Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 27

= February 27 =

Help with pronouncing /sɫuaɣ/?
I've been recently struggling to learn how to use to the IPA alphabet. This one has me stumped. Could someone at their convenience transliterate sluagh - IPA /sɫuaɣ/ - into American English for me? Thank you and sorry for the trouble. --Brasswatchman 01:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay. [s] and [u] and [a] presumably shouldn't give you much trouble--[s] as in English, [u] and [a] have their Continental European values (like in Spanish or Italian). [ɫ] represents a "velarized" [l], that is, saying [l] but with the tongue sort of pulled back a bit. In English, /l/ allophonically becomes pronounced [ɫ] at the end of a syllable, so if you say "like" and then "ball", you should be able to feel that your tongue is a bit further toward the back of your mouth/throat when saying "ball"--so I'd transcribe those [laɪk] and [bɑɫ] (American English). [ɣ] is a voiced velar fricative; like the sound in German "bach" or Scottish "loch", only voiced (voicing being the different between, say, [s] {voiceless} and [z] {voiced}). I hope that helps some. --Miskwito 01:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It does, a bit. Okay, if I've got this right, then, it would be pronounced sloo-ach by a lingustically-challenged American (essentially me all over). Am I correct? Thank you very much for your help. --Brasswatchman 22:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Pretty much, yeah :) . Or if you prefer, sloo-agh or sloo-akh, since  can be misinterpreted there --Miskwito 21:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Is the transcription Scottish Gaelic? It should say. The Irish orthography article says
 * broad gh is word-initially, and silent after a long vowel; and
 * ua is, not.
 * Assuming a diphthong is considered long, this suggests it would be in Irish. Incidentally, how is broad gh pronounced after a short vowel in Irish? While agh and ogh are listed as vowels, what about ugh? Lugh has a long vowel, apparently.  jnestorius(talk) 15:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the transcription given at sluagh is for Scottish Gaelic. In Irish it's pronounced (and nowadays spelled slua). ugh is an exceedingly rare sequence in Irish, so no generalizations about it can really be made. The word for "egg" used to be spelled ugh, but it's pronounced /uv/ and is now spelled ubh. —Angr 19:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I should probably go add that to sluagh, then. Thank you all very much for your help. --Brasswatchman 22:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

i want to know what my name means
i want to know what my name "sharvari" means?its an indian name
 * According to Google, it means "night". Can't vouch for that though. Algebraist 15:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * According to Apte's Sanskrit-Hindi dictionary it has three meanings: 1. night 2. turmeric 3. woman 202.141.96.146 13:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya

Pronunciation of the name of the Buddhist goddess Tara
How do you pronounce it?
 * . If you're not familiar with IPA, it sounds like "tah-rah", except the t is dental and the r flapped. --Siva 01:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

How can I use Hebrew characters and vowel points to represent English sounds?
How can I use the Hebrew characters and vowel points to represent English sounds? Yosef Karo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.90.3.102 (talk • contribs)


 * I'm not sure what question you're asking. If this is a technical question, there are software patches and programmes that deal properly with right to left, vowel insertions etc. If this is simply about transliterating English into Hebrew, it needs a fair degree of expertise in Hebrew to get this right. From the sound of your name though, I'd guess you're asking about technical problems. "Dagesh" is one programme I've heard of that does this. --Dweller 12:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Not all electronic text programs support the use of Hebrew niqqud; some applications must make do with the standard Latin alphabet plus an apostrophe as the only diacritc allowed, which produces a rather inadequate result. -- Deborahjay 18:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanx Dweller. But I'm asking about transliterating English into Hebrew--I need someone who is knowledgable in Hebrew ot help me. But once again, thanks.


