Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 November 26

= November 26 =

French pronunciation of "Marseille"
I'm wondering what is the correct pronunciation of the French football team, Olympique de Marseille. I saw the city name can pronounced both ways in Mar-say [maʀsɛj] or Mark-say [mɑxˈsɛjɐ]. Thanks --Manop - TH 02:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You could say the name both ways. It depends on where you are in France, [mɑxˈsɛjɐ] is more southern french sounding and [maʀsɛj] more northern or parisian.  More or less anyway. --Cody.Pope 05:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * See French pronunciation. The two pronunciations are not as different as you might imagine because the k is not aspirated, it's not crisp as it is in English. It's more like saying R in the back of your throat, like pirates saying "Arrr". -THB 06:23, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Though, I would add that if you say [mɑxˈsɛjɐ] (i.e. the way they say it in Marseille) you'll probably offend a Parisian, plus you'll mark yourself as someone that learned French in Marsielle. To me, the real difference between the two isn't the r but that jɐ at the end. --Cody.Pope 06:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Note that maybe the 'rrr' should be in the back of the throat, but the 'a' certainly shouldn't. That is a common type of mispronunciation by anglophones of many foreign languages, including French and Spanish, which are pronounced very much in the front of the mouth. Well, the vowels anyway, not necessarily the consonants, but maybe I'm generalising too much now. DirkvdM 09:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm always unsure about whether or not I should prononounce the "u" soudn : the "ue" in olympique and "e" at the end of Marseille.Evilbu 12:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In 'olympique' it's mute (so ends with a 'k') and in 'Marseille' it's 'uh' (with a mute 'h' :) ). DirkvdM 19:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you all. --Manop - TH 19:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Dirk, thankfully you and I speak one of the few languages without silent vowels or consonants:).Evilbu 23:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Parts of Speech
I am looking for the opposite of personification. Personification is giving human characteristics to inanimate objects. What is the word for giving inanimate characteristics to humans? (ie. He was stone cold.)(He waved like the ocean.)  I know there is a word. In 1963 in my art history class, a person said the word. The professor had never heard of it. We looked it up in the dictionary and it was there. Thank you in advance for the answer.


 * Objectification? Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Neoaudiophilia or audioneophilia?
What is the correct term for a love of novelty in music? Neon   Merlin   06:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "A love of novelty in music" would be a correct term in English. Neither "neoaudiophilia" nor "audioneophilia" is a word. -THB 06:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Or at least, they aren't until someone makes them one. --Ptcamn 08:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In which case it would be a neologism (three threads up). DirkvdM 09:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * If I had to choose one word, I'd choose neoaudiophilia. 惑乱 分からん 10:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * But then why not neomusicophilia? (a) It uses Greek roots throughout instead of a Latin-Greek mix; (b) audio means "hearing", not "music" (love of new hearing is when you get a new hearing aid) – although musico- may be more general than music too, encompassing, e.g., dance. --Lambiam Talk  10:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the manifesto for the original New Music was this by Timotheus (musician): οὐκ ἀείδω τὰ παλαιά, καινὰ γὰρ ἀμὰ κρείσσω• νέος ὁ Ζεὺς βασιλεύει, τὸ πάλαι δ᾽ ἦν Κρόνος ἄρχων• ἀπίτω Μοῦσα παλαιά. Wareh 01:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Arabic Question
A korean friend of mine is asking me if I know what this means. Can anyone help?

صباح أمس عن انطلاق الحملة الوطنية لمكافحة الحرائق تحت شعار فلتكن السلامة هدفنا وتستمر حتي يونيو 2005. وأكد العقيد راشد العتيق مدير إدارة العلاقات العامة بالأمن العام ان الهدف من الحملة هو الحد من نشوب الحرائق والحيلولة دون تكرارها والتعريف بمخاطرها وأضرارها وأسبابها وسبل تفاديها الي جانب تنمية الوعي الأمني والوقائي واثراء ثقافة المواطن والمقيم للوقاية من الحرائق والكوارث والخسائر المترتبة عليها وت

Thanking you all. CCLemon-安部さん万歳！ 10:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you sure it's Arabic language, and not just Arabic alphabet? Source and context? 惑乱 分からん 10:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Since it's got lots of "al-" and ta-marbuta, I'd say it's a pretty fair bet that it's Arabic, but I don't know enough Arabic to read it. --ColinFine 13:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * According to this site which provides automatic translation from Arabic to English, the translation is:
 * Morning yesterday about national departure the campaign for struggle of the fires under slogan so to the safety harbors aimed and continues until June 2005. The colonel confirmed grown-up old manager administration of the general relationships in the general security that the goal from the campaign he lessen outbreak of the fires and the prevention without her her repetition and the definition in dangers and her harms and her reasons and spike avoided her to side development of the security consciousness and preventive and enrichment culture of the citizen and the evaluator for the resulting protection from the fires and the disasters and the losses on her [wt]
 * So it definitely is Arabic, but more context is needed to make sense out of the automatic translation. --Norwegian Bluetalk 14:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Google translation seems to do a little better:


