final destination for words and expressions that have no discernible meaning but have nevertheless been used by real people in real life to mean ... something. You'll also find there things like "suitly emphazi". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No one has mentioned the pompatus of love in this context. Bus stop (talk) 23:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What does this mean -- is it Old English? In modern English, it would seem to me that "'til death do us remain together" would make more sense. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Until death parts us. I agree, it's not particularly grammatical to modern ears, but it dates back some years. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not Old English, it's Early Modern English. TammyMoet is correct that it means "Until death parts us". Wedding ceremonies that use more modern language often replace the phrase with "Until we are parted by death". +Angr 13:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It's an ossified remnant of the subjunctive mood, which is not normally used in modern English. "'Til death do us remain together" is ungrammatical, and I can't work out what it's supposed to mean. Algebraist 13:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But were it to be phrased "Til death do us re-unite", that would be perfectly regular, assuming one were to believe in an afterlife.

Incidentally, although this particular phrase is archaic (deliberately so because in religious or quasi-religious contexts dated language is culturally traditional), many English speakers and writers still regularly use the subjunctive mood. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Till death do us part" i.e. "till death parts us", is often replaced now by "as long as you (or we) both shall live". Because when one dies, the other is free to marry again. This sentiment obviously does not take potential divorce into account. The phrases about death re-uniting might be true but people often remarry when a spouse dies. How that figures into any potential afterlife is anybody's guess. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Monogamy is a largely cultural phenomenon, and who knows what kind of culture an afterlife populated by a large number of people spanning large swaths of civilizations and history would create. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's from the Book of Common Prayer which was finalised in 1662, but much of the text dates from the 1540s. In the 1552 edition, it is rendered as "tyl death us depart"[2]. Sorry Baseball Bugs, the "as long as you both shall live" quote comes from the preceding section of the service. Interestingly, its latest replacement in the Church of England, Common Worship, retains the traditional wording for that phrase[3]. I assume they wanted to avoid alienating people by throwing away well-loved phrases. Alansplodge (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's the American Episcopal Prayer Book that uses "until we are parted by death" [4]. +Angr 15:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Still doesn't make sense to me. 'Until death DO us part' (i.e. 'until death parts us')? Why isn't the third person singular present indicative ('does') used here - after all, 'death' is a singular noun? (EDIT) Ignore me, I hadn't seen Algebraist's post above. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 17:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The third person singular present subjunctive is used because the reference is to an uncertain and unspecified time in the future. +Angr 17:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers Angr, I had just realized that. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(not an answer to the question above, just another point) Some people use "until death us do part", which I guess comes from a time when English word order was different. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:23, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the wording in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and in the 1928 U.S. Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, is "till death us do part", not "till death do us part". Alansplodge's comment above, with link, that the 1552 Prayer Book says "tyl death us depart" makes me wonder whether that sentence was reinterpreted somewhere along the way as "till death us do part". +Angr 21:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I always assumed that the "us do" version is older but the "do us" version sounds more natural to people today. I remember at my cousin's wedding some years back, the priest said "us do" and both my cousin and her husband said "do us" instead of repeating word-for-word. (We spent the rest of the night making fun of them for both having messed up their vows.) Hence my assumption that the "do us" version just came more naturally to them, or they were more used to hearing it, or something. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Maven's Word of the Day also thinks that "us do part" is a reinterpretation of "us depart", which was apparently a transitive verb meaning "separate" in the 1550s but no longer so in the 1660s. Knowing that it originally said "us depart" answers a question I've always had about this phrase, namely "Why is there do-support here? Why not simply until death us part?" And now I know. +Angr 21:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is "national parity"?174.3.102.6 (talk) 20:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Equal representation for Czechs and for Slovaks Marco polo (talk) 20:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i am looking for a word or article on a type of phenomenon i've come across concerning design. i'll use two examples to explain it the best i can.

1. fake neon store signs.
back in the day many shops had this typical neon sign made of red neons for the word 'open' and a blue neon circling it. picture of this sign notice the space between the letter o. that space is there because of a technological limitation. neon tubes can't be formed into a perfect circle, so there is a space left. now that we have newer and cheaper lighting technologies like led's, there is no reason to retain that space. we can have led's go fully around the letter, closing the counter in the letter o. the thing is i've come across many led and other signs still retaining that neon sign look. example picture on many occasions i've seen brand new signs that are made to look like neons, including the details of their technological limitations. we have the technology to make the letters look any way we want, but many choose to make them look old and faulty.