 * Well, Hebrew and English phonology are different in some aspects, so you'd probably have to accept some approximations. What's the word/name you'd like to transcribe? (If possible, write in IPA.)惑乱 分からん 21:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If you're asking about how to render sounds like /tʃ/ (English ) and /ŋ/ (English ) there's a long-established custom of using an apostrophe-like mark (don't know if there's a particular Hebrew name for it) with similar-sounding, letters, such as <צ'> for . (The mark is supposed to be after - to the left of - the tsadde, but I can't get Firefox to order it as I want). I don't know how formalised the system is, though. --ColinFine 00:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There's a special character for the Hebrew צ׳. You can copy&paste this one. — Gareth Hughes 02:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The Hebrew wovel system seems simpler than English phonologically, but with many ortographic variations. I had trouble understanding when to use which markers. 惑乱 分からん 10:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * As shown on the Hebrew phonology page, Modern Hebrew has few vowel sounds relative to the English language. In older texts (e.g. prayerbooks) rather than the contemporary (e.g. newspapers), the vowels are indicated by marks known as niqqud ("points") that appear in "fully pointed" text as a set of lines and dots added above, below, or to the side of the alphabetic letters. In addition, certain letters (notably waw and yod) and combinations thereof are used to indicate some but not all various vowel sounds particularly in the "full spelling" when niqqud is absent, and likewise in transcription from foreign languages. There is, nowever, no written representation of such common English-language vowels as the [æ] ("a" in "cat"), or a short [i] in a closed (CVC) syllable — such that native speakers of Hebrew will call the feline [ket] when pronouncing English, to say nothing of a certain excremental expletive pronounced like the bed linen covering a mattress...! -- Deborahjay 18:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * With a stretch, it could be claimed Hebrew has the basic Five vowel system (or anyway 5+schwa), that should be enough to approximate most of English basic vowels and diphtongs in all "standard dialects", consonants don't seem to pose such a problem, for the "r-sound", you might substitute ɹ for the rough approximation ʁ. 惑乱 分からん 23:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've unfortunately forgotten most of my phonology studies and with them the IPA, but I believe the "glides" that particularly use extended combinations, i.e. the use of aleph and double yod in such phrases as "Bye-bye, baby!" = באי-באי, בייבי. This was possibly adapted from Yiddish, which is somewhat more clear than Hebrew in representing vowels. However, neither has an for the [æ] that's so prevalent in English and utterly absent in Hebrew and Yiddish! -- Deborahjay 00:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said, approximations. To me, ɜ (as in bird) would pose a bigger problem, but maybe ə would suffice... 惑乱 分からん 01:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * And for consonant approximations: θ, ð, (maybe z?) ŋ (ng?), w (and maybe ʍ) (v?). For the x, you could probably go with χ. 惑乱 分からん 01:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment I suspect that despite the second post from the questioner, we still don't really understand what the questioner wants. I've left a message on the anon talk page asking for further clarification. I've also notified one of our expert Eng/Heb-Heb/Eng translators of this discussion, so once we do know what the question is, we have someone on hand who can actually help! --Dweller 11:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the success of an English:Hebrew transliteration will depend on whether the particular sounds in the source text correspond closely to the far more limited set that can be unequivocally represented by the Hebrew alphabet and its vowel markers (niqqud, noted above). And what's the purpose of the transliteration: is this for an academic text, or a slogan to be emblazoned on a T-shirt? :-) -- Deborahjay 18:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

inevitable
This word has always bugged me (yes I have too much time on my hands). If 1 thing is inevitable, unavoidable why is evitable not a word? Shouldn't I be able to evit things? Easily amused 216.209.110.144 12:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)Canis sylvaticus


 * Your question leaves me plussed. You show such a norance of language, I am whelmed. In short, there are lots of such idiosyncrasiesin English. Some are relics / archaisms. Some are the result of neologisms, that are no longer neo. Just logisms. The OED will no doubt give you the origins of inevitable, but your question may not be answered to relieve your state of distress (leaving you, of course, stressed). --Dweller 12:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * well, for some reason we borrowed (from the good French) inevitable, but not évitable, avoidable, from éviter, to avoid. May be we thought avoidable was a good enough word but unavoidable lacked class. Hope my answer leaves you plussed, and that your love will always be requited. Drmaik 12:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey! wiktionary, dictionary.com. ---Sluzzelin 17:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * And your response, Dweller, I find gruntling. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * In Portuguese, like in French, we have evitável, but we use inevitável hundreds of times more often. In my lifetime, I maybe have said evitável a dozen times and I say inevitável perhaps every week. I also looked up for "avoidable" and "unavoidable" in Google and the first has half the results of the second. I guess if people didn´t use the word there was no reason for borrowing it.A.Z. 20:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sure there are a bunch of words that exist only in negative forms. Have you ever heard a company say, "We criminate" to mean that they hire people of all backgrounds? -- Mwalcoff 00:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No, I know of no company which is nocent of this practice. StuRat 05:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There is an article unpaired word, but it's not very comprehensive. jnestorius(talk) 09:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It's acomprehensive ? StuRat 21:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, "incomprehensive" is already a word... =S 惑乱 分からん 11:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * But unless I don't understand, it seems to have a completely different meaning. StuRat 21:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Evitable is a word, by the rules I use (is it in my dictionary? Chambers English 2003 in this case). So it looks as if we did borrow it, we just forgot where we put it when the time came to give it back. See also The Evitable Conflict for an example of use. Notinasnaid 10:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Grasping for an answer
Where does the phrase "Grasping at straws" originate and what does it literally mean? I know what the phrase means when someone uses it in conversation but not what it means as to what straws the speaker is referring. Dismas |(talk) 13:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Dictionary.com says: To clutch (or grasp or catch) at straws (1748) is what a drowning man proverbially would do. ---Sluzzelin 13:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting, thanks! Dismas |(talk) 14:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I found the following entry at wiktionary: This idiom refers to a drowning man grabbing any floating object, even a straw, to save himself. It was first used by Thomas More in Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534). ---Sluzzelin 15:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Translation
I'm not even sure what language this is in(Though I suspect its Italian), never mind what it means. Can anyone help? "Absumabam cervisia in praeter quattor et viginti horae" Ken 22:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like Latin to me, but that's all I can really say about it. --Brasswatchman 23:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Something with "beer" and "24 hours", and the 1st word looks like a verb, but I can't help you more... 惑乱 分からん 23:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's Latin words put together by somebody who doesn't know much Latin grammar. I think it's supposed to mean 'I've been drinking beer for the last 24 hours'. --ColinFine 00:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, let's assume good faith and guess that it was a drunk Roman. I wonder what kind of grammatical horrors would be spoken by an inebriated native Latin speaker. --Dweller 09:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The Romans neither used a 24 hour clock nor brewed beer, IIRC. So I think the culprit is most likely a Western European humanities student who's tossed a few too many back. :) --Diderot 10:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Brilliant reply, thanks! --Dweller 11:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like Latin written by someone who speaks German. The verb appears to be in the indicative imperