Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 November 27

= November 27 =

Latin
Hiya all! Could someone please tell me where I could get a list of Latin to English words? I need a nice long one. I've learnt most of the grammar, I just need the words. Cheers! Lenadi 01:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Select "Lewis and Short" from the drop-down menu here. (If you want your word list all at once, you may like this very short one or this huge dictionary file, both of which I found near the top of a Google search results page.)  Wareh 02:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Strange way to learn a language:without the words! Dont you have a vocabulary lesson?--Light current 03:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I got some info of how to speak it off the internet. I only have about thirty words. Thanks for the files: I don't get on the computer much. Thanks again! Lenadi 04:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Eşkıya Dünyaya
How would the following lyrics be translated from Turkish?

Sene 1341 mevsime uydum

Sebep oldu şeytan bir cana kıydım

Katil defterine adını koydum

Eşkıya dünyaya hükümdar olmaz

Sen üzülme anam benim dertlerim çoktur

Çektiğim çilenin hesabı yoktur

Yiğitlik yolunda üstüme yoktur

Eşkıya dünyaya hükümdar olmaz

Çok zamandır çektim kahrı zindanı

Bize de mesken oldu Sinop'un hanı

Firar etmeyilen buldum amanı

Eşkıya dünyaya hükümdar olmaz

Sinop kalesinden uçtum denize

Tam üç gün üç gece göründü Rize

Karşı ki dağlardan gel oldu bize

Eşkıya dünyaya hükümdar olmaz

Bir yanımı sardı müfreze kolu

Bir yanımı sardı Varilcioğlu

Beşyüz atlıylan kestiler yolu

Eşkıya dünyaya hükümdar olmaz

Mo-Al 15:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Into what language? -THB 16:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * If it isn't defined, probably English... 惑乱 分からん 21:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * English would be best, yes. Mo-Al 23:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You might try over at the Turkish Wikipedia since no one has wandered by here to do it. You have a better chance of finding someone who speaks English over there than finding someone who speaks Turkish over here. -THB 02:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Latin"
How is "Latin" pronunced (endonym/exonym)? Could you add this to the Latin article? Is the "t" retroflex? —Masatran 13:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * In English or Latin? 惑乱 分からん 14:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The word "Latin" in Latin itself would be Lingua Latina (or sometimes Latina for short, or also Latine as an often-used adverbial form). The [t] in the word, from all evidence of historical phonology, was an ordinary non-aspirated non-retroflex simple plain [t]. AnonMoos 16:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * So is the [t] in the English word. Retroflex t does not occur in standard English phonology. There is nothing particular about how "Latin" is pronounced in English; it is pronounced "just as you would expect" (insofar as that is possible in English):, so it would be pointless to add that to the article. Although we have a reasonable guess how Lingua Latina was pronounced in Latin, there is no certainty about the precise details; additionally, the pronunciation of Latin changed considerably during the 17 centuries or so it was spoken as a living language. --Lambiam Talk  17:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Phonetically, English is quite different in initial position and after . Compare . --Kjoonlee 19:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "just as you would expect"? Following the rules, shouldn't it have a "long a"? --Ptcamn 19:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Would expect by analogy to words like cabin and satin, and if you accept proper names or look beyond a also cretin, florin, Gavin, Marin, resin and robin. We have a "long a" in basin, but that is the odd-man-out in this company. --Lambiam Talk  21:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * "Florin" doesn't fit that pattern in my dialect (contrast its first vowel with "robin"), and "cretin" is often pronounced with a long vowel (M-W, OED). Tesseran 04:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * But presumably you then say and not something like .  --Lambiam Talk  09:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In my dialect of English, it's //, with a definite (though reduced) vowel in the second syllable. --ColinFine 01:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In mine, it's // with hardly any trace of the second vowel whatsoever. CCLemon-安部さん万歳！ 06:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this is an unintended illustration of another reason not to add the pronunciation to the article: it is pronounced "just as you would expect", namely in a different way by everyone :) --Lambiam Talk  09:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * IMHO a phonemic transcription of should be fine. Phonetic transcriptions should be placed between square brackets to prevent confusion:  --Kjoonlee 12:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Ni yello
In westerns I often hear Indians use the ending '-ello', most often '-yello' and even more specifically in 'ni yello'. What do these mean? I hear it so often that I get the impression it's not restricted to one Indian language. DirkvdM 17:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Context? 惑乱 分からん 22:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Are we talking about Bollywood westerns with people from India, or Hollywood westerns with indigenous persons from North America? JackofOz 01:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Does Bollywood make westerns? :) More specifically, I hear it a lot in Into the West (TV miniseries). DirkvdM 04:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

welsh greeting
how do you say "goodbye" in Welsh? (Unsigned)

Hwyl--Light current 01:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hwyl. DirkvdM 04:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes I just said that! Are you going now or something?--Light current 04:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "You say goodbye, I say goodbye". Sorry about the misquote. DirkvdM 08:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You can also say 'pob hwyl' or 'hwyl fawr'. Although we never actually use any of these, and stick with 'tara!'.  Proto ::  type  13:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Exactly. THe Welsh must be careful not to dilute the language. It took me a long time to remeber Hwyl!--Light current 14:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

vowels
wht is shortest word using all vowels
 * I'd venture Aa (plant). --Wo o ty Woot? contribs 22:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Check out English words with uncommon properties. --jh51681 23:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Oi! I'd guess a word you want is yea?


 * O master, how excellent! JackofOz 01:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The questioner might intend a word which uses all of the vowels in the English alphabet (from Jh51681's link):

"The shortest word containing the five regular vowels is eunoia at six letters, followed by sequoia (and a variety of rarer words such as Aeonium, eulogia, miaoued) at seven. The shortest words with all six vowels are eukaryotic and aureomycin." Tesseran 04:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Romans
What sort of accent did the Ancient Romans have. Was it like todays Italian?


 * It's impossible to tell, though spoken Latin sounds very little like modern Italian. Clio the Muse 00:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * There's quite a lot of literature on it. IIRC, W. Sidney Allen wrote a pair of books Vox Latina and Vox Graeca on how Latin and Greek were pronounced. It is pretty certain that some of the consonants were very different from Italian ( and  did not palatalise to // and // before front vowels, for example), but I don't think the vowels were so different (at least in quality - length was phonemic). --ColinFine 01:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, but while reconstructing ancient vowels & consonants is fairly straightforward, the subtler patterns that are heard as an "accent" can't be known as reliably. Wareh 01:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Well they spoke Latin, and because of their vast empire, related languages called Romance languages (Romanian, French, Spanish, Italian,..) still exist in Europe (and beyond). I remember seeing some Roman graphiti (yes they too did that:) ) and it was completely incorrect (the cases and all).  I guess the common man couldn't figure it out either?Evilbu 17:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not much to do with their vast empire - only part of it ever spoke Latin, and not all of that part still speaks Romance. And as with most languages before the last century or two (and many today), the language spoken in the streets was appreciably different from that written by the intelligentsia. --ColinFine 00:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Moutpiece?
Can the mouthpiece for an instrument such as a trumpet also be called a "moutpiece"? I saw this spelling in a flyer for a trumpet, and I thought it was a spelling mistake, but I did a google search for the term "moutpiece" and it brought up 800 pages. There's even a band called "moutpiece" on www.moutpiece.com But is it a correct spelling? 800pages isn't that much, and there's no Wiki page on it.

Also, where did the expression " Man Alive!" Originate from? I want to start using this expression, and I'd like to know what it means.

Thankyou.--172.150.151.23 23:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have never encountered 'moutpiece' before, and would take it to be a typo, or possibly a representation of the word in certain regional accents. --ColinFine 01:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. Man alive you say. There used to be a current affairs programmme on British TV by the title about 20 yrs ago.--Light current 01:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Common misspellings can result in a significant number of Google hits. -THB 02:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Moutpiece is even spelt that way in several books in google book search. OED says "any man alive" or "all men alive" has long been used to add emphasis, earliest cite 1230. Alive later (19th C) becoming a general intensifier "man alive!", "saints alive!", "snakes alive!". meltBanana  03:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Mouthpeice" has about 19,900 Google hits, and we get another 2,490 hits on "mothpiece". --Lambiam Talk  09:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A "moutpiece" is what they call a "mouthpiece" in the Bronx. -THB 09:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Phonetically, that would be how Irish people pronounce it. In the Republic of Ireland, TH sounds are optional. martianlostinspace 16:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Chet Baker has a version of Blame it on my youth in which the final word of the title is consistently pronounced "yoot". Perhaps done after his mout got messed up. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 19:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I would suspect that "man alive !" comes from looking for survivors of some disaster, like a shipwreck. Finding a corpse would not require any rapid response, but finding a survivor would require a shout for immediate assistance, such as "man alive !". StuRat 06:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

`Kay thanx. 172.146.41.157 06:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)