2. large windows made to look like small panes put together.
many old houses had large windows that were made up of smaller panes of glass. they looked like this. i assume they did this because large panes were expensive or difficult to make. now that we have the technology to make large glass windows, we make fake plastic borders, placed on top of large windows to make them look like they are made from small panes of glass, like this.

so simply put, these are examples of a type of 'retrofication'. stylistic additions to make it look like it used to at the cost of aesthetics. is there a known word for this or an article concerning this phenomenon? any other examples you've come across? 74.58.149.102 (talk) 20:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No specific word (other than retro itself) is coming to mind, but I'll note that your "at the cost of aesthetics" is a debatable point. The opening paragraph of our article Muntin, which is relevant to your second example, makes it clear that the use of divided panes—even false ones—in windows is felt to be sylistically appropriate in certain kinds of structures. (Why we continue to build houses in versions, usually debased, of older styles like Tudor and Cape Cod rather than all living in streamlined house-of-the-future-today sorts of abodes is a different question.) Also relevant may be the often-remarked tendency of new technologies to appear with the stylistic trappings of the technologies they are replacing—early automobiles that resembled carriages and the like. Deor (talk) 21:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Decorative shutters, ones that cannot open and close but are bolted to the outside purely for cosmetic effect. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you could class them as kitsch depending on the quality. Nanonic (talk) 18:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any Spanish words which have the consonants ll or ñ in a consonant cluster? --84.61.183.89 (talk) 21:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:conllevar. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The French word wikt:borgne suggests that there might be a Spanish word with the letter ñ in a consonant cluster rñ, but I do not know such a word. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[The letters rgn are found in Auvergne, Bargny, Cavergno, Dargnies, Gargnano, Ergnies, Ergny, Hergnies, Largny-sur-Automne, Margno, Margny, Orgnac-l'Aven, Orgnac-sur-Vézère, Pargnan, Pargny, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Sergnano, Tergnier, lorgnette, and wikt:épargne. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)][reply]

In general, 'n' is a nasal in all languages. So what does the diacritic mean for 'ñ'? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 23:54, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Ñ. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then, it is already a consonant cluster if it refers to a palatal nasal, as in a velar nasal in English (e.g. 'ing'). If the tilde in the orthography refers to a double consonant, like ‘nn’, then there are probably many words. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a double consonant and it's not a cluster, it's simply the orthographic representation for the single sound [ɲ]. Over the past several discussions it has become clear that you're not very conscious of the difference between sound and orthography. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understand what you are saying. How does the sound ‘[ɲ]’ in English or in Spanish form without clustering consonants? However, whether further clustering within the ‘[ɲ]’ environment is possible or not is an other question. But I do not have further comment on this. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 01:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's one phone. Perhaps you should consider taking an introductory class in phonetics. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That may be a good thing to do. However, don’t you know a phone must be realized to be a phoneme? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

A phoneme is still a single sound, and in any case it doesn't change the fact that [ɲ] is not a consonant cluster. ([nj] is, [ɲ] is not.) Again...take a class. Or try reading a textbook—I would recommend A Course in Phonetics by Peter Ladefoged or Phonetics by Henning Reetz & Allard Jongman. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The distinction between orthography and sound is actually important here. Is the OP simply using the orthography as shorthand for the pronunciation? If so, a word like conyugar has the palatal nasal in a cluster, though it doesn't mark it as such (I can't think of any similar examples with the palatal lateral)Otherwise, there are no such cases since, as Spanish phonology states, the geminated consonants that have now become the palatal nasal and palatal lateral were lost in coda position way back in Vulgar Latin. So AFAIK there would be no orthographic instances of consonant clusters with <ll> or <ñ>. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Except for cross-morpheme (and cross-syllable) clusters like the one in the "conllevar" example above. (I don't speak Spanish so I'm not aware of any others.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should clarify that there aren't any instances of orthographic <ll> or <ñ> in the syllable coda. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Practically nothing begins with eñe either, except for a few foreign loans and colloquial words like ñuco, so the chances of one of these having an existing prefixed form with Cñ are slight. But I doubt it's actually unclusterable; in the right context, where it's okay to coin words, it would probably be possible to add a prefix like con- to a few of these.

Batlle is a family name and a town in Uruguay. But it's Catalan, and I don't know if it's actually pronounced "batlle" in Spanish. Ocllo isn't really fair, as it's Quechua, though local Spanish retains ll, so it might be pronounced as "ocllo". kwami (talk) 07:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about Batlle, but words in Catalan with such palatal consonants in the coda (which is allowed in Catalan) that are borrowed into Spanish are not typically pronounced with the palatal. A word like any(that is, if it were borrowed; I don't recall any Catalan loanwords into Spanish off the top of my head) is either pronounced [an] or [ˈani]. I've seen the second pronunciation be described as spelling pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Enllantar English Spanish Translation | Traductor ingles español: enllantar: "1. To rim, to shoe a wheel."

-- Wavelength (talk) 14:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's cross-morpheme also on some level, ll aside there are very few orthographic geminates except again with cross-morphemic words, like in the word recuerdannoslos.Synchronism (talk) 22:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any other Spanish consonants which are never part of a consonant cluster? --84.61.183.89 (talk) 14:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it seems the orthography 'ñ' in 'campaña' does not represent the sound 'ng' ([ɲ]) but closer to the sounds of 'nn'. Is this correct? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mihkaw napéw, the article Ñ, which I linked earlier, explains its pronunciation. User:Rjanag also explained it. If you visit Pronunciations for español, you can hear how to pronounce the word español. If you visit Answers | Hot Questions, you might find someone whose teaching style is more compatible with your learning style. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

h? 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:enhorabuena. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That and <ll> are the same as English <h>. The issue is not really whether or not they can "cluster", the issue is where they can and can't appear within a syllable. Spanish <ll> and English <h> can only appear in a syllable onset, and because they're relatively weak sounds they generally only appear in "clusters" when they were originally the beginning of a word and then something else was added on (as in con-llevar or en-horabuena; likewise with English boat-house, for instance). These are across syllable boundaries; you won't see true "clusters" where there are multiple consonants packed in the same syllable. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article Consonant cluster (which I linked already above) says the following.

Some linguists argue that the term can only be properly applied to those consonant clusters that occur within one syllable. Others contend that consonant clusters are more useful as a definition when they may occur across syllable boundaries. According to the former definition, the longest consonant clusters in the word extra would be /kst/ and /str/, whereas the latter allows /kstr/. The German word Angstschweiß /aŋstʃvaɪs/ (fear sweat) is another good example, with a cluster of five consonants: /ŋstʃv/.

I had the broader definition in mind when I searched for examples. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you usually infer irrelevant issues and draw very strong conclusions. You know very well that many people (even very well educated) cannot simply put thinks together to make sense about what you are saying. And you are very skilled on that. So why don’t you try to explain something simply, like--I do not think the editor is correct (if you want to disagree on something strongly), because here is an example how the matter in question should be--rather than giving prominence to a personal nonsense? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 20:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably a good point, Rjanag. The discussion about Mihkaw's level of expertise should probably go at User talk:Mihkaw napéw so we can focus here on the answers. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mihkaw napéw, Paragraph 1 of Ñ#History says: Historically, "ñ" arose as a ligature of "nn": the tilde was shorthand for the second "n", written over the first. (That refers to orthography and not to pronunciation.) Paragraph 2 says: In Spanish in particular it was kept to indicate the palatal nasal, the sound that is now spelt as "ñ". (Today, "ñ" is not pronounced as double n. That pronunciation is represented by an orthographic double n, as in wikt:connotación.)

The row of nasal consonants at International Phonetic Alphabet#Pulmonic consonants includes the retroflex nasal [ɳ], the palatal nasal [ɲ] (as in Spanish niño), and the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in English sing). Please notice the different shapes of the IPA symbols.

The study of languages and linguistics requires attention to detail. Concentration is generally easier in a quiet place without distractions. Read slowly. Linger over the words. Make handwritten copies. (See BBC NEWS | Technology | Multitaskers bad at multitasking.) -- Wavelength (talk) 20:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is Spanish connotación pronounced with a geminate? It may just be orthographic. I've never seen gemination in Spanish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The phonetic symbols at http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/connotación indicate gemination, although I could not detect it in the audio file. However, I did detect gemination in the audio file at http://forvo.com/search/connotación/.

-- Wavelength (talk) 07:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The first sound file is computer generated. That might have something to do with it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While browsing some articles on South Africa, I noticed that some officials (unsurprisingly) have names containing click sounds. Are these used by English/Afrikaans/non-clicky language speakers when talking about them, or are they elided somehow? If they are, how are they left out (i.e. are they replaced, or simply not pronounced)? An example, South African Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. Steewi (talk) 03:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What click is in Ngcobo? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Look at Xhosa language#Consonants to see what the spelling "Ngc" represents in that language (though I have no idea if the name is actually Xhosa). AnonMoos (talk) 06:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think people unable to produce clicks often replaced them with /k/. +Angr 07:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Friends of mine who studied in South Africa but didn't learn much of the language often try to reproduce the click by doing something similar to a retroflex click....whatever it is that kids do where you put your tongue in a sort of retroflex position, suck, and slap it down against the soft base of your mouth behind the lower teeth. The one that makes a big wet, sloppy slap sound. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They do q and x. I'm not sure about c. Looks like he's probably Zulu, which is practically the same language. "Engkobo" on "Engchobo" might be what you'd end up with. We'd have to ask native English-speaking South Africans. kwami (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can ask User:Joziboy, User:Mohau, User:Pseudo daoist, or User:Vdiest. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a probably-irrelevant data point, the American public radio network NPR pronounces that name "nGOBO". --Sean 15:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When was the word upbraid first used?--64.138.237.101 (talk) 20:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The OED online gives ca. 1000 for use as a verb: "God upbrede {th}one godspellican cwide", and lists a modern spelling at 1542 "Lest the others might thynke niggardship* to bee upbraided unto hym" (*see niggardly before ranting). As with all usage notes, those are the first instances that the OED could find record of - it is highly possible that the word was in use prior to those instances (say in day-to-day conversation). -- 128.104.112.87 (talk) 20:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the novel 'Devil's Teardrop' by Jeffery Deaver, someone says "Never expected to see me in a month of blue Mondays, did you? Wait, I'm mixing up my expressions."

I have no idea what he is saying. Does he mean that he's mixing up two or more idiomatic expresions or quotations? Or something else?