 * Yesterday morning, the launching of the national campaign to fight the fires under the slogan "Let our safety", and will continue until June 2005. The Colonel Rashid, the veteran manager of public relations public security that the aim of the campaign is to reduce fires and prevent their recurrence and the risk and harm the definition, causes and ways to prevent the development of security awareness and preventive and enrich the culture of the citizen and resident of prevention of fires and disasters and the loss of consequent Witt

AnonMoos 16:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

：：：Thanks a lot folks! I knew it was Arabic, as I recognized some of the words, but couldn't read the whole thing. Cheers! I'll tell her what it means when she logs onto Messenger. CCLemon-安部さん万歳！ 04:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

which language has largest number of words

 * Please look at Word and then see if there is still a meaningful question you want to ask. And please sign your contributions with four tildes ( ~ ) --ColinFine 17:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

how to plan for future
how to plan for future


 * See Gosplan ;) --Dementios


 * The future of what? Getting the groceries in before the shops close is always sensible. In the longer term, making a will is useful. As is taking out a pension plan. Pessimists like to build bunkers.--Shantavira 18:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The nice thing about the future is that it will happen anyway, whether you plan for it or not. --Lambiam Talk  19:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That may not be all that nice if your unplanned future turns out to be poverty and ill-health, as compared with a planned future of prosperity and good health. JackofOz 01:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

translation of a phrase in greek or english
I gcosa duine a bhios a shlainte


 * It looks a lot more Celtic than Greek to me... AnonMoos 16:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the questioner is asking for it in Greek or English, but I may be wrong.


 * It is Irish. 'Duine' is 'man', and 'slainte' is 'health'. I don't know 'cosa' (of which 'gcosa' is the eclipsed form, and I suspect 'bios' is a form of the verb 'to be', but I don't know. Unfortunately I only have an English/Irish dictionary, not the other way round.


 * Please sign your contributions with four tildes ( ~ ). --ColinFine 17:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It means, "A person's health is in his feet" . So cos seems to mean means "leg/foot". Can't help you on the Greek, though. Lesgles ( talk ) 00:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

welsh greeting
What does Boro Da mean?


 * Maybe you spelled it wrong. 'Bore da' means 'Good morning'--Light current 01:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's often translated more as "good day" (though technically that's dydd da). Grutness...wha?  05:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Could be. But Good afternoon is: Prynhawn da. And good night is of course: Nos da--Light current 13:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What 14 letter english word has 6 letters that are the same?
What 14 letter english word has 6 letters that are the same?


 * I wrote a little python script to look for them in /usr/share/dict/words, and this is what it came up with:


 * assassinatress
 * degenerescence
 * indivisibility
 * monogonoporous
 * odontonosology
 * possessingness
 * possessionless
 * possessiveness
 * possessoriness
 * resistlessness
 * stresslessness —Keenan Pepper 00:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * P.S. Can this condition be expressed as a regular expression? —Keenan Pepper 00:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Interesting list. To me, "indivisibility" and "possessiveness" are the only ones that don't have a somewhat contrived feel, but obviously they have all been used or they wouldn't be in there.
 * I don't think a standard regexp engine can do this query; it can find words with 6 letters the same (assuming that it supports back-references), or words of a specific length, but not both at once. However, perl regexps have a lookahead feature that makes it possible.  Watch this:


 * (To be exact, that looks for 6 or more letters the same, but you could make it exactly 6 by using a negative lookahead.)
 * --Anonymous, 06:23 UTC, November 27.


 * In the strict (from formal language theory) definition of regular expressions of course one can be written that recognizes that language - it's a finite language. In terms of POSIX regular expressions I think Anon is correct, since they have neither an intersection nor a complement operator.  Well, at least it can't be done easily.  If you want to write out the disjunction of (14 choose 6) (over 3000) different patterns that the matching letter could be in, then yes, you'll have a very long regular expression that will do the trick. LW izard  @ 11:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There's also "Nesslessness" (a state exhibited by every lake in the world other than Loch Ness). :) JackofOz 01:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That's not 14 letters though. :)  --Bowlhover 04:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * True. How about Nesslessnesses (but that has 7 s's).  JackofOz 05:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)   Btw, acknowledgments to Tim and Debbie and the much-missed "BrainSpace".  JackofOz 01:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * LOL@JoOZ. Also (it's a bit of a stretch, but not to a poet, or a cheesy romance writer for that matter), restlessnesses. Anchoress 01:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)