Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 July 15

Father Pons' Sanskrit grammar
I've heard that someone named Jean-François Pons wrote a grammar of the Sanskrit language in Latin. Any idea where I can find this (short of a university library)? --Siva 02:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

(Note: Please leave the response on my user page; I'd rather not have to keep checking back to see if my question has been answered.)


 * If you can't be bothered to check back here for an answer it can't be that important to you. Had it occurred to you that anyone researching an answer would have to check your talk page first to see if it's already been answered? And you haven't even provided a link. I actually doubt you'll find this outside a university or national library (such as the British Library if you are in the UK). Oxford or Cardiff Universities would be good places to start.--Shantavira 13:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

"What are you having?"
"My enemy killed."

Why is this ungrammatical? Conversely, why is the parellism in "I'm not stupid, I'm not dispensable, and I'm not going" not awkward?


 * It's not ungrammatical, it's just very unlikely zeugma. HenryFlower 11:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it be ungrammatical from a Pragmatics point of view? --Kjoonlee 14:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * What about this sentence: I may never find the street I've lost all feeling in my hands and feet may touch the ground but my mind's somewhere north of here.
 * OK, it's not really a correct sentence, but is this a sort of zeugma, or something else? By the way, this is a line from a song named Somewhere North by Caedmon's Call, if you want to know. Philbert2.71828 18:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * My enemy killed. Unless I'm missing an alternate definition for kill, the sentence is ungrammatical. Kill is always a transitive verb and therefore always requires an object. It's similar to saying, "The man said." The sentence leaves something to be wanted (i.e. an object) and is incomplete.--El aprendelenguas 20:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Nah. Complete the sentence.  "I'm having my enemy killed."  It's clearly grammatical in that context.  User:Zoe|(talk) 21:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Transitive verbs do not always require objects. The murderer has killed, and will kill again if we don't catch him!
 * Besides, in this case "killed" is being used as a past participle, not as a verb. --Ptcamn 21:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * FWIW, possibly the best examples of zeugma comes from the Flanders and Swann classic, Madeira m'Dear?:
 * "He said - as he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar, and the lamps ...",
 * "She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes, and his hopes!", and
 * "When he asked 'What in Heaven...?' she made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door."
 * Grutness...wha?  00:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Killing one's enemy, it should be said, is usually looked upon as uncivil. One ought first to request comment and thereafter to request arbitration.  Only after one has availed him/herself of all other dispute resolution processes should he/she have his/her enemy killed/marked for speedy deletion (avoiding, in any event, personal attacks).
 * OK, grammar lesson time. "One" does not take a pronoun.  So that would be "Only after one has availed oneself of all other dispute resolution processes should one have one's enemy killed/marked for speedy deletion (avoiding, in any event, personal attacks)."  See, as I've always said, grammar is far more important than mere life or death (apologies to Bill Shankly).  A bit like Australian rules football really.  JackofOz 04:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Grammar lesson correction time: 'one' and 'oneself' are pronouns. HenryFlower 15:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * ... which is precisely my point, and why they don't need other pronouns to do their dirty work for them. :--)  JackofOz 04:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

IPA sign for length
Until some point, most wiki articles used [:]. Now some are changed to a sign which is apparently supposed to look slightly different (I had never realized that it was supposed to be different at all). Unfortunately, my browser, which shows all or nearly all the other IPA symbols, refuses to show me this "corrected" length sign. Does anyone else have the same problem and do you think that that substitution is necessary?--194.145.161.227 18:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It should not be a colon, it should be U+02D0 MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON (ː). If your font doesn't have that character, it doesn't fully support IPA. —Keenan Pepper 18:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the IPA artilce says that Lucida Sans Unicode supports IPA, and I have it, but it doesn't display the triangular colon. Never mind, I guess I should try to download something else. --194.145.161.227 18:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Can anyone else confirm that Lucida Sans Unicode lacks this character? If so, the colon kludge may be necessary. —Keenan Pepper 19:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I can confirm that Lucida Sans Unicode has this character. User:Angr 19:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it does, I just checked it on Microsoft Word. I guess this is turning into a question about "how to use Internet Explorer" rather than linguistics. Thanks for the info, everybody! --194.145.161.227 19:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, the answer is to use a real browser. User:Angr 21:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, it now seems that Lucida Sans Unicode is part of the problem, after all. When I downloaded Charis (SIL) and set it as my default font for Latin-based alphabets, it showed the triangular colon alright, in Internet Explorer. However, Lucida Sans Unicode just drops some signs in my Internet Explorer (not in Microsoft Word, though). I don't know whether I'm the only one to have this problem. --194.145.161.227 21:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I consciously use the colon in IPA, since there is no ambiguity in doing so. It is a little bit pedantic to insist on this triangular thingy, but of course it is more correct to use it. dab (&#5839;) 18:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I too always use the colon instead of the triangular thingy, except on Wikipedia, where I use the triangular thingy because I know if I don't, someone will come along and correct it for me. User:Angr 16:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

what is english eqivient of "Pelingas" a Fish in Crimean language
In a little town on the Black Sea in Crimea,Ukraine I ate a fish at dinner. Asked the server what is name of this fish and she replied it was a "PELINGAS". She showed me the whole fish and it looked like it weighed about 3-4 pounds, looked like maybe like a small sea bass in shape and we only ate only a small pert of that fish. Chef had cut it up into smaller pieces. Cannot find an eqivalent type of fish in English language. Can anyone help??? I've never logged to wikipedia & don't know how. I can provide my e-mail address if someone can help. Thx. Don Kissil


 * It's apparently the Bulgarian and Turkish name for a certain type of mullet, Mugil soiuy. (I suspect that if those two languages use the same name, it's common elsewhere around the Black Sea as well). See FishBase entry. Shimgray | talk | 19:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * And by the way, there's no Crimean language. Most people in Crimea speak Russian. --Ornil 21:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, there is a Crimean language. --Ptcamn 23:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's referred to as a Tatar language normally, and as a Crimean Tatar language if you need to be precise, but I've never heard it referred to as a Crimean language. One reason being that the Tatars are now a small minority in the Crimea. --Ornil 18:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

French vowels
Hello, everyone! I've been trying to make a correspondence between the graphemes and phonemes for French vowels. Can anyone offer some general rules? For example, I know that  is usually /u/ as in vous. I'm looking for similar correspondences for /y/, /ø/, and /œ/. French orthography, French alphabet, and French phonology didn't have what I'm looking for. I appreciate any help you can give. Thanks!--El aprendelenguas 21:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * How about this Omniglot page on French? --Chris S. 22:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Chris. Just what I was looking for. :) --El aprendelenguas 22:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Leaning languages
Hi could anyone recommend a useful language that I could try to start leaning, My first language is English and i enjoyed learning German, but I didn't enjoy French and eventually gave it up. with this in mind which language would be best to learn. Ken 21:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, what did you like/not like about these languages? Perhaps it was the way it was taught? The way it was pronounced? The grammar? The culture? It depends on how you answer.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Only you can answer this, I guess. Do you want to learn a language because of the career you're in? Because you travel to a particular place and the culture interests you a lot?  Just for fun? --Chris S. 21:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers, I probably disliked the sound of French, it was hard to speak or listen two, German seemed much more structured. I would like to learn another language as i enjoyed German and think its important to be able to communicate in one or more languages, i would like to work abroad at some stage also


 * I greatly enjoyed learning Russian (and if you prefer the sound of German to French, it might suit you, too). Each language has a different feel, though, so it's not an easy question to answer. FWIW, I've tried to pick up some of each of several different language groups, since it's amazing how much of one language you can pick up by knowing its close relations (with your knowledge of English and German you could probably make a fair stab at getting at least the gist of written Dutch, for instance). Grutness...wha?  00:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I also endorse Russian. I hated French when I studied it, but loved (and still love) Russian. If you liked the structure of German, I'm sure you'd like Russian, which is even more structured in some ways (cases), and as a result freer in others (word order). Besides, maybe it's just my personal interests, but there's a lot more Russian literature that I'm interested in reading than there is in Spanish, say, or French. Tesseran 05:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Spanish is a relatively easy language and very widely spoken, both in Spain and the Americas. Highly recommendable. Since you're pretty good at German, Dutch would be rather easier, though much less useful. Moving away from European languages, you could strike out in a new direction: Japanese isn't particularly hard (ignoring those bothersome kanji) and would let you watch lots of cool movies without subtitles, though here in the US at least it seems to make people think you're a serious otaku. Mandarin is hugely common and China is up and coming, to put it mildly. I don't think it's as easy as Japanese though. So lots of choices. --George 02:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * As for the working abroad bit, the important languages of the world, apart from English, are Chinese, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. To a lesser degree German and French, but you already covered those. And economically there is Japanese. I love the sound of Russian, but its importance has somewhat faded since the 'counterrevolution'. :) Still, there is a lot of old but important scientific literature that needs translating into English. It used to constitute one third of the world's scientific literature, but was written in Russian, so not a lot of people outside Russia have been able to read it - there might be some gems there. The same goes for still older Arabic texts, or so someone said here a while ago. Apparently some sheikhs are willing to pay good money for translations. DirkvdM 06:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You seem to have missed the second largest language by number of native speakers: Hindi. You also missed the fifth, seventh and eighth largest languages. See List of languages by number of native speakers. Japanese and German come in at eleventh and twelfth.-gadfium 09:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The idea that it's better to learn languages which are spoken by the most people seems very strange to me.  I don't care whether there are one billion or two billion Chinese peasants- I've no real desire to talk to any of them.   A more useful criterion would be "spoken in the greatest number of places to which I am likely to want to travel". HenryFlower 09:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * True, but since the original question didn't say where they might want to travel to, to list languages in reply without including the ones spoken by the most people, with caveats as appropriate, seems strange too.-gadfium 10:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Have a look at this entry from Edward Hasbrouck's blog "The Practical Nomad".--Mathew5000 22:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I am getting a degree in Foreign Language from my college and they are telling me Spanish, French, Japanese, and English are where all the money is nowadays. Also they say Mandarin is starting to become in-damand; Russian always comes looks good on a resumé if you are trying to get a job at the CIA or the like.

German question
If I, a heterosexual male, say "meine Freundin," does that necessarily imply a romantic relationship? How do I say "my female friend" without implying "girlfriend"? Thanks, TacoDeposit 22:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It doesn't necessarily imply a romantic relationship, but it's ambiguous and most people will probably lean towards that interpretation. The unambiguous (but kind of awkward) way to put it is eine Freundin von mir. I even use this construction when referring to male friends (with the gender changed, of course), unless it is clear from context that I am referring to one specific male friend of mine who has been mentioned before. --Rueckk 23:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As a gay man I've found you can't really say either "meine Freundin" or "mein Freund" if you're not referring to a romatic relationship. If I call someone "meine Freundin" people reply, "You have a girlfriend? But you're gay!" If I call someone "mein Freund" they say, "Oh, you have a boyfriend? We've never met him!" It's much better to just say "ein(e) Freund(in) von mir" the first time, say what the person's name is, and thereafter refer to them by name. User:Angr 08:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * So when you refer to male friends with the gender changed, you use 'Freundin'? :) DirkvdM 07:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess I walked right into that. --Rueckk 13:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I wish sociologists haven't coopted a linguistic term to such an extent that its impossible to use its primary meaning... --Ornil 21:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * it's a recent development, and many older people will still use "Freund/in" in the wider sense primarily. Of course, a couple of decades (two generations) ago, you had either a wife, or a fiancée, or a concubine, and the status of (romantic) "Freundin" was extremely stigmatized. And note that also in English, you will be more likely to introduce someone as "a friend of mine" than as "my friend", not because of romantic implications, but because it would sound as if this was your only friend (which in most cases will not be the intended meaning). In German, the singular came to denote an exclusive (monogamous) relation, while if you say "das sind meine Freunde", no-one will assume that you are not only gay but also polygamous. dab (&#5839;) 18:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was referring to the word gender, not to the my friend issue. --Ornil 19:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Dab, you're probably right in general. But I would certainly introduce one friend to another by saying, eg. "Bill, this is my friend Harry". I don't think Bill would assume Harry was my only friend. Nor would he assume he's anything more than a friend. Describing Harry this way tells Bill what Harry is to me - he's a friend, rather than my brother or a business partner or whatever else. JackofOz 20:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks all. TacoDeposit 02:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)