Please help me out.--Analphil (talk) 16:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He's mixing up the expressions "a month of Sundays" and "a blue moon" (both used to mean "a long time"), with perhaps a dash of "blue Monday" (used to describe the [relative] depression one feels when having to return to the daily grind after a weekend). Deor (talk) 16:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or he means Blue Mondays.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In French poetry and song, do you customarily add a schwa only to words that end in <e>, or do you add it even to words like "vol" and "mer"? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 18:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell it's only to words that are spelled with an <e> on the end, but I'm not 100% sure; that's just what I've seen in my experience. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just the words with <e>, and even then not in all cases. See [5] and [6] for more information.--Diacritic (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hey, quick question. in the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nightingale_(1851)

here is the sentence in question from the article: "Early in 1863, she became ordnance ship at Pensacola, Florida, and continued this duty until returning to Boston, Massachusetts, 9 June 1864."

my question is, should the word "an" be inserted before the word ordanance in the sentence? i know this is minor and kinda stupid, but i was just wondering if this is the correct syntax for this sentence.

have a nice day, MACKDIESEL5 (talk) 18:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on whether Pensacola always has one assigned ordnance ship, which would make the Nightingale the ordnance ship, meaning "an" isn't really necessary. But if she's just one of many ordnance ships, it is required. However, for clarity's sake, I'd add either "an" or "the", whichever is true. Seegoon (talk) 19:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't entirely agree; if your first sentence's speculation were correct, I'd expect it to say "...she became Ordnance Ship at ...". Almost certainly the word "an" is missing, so I added it in the article accordingly. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My mother and grandmother have long used this expression to mean "a long time" or "many years", and I've picked it up as well. Is this expression correct in that context? I've read the Raccoon article and they don't seem to live more than two or three years in the wild. I'm asking because someone recently told me that the expression could be interpreted as a racial epithet. Thank you.Chief41074 (talk) 20:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Wiktionary entry on coon's age, you are correct; it is an "Americanism" used to mean "a long time". It likely comes from the older English phrase "a crow's age". You are also correct that "coon" appears to have recently come into use in the southern United States as a pejorative term for an African-American person. Xenon54 / talk / 20:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of ethnic slurs lists "coon" (alone) as an ethnic slur and gives a possible etymology. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like this brief discussion, because it points out the dates for various uses of "coon". Yes the phrase could be interpreted as a racial epithet, but (in my opinion), that would be overly politically correct. --LarryMac | Talk 20:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, don't be so niggardly. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The swiftness of helpful replys on the ref desk never ceases to amaze me. Thanks guys.Chief41074 (talk) 21:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I used this expression at the age of 10 or 11, having read it in a comic book, my parents scolded me sternly for using such a racist phrase. Until that point, I had never heard "coon" used as a racist epithet, and assumed it referred to raccoons. +Angr 22:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't use this word in the UK - we don't have raccoons. Alansplodge (talk) 12:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's always worth considering: how likely is it that my audience will have heard this phrase before and know its etymology? Even if they do, do they know that I know the right etymology? What meanings are mostly likely to spring to their mind? If your aim is not to hurt people, but rather to communicate 'a long time', this is probably a phrase to avoid. This doesn't mean that anyone using the phrase has a racist meaning in mind, but neither does the 'raccoon' etymology mean that nobody using it has the racist meaning in mind. If you don't want to be misunderstood, file it under 'interesting old phrases with an altered connotation'. Though you used the phrase innocently, it sounds like you never forgot your parents' reaction: a useful thing. 86.176.191.243 (talk) 02:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i want to know about reserch books on a bhisma sahani. Tips : younger brother of balraj sahani —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.110.170.199 (talk) 06:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i want totally information about a hindi writer bhisma sahani. an di want to know about research on bhisma sahani. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.110.170.199 (talk) 07:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You probably refer to Bhisham Sahni. Please read that article, and follow the links in the article for more information, such as this one on the Congress Library. No such user (talk) 08:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "untimely death" is one you will find sprinkled all over Wikipedia. To me, it has always carried a connotation that "the person died too soon", that is, the speaker implicitly expresses an opinion that the person in question should have lived longer. On the other hand, according to Wiktionary it could simply mean "Any death that takes place at an unusually early age ...". My question is whether "untimely death" is neutral (it is listed in WP:AVOID). For example:

Tupac: Resurrection is a documentary about the life and horribly tragic death of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Tupac: Resurrection is a documentary about the life and untimely death of rapper Tupac Shakur.

While the former is clearly not written from a neutral point of view, what about the latter? Is it conveying anything more than the fact that the rapper died at a relatively young age? Thanks, decltype (talk) 08:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not altogether neutral, but it's also not altogether precise. What would be a "timely" death? 70? 80? 90? Besides all that, you hear a lot of people talk about, "...when your time is up," presumably as determined by God or Mother Nature or whatever. So, by that viewpoint, there's no such thing as an "untimely" death, because God takes you when He's good and ready to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the term is best avoided. It's usually clear from the first line of someone's article at what age they died, so no more need be said. If their early death is something for which they are notable, there are other ways in which to draw the reader's attention to this. River Phoenix's article would seem to be a good example in this respect.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While I don't believe in a supreme being with powers over earthly life and death, some of those who do might think that Wikipedia is presuming to substitute its own judgement for that of the Almighty, in Whose eyes any particular death might be (for all we mortals know) very timely. Death at a young age is probably a more-neutral phrase, if it can be worked in without stylistic awkwardness. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a combination of two English traits: politeness and not speaking ill of the dead. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Untimely death to whom? What person's perspective is being expressed? The person who died? The perspective of someone who might have wanted them to die? The perspective of someone who loved the deceased? Bus stop (talk) 14:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unencyclopedic and pov. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's another aspect to this - is it "untimely" if someone dies in an accident, or is shot and killed as Tupac was? When someone dies young from natural causes, it can seem untimely, especially if it's sudden and unexpected. Shakescene raises an interesting point that was explored in The Mysterious Stranger, I think - about a beloved young girl who drowned or something, and in kind of a reverse of It's a Wonderful Life, Satan showed the narrator that had she lived, she would have had a miserable life and everyone would have ended up hating her. Something like that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:EUPHEMISM explicitly discourages using the phrase "untimely death" (among other things) at Wikipedia. I say, feel free to shoot it on sight. +Angr 16:27, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's one of those things like "passed away" (or blown away, in this case). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm aware of that guideline, I was simply wondering whether in cases like "... a documentary about the life and untimely death of [Tupac]", it's simply a neutral way of saying that he died young. decltype (talk) 19:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For general writing, that sounds ok. But here, where we have a requirement to use neutral language, it's less acceptable. There is no way of being neutral about whether a particular person's death was timely, untimely or whatever. Hitler was only 56 when he died, an age that is generally considered the prime of one's life; but does anyone ever refer to "Hitler's untimely death"? Not that I've ever heard of. That's because most people were happy he was dead. In Tupac's case, most people who had any sort of opinion were unhappy he was dead. Not disagreeing with them, but that's as quintessentially non-neutral as their opinion about Hitler's death. Had Tupac lived to the age of 85, and then died in the way he did, would his murder still be categorised as an "untimely death"? To be killed that way shouldn't happen to anyone, at any age; so it's not so much the age at which he died, but the manner of his death that's the salient point. But that doesn't mean that your first sentence is any more neutral than your second. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)What's the dividing line between dying young and dying not-young? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or timely vs untimely? Kittybrewster ☎ 20:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What's the dividing line between an unusually-shaped vegetable and a usually-shaped one? Is the statement that the melon pictured is "giant" non-neutral? Perhaps its approximate size should be given instead. 213.122.7.102 (talk) 16:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or the ROUS, for that matter. But hey are you comparing Tupac with a vegetable??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Note for the baffled: I believe my colleague refers to rodents of unusual size.) 213.122.7.102 (talk) 17:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is better to state the facts of a person's life (and death), according to reliable sources, and from a neutral point of view, allowing all significant positions representation, and to let the reader reach a conclusion concerning whether the deceased died too soon or too late. Bus stop (talk) 02:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Of the English slang words about male and female genitals, which one(s) are more vulgar? Consider cock/dick and pussy/cunt/twat. Which is the worse one? I'm sure there are dozens more but these seem to be used most of the time. I believe some of those should be more irritating or disturbing to the listener, but as a non-native nearly all of them sound the same, and I can't grasp the true feeling the words give. I wonder which words are used in different situations.

What does one use when talking to his long-time buddy? "Hey buddy, I've got this sore on my dick/cock/penis since last week at Linda's"? Which one is appropriate to use while addressing a doctor? "Uh doc, please come quickly, little Jimmy trapped his penis/willy in his zippers"? What does one say to his/her sexual partner? I'll refrain from making up an example for this one!

And please don't bash me for asking this. I'm counting on the non-censorship policy, using the words were necessary for the question. Thanks all. 78.176.31.157 (talk) 21:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably pretty subjective, and depends on where you live, but, at least in my experience, "cunt" is the most vulgar of these words. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Considering just the 'vulgar' slang words (ie, excluding anatomical terms like penis and vagina, and silly euphemisms like willy or love sausage), I think the words for female parts almost always tend to be more offensive than the ones for male parts. Cunt and twat are both considerably worse than cock or dick (and when speaking among themselves, most guys I know use the terms "cock" and "dick" exclusively...I doubt women use "cunt" or "twat" among themselves, unless they're having a fight). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The terms "dick" and "pussy" are less vulgar than "cock" and "cunt" - Pollinosisss (talk) 23:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Willy isn't nearly as silly as love sausage. Willy is the sort of word that a mother would use talking to her little child, or a small child would use themselves. As such, it can be a fall-back option when people are in embarrassing situations and need to use a word for 'that thing' and can't even bring themselves to say penis. The female equivalent would probably be fanny in the UK, although I think it varies much more than willy does. Love sausage, however, has entirely silly connotations: it's a bit Carry On, and would only be used if someone wanted a silly way to refer to a penis with reference to its role in sex.

Twat, oddly, seems to spend most of its time divorced from the anatomical meaning, probably helped by its resemblance to twit. I can't imagine a children's author including the word cock, dick or cunt in a book aimed at 10-year-olds because they were under the impression it was just a fairly mild term of abuse, slightly worse than twit. In my childhood, that was the register it had for me too. "Stop buggering about, you twat! (You said the dialysis machine would be ready 5 weeks ago, and you've played 15000 games of Solitaire)." would be considered far more acceptable in the hearing of children than "Stop cocking about, you cunt! (I want my £200 for passing 'Go'.)", although the second has far more potential to be said in a friendly manner. 86.176.191.243 (talk) 01:57, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Twat" has different meanings in different parts of the UK. For example in Yorkshire, the verb "twat" means to hit someone hard and possibly knock them out. As an aside, there seem to be many more acceptable words for the male member (like that one!) than there are for the corresponding female part(s). And in England at least, "vagina" means the part that is inside the vulva, not the part that is outside (as seems to be the case in the US per the Vagina Monologues). --TammyMoet (talk) 09:18, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The vagina/vulva confusion is a pretty common one. Also, the one-eyed snake :P Rimush (talk) 14:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...you can wrap it up in ribbons, you can put it in a sock... TomorrowTime (talk) 15:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, when used as terms of abuse ("you're a ---"), cock has a connotation of arrogance, dick of engaging in deliberate bad behaviour for fun, pussy of being cowardly or obsequious, cunt of being evil or unmanagable, and twat of being foolish. In the context of the actual genitals, then, cock sounds somewhat more sexual than dick, which sounds relatively mild and conversational, pussy sounds moderately sexual with seductive overtones, cunt is more obscene, and twat (like dick) is mundane-sounding and faintly ridiculous. My frame of reference here is UK English. 213.122.7.102 (talk) 16:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of curiousity, is there a difference in meaning between the twat that rhymes phonetically with rat and the twat that rhymes with what? It's always the latter in Australia, but I've heard some UK English uses of the former. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From experience, the former is always the one used in the UK. --87.115.136.220 (talk) 13:18, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...Because you have to try it out yourself to see. I am a native English speaker and near native speaker of Spanish. I have found that it is far harder to yell in Spanish than in English. My best guess is that it is the difficulty of transitions between the pure vowels of Spanish, as compared with the dipthong-laden speech that is American English, which have no clear transition between them. This, I think, is what makes it easier. Anyway, if you are bilingual, and your other language is a pure vowel language, try yelling in it and then compare to yelling in English. I'm imagining you will get the same result, which is that you can't yell as loud (or sustained as loud), it's much more straining, and your rate of speech (yelling speech that is) is slower. I can take out much of the difference if I break out my imitation of an American who is just learning Spanish. I just change all the pure vowels to dipthongs (gra°ci°as, becomes graaaaasseeeyassssss) and I can yell better. Anyway, I though it was an interesting observation that I have never heard anyone ever raise before, so I thought I'd share and wonder if anyone has noticed this before and can confirm that they find the same is true for them. By the way, I noticed this just this week and tested it out; some people definitely thought I was a lunatic when I was testing it).--162.83.166.101 (talk) 22:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was common knowledge in choirs I've been in that it's easier to sing very quietly in French than in English, and a generally held view that it was easier to sing loudly in Latin (which was usually sung with 'purer' vowels). I don't know how well that fits, but it indicates you're probably not imagining things or noticing a personal idiosyncracy. 86.176.191.243 (talk) 01:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience performing outdoors at Renaissance faires and Shakespeare festivals, it's easier to project the broad sounds of pseudo-rural and pseudo-Tudor English from the back of the throat than the close clipped sounds of Spanish and Received Pronunciation (or BBC or Upper Class English), which, after the Great Vowel Shift, are articulated much closer to the front of the mouth. You're much likelier to strain your vocal chords with the latter, than with the former where you can make more use of your diaphragm and resonate against various parts of your upper torso (like the rib cage).—— Shakescene (talk) 07:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The differences you observe may be due more to your language proficiency than to anything inherent in the language. If anything, I would think that having purer vowels would make it easier to yell or shout. Though it's probably pretty neutral either way. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Friedrich nahm in Dahme Residenz und beauftragte die Baumeister Johann Christoph Schütze und Elias Scholtz ab 1711 auf den Resten der mittelalterlichen Wasserburg mit dem Bau von Schloss Dahme, der nach etwa vier Jahren Bauzeit mit einem markanten Mittelrisalit fertig gestellt werden konnte. Auch erfuhr der Garten durch das Anlegen von Lusthäuschen, Sandsteinskulpturen und Grotten eine Umgestaltung im barocken Stil. Friedrich konnte das Schloss jedoch nicht mehr beziehen, da er bereits kurz vor Vollendung des Baues starb. Stattdessen bezog seine Gemahlin Emilie Agnes Reuß zu Schleiz das Schloss als Witwensitz, den sie später aber hauptsächlich in ihren anderen Herrschaften (aus erster Ehe) Fürstlich Drehna und Vetschau aufschlug, wo sie auch 1729 verstarb. Der spätere Herzog und letzte Regent von Sachsen-Weißenfels Johann Adolf (II.) führte die Bauarbeiten ab 1719 fort und machte das Dahmer Schloss zu seiner zeitweiligen Residenz.

Herzog Friedrich starb am 16. April 1715 41-jährig und wurde in einem Zinnprunksarg in der Schlosskirche von Neu-Augustusburg zu Weißenfels beigesetzt.

Seine einzige Ehe schloss er am 13. Februar 1711 in Fürstlich Drehna mit Emilie Agnes Reuß zu Schleiz, verwitweter Reichsgräfin von Promnitz zu Pleß auf Sorau und Triebel, der Tochter Graf Heinrichs I. Reuß zu Schleiz aus dessen Ehe mit Esther von Hardegg auf Glatz und im Machlande, Tochter des Grafen Julius III. von Hardegg auf Glatz und im Machlande. Die Ehe blieb ohne Nachkommen.

Friedrichs nunmehriger Stiefsohn Erdmann II. von Promnitz und seine Nichte Anna Maria von Sachsen-Weißenfels hatten bereits 1705 geheiratet.

Friedrich took up residence in Dahme and commissioned the architects Johann Christoph Schütze and Elias Scholtz starting in 1711 with the construction of the Dahme Palace (Schloss Dahme) around the remains of the medieval Wasserburg (Water Castle). Construction was completed after about four years with a striking central risalit (vertical projection). The garden also underwent a reconstruction in baroque style with the installation of pleasure cottages, sandstone sculptures, and grottoes. Friedrich was, however, unable to move into the palace, as he died shortly before construction was completed. Instead, his consort Emilie Agnes Reuß zu Schleiz moved into the palace as a widow's residence. However, she later mainly resided in her other estates (from her first marriage), Princely Drehna and Vetschau, where she died in 1729. The later duke and last ruler of Saxe-Weissenfels, Johann Adolf II, continued construction from 1719 and made the Dahme Palace his temporary residence.

Duke Friedrich died on 16 April 1715 at the age of 41 and was buried in an ornate pewter casket in the castle church of New Augustusburg Castle in Weißenfels.

He entered into his only marriage on 13 February 1711 in Princely Drehna with Emilie Agnes Reuß zu Schleiz, the widowed imperial countess of Promnitz-Pleß in Sorau and Triebel, the daughter of Count Heinrich I of Reuss-Schleiz and Esther of Hardegg-Glatz and -Marchlande, daughter of Count Julius III of Hardegg-Glatz and -Marchlande. The marriage left no descendants.

Friedrich's future stepson, Erdmann II of Promnitz, and his niece, Anna Maria of Saxe-Weissenfels, had married in 1705. Marco polo (talk) 03:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There isn’t anything more, so ask this again. It's not simply the orthographic representation for the single sound [ɲ] as staed before, though it seems correct in a word like ‘paño’. It is not the sound of a digraph as in English, because it seems the cluster ‘n’ and ‘g’ (say, ‘combination’, in order to avoid the ambiguity) always creates syllable break in Spanish whereas the combination is always a diagraph in English. And in the case, in a word like ‘pañito’ (see ‘pañito’), the 'ñ' does not represent a double ‘n’ or gemination but something else. So what does the diacritic mean for 'ñ'? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 01:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, 'ñ' is simply the orthographic representation in Spanish of the single sound [ɲ]. Your dictionary link transcribes this sound as 'ny' for English speakers, because the closest approximation to this sound in English is the consonant cluster we use to pronounce a word like canyon. However, in Spanish, 'ñ' represents a single sound, [ɲ], that does not occur in English. Marco polo (talk) 02:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So the [ɲ] always represent the orthography 'ñ', except in few cases as stated in the prevous edit. That makes sense. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 03:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How is it different from the "gn" sound in Italian, e.g. "lasagna"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mihkaw: ñ means the sound [ɲ]. You have been told this numerous times before. And you have not provided a single example of a word in which ñ does not represent [ɲ], so there are no "cases" stated in your "previous edit". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bugs: it's the same sound, see Wikipedia:IPA for Italian and Wikipedia:IPA for Spanish. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rjanag, it makes sense now, but you usually fool around many irrelevant things; that’s why. However, it does not mean that you do not understand matters in questions; you do. The serious problem that you have is to explain something in the code of conduct like other editors and misleading the readers purposely (knowing readers capacities on what one can or cannot understand). However, as you do contributions to WP (which I do not), it is not fare that i criticize your inputs and making traps for any of your comments that you claim to be an expert by education and experiences.

At the same time, if you do not have here at least one person like I am for linguistic or language prey, there can not be useful and good explanations or of your being of desistence is also remetted in the absence of such loopholes to have continuing communication and cooperation with other editors. So I guess we should keep similar things but not that strong (which is an arbitrary attention. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 19:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of complaining about whatever this is (I have no idea where you think I've "misled you purposely"), why don't you just offer an example of a word where ñ does not represent [ɲ]? If there is no such example (i.e., if Spanish ñ always represents [ɲ]), then your question has already been answered and you have nothing to whine about. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But you did imply there were instances of when ñ doesn't represent a palatal nasal, namely when it occurs in English: jalapeño, El niño, piñata, piña colada, and Quinceañera. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not imply that, Mihkaw naphew did. And I don't see how English pronunciations are relevant; in Spanish, all these words are pronounced with [ɲ], which is what ñ represents. Unless Mihkaw can come up with some example that challenges this, I don't see why this pointless discussion was ever even initiated. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oui sí. Danke! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest, in the interest of conserving mental energy, that Rjanag and Mihkaw napew bury the hatchet (give up your conflict)? It's clear that Mihkaw napew is frustrated because he has had difficulty understanding the connection between orthography and phonetics in this case and because Rjanag has seemed not to AGF on Mihkaw's part. Also, it's clear that Rjanag is frustrated by what he sees as obtuseness or a lack of good faith. (I, however, see no reason to doubt good faith.) May I suggest that we remember that each person comes to this with different abilities and educations and try to be patient with one another? Thanks. Marco polo (talk) 16:11, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Over the past few years, the West Indies cricket team has included in its ranks Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sewnarine Chattergoon, and Dinanath Ramnarine. Its current side includes a player with the name Narsingh Deonarine. Outside this context, I've never encountered names of this form - where does the -narine suffix come from (my guess is probably the Indian subcontinent, since that's whereall of these players' ancestries are from IIRC), and what, if anything, does it mean?

Thanks in advance, Grutness...wha? 07:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

deleted one name I had listed. It was a brainfart misremembrance

My brother in law's first name is Ramnarine. His family is Guyanese, as is Mark Ramprakash. Apparently these names are signs of a descendancy from the Indian servants of the British rulers of Guyana (which used to be called "British Guiana"), who came across from India during the colonisation of that country. ISTR the phrase used to describe these people was "Anglo-Indian". As to what "narine" means, not even my brother in law knows! --TammyMoet (talk) 09:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a variant of Narayana, and can either stand alone or be compounded with other names, like Shiva (to make Shivnarine) and Rama (to make Ramnarine). I suspect it should be pronounced to rhyme with "brine" rather than "marine". +Angr 19:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow thanks for that Angr - I'll tell my bil when I see him next week! And yes it does rhyme with "brine".--TammyMoet (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info - and though I've heard both pronunciations the "brine" one sounds more likely. The pun was too good to resist, though :) Grutness...wha? 20:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Wu wikipedia banned?174.3.102.6 (talk) 07:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest way to find out would probably be to ask a friend in mainland China to try accessing it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's only the easiest way if one happens to have a friend in mainland China. +Angr 11:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of curiosity, I'd like to find a list of all the European languages lacking (at the moment) their own Wikipedia version. For example: North Frisian, Ladin, Rusyn. --151.51.35.203 (talk) 12:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

North Frisian isn't really a language, but rather a language grouping; from a description I once read, traditionally each village or small group of villages or small island had its own divergent dialect. If there's no standardized language, and a decreasing number of speakers, and no strong revival movement, then the need for a Wikipedia isn't necessarily clear... AnonMoos (talk) 13:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that only languages with a valid ISO 639-3 code can have their own Wikipedia. Since North Frisian has a code, it could have a Wikipedia, but since its dialects do not have separate codes, they couldn't have separate Wikipedias. +Angr 18:27, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why can only a language with a valid ISO 639-3 code have its own Wikipedia? --62.204.152.181 (talk) 18:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because that's the rule. There are some exceptions, such as the Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia (Dutch Low Saxon has seven distinct ISO 639-3 codes for each of its dialects, but just one all-encompassing Wikipedia), but they were created before the rule came into effect. +Angr 19:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You'd have to work backwards from List of Wikipedias. —— Shakescene (talk) 13:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Danish, <d> is silent after <l>, <n>, and/or <r> at the end of a word. In the song Barbie Girl, the singers (who are Danish and Norwegian) drop the [d] sound at the end of words like world, blond, friend, and around. Could this be interpreted as evidence of the singers' Danish accents? 69.114.95.168 (talk) 22:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can a user please translate the following from Yiddish to English.

זיי האבן אלע געגלויבט אין איין גאט (ניט ווי די כינעזער אין א סך געטער, גייסטער און שדים), אז זיי פעלגן עסן ספעציעלע אידישע פלייש, וועלכע מען פלעגט זאלצן און ארויסציען די אדערן. נאר ער אליין ווייס פון אידישקייט גארנישט. ער האט אפילו ניט געוואוסט פון שבת, פון מל זיין

Thank you Simonschaim (talk) 10:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First pass: "They all believed in one God (not like the Chinese in many gods, spirits and XXX demons), as they usually eat special Jewish meat, which is usually salted and has the veins pulled out. But he alone doesn't know anything about Yiddishkeit. He didn't know a lot even know about Shabbes, about XXX his...". I'll have to look up the words I rendered as XXX; and it seems to be cut off in the middle of a sentence. Is this about the Kaifeng Jews? +Angr 11:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It is about the Jews of China and it comes from Noach Mishkowsky's book Etyopye p.132, published by M. Ceshinsky, New York in 1936. Simonschaim (talk) 11:22, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Having had a chance to sit down with my Yiddish dictionary, I've made some corrections. It occurs to me that the Yiddish word yidishkeyt, which I've translated as Yiddishkeit above, can also mean simply "Judaism", and that probably makes more sense in the context. I can't find the penultimate word מל in my dictionary; could it perhaps be אל? Then it would mean "about all his..." (whatever got left out of the last sentence). +Angr 13:45, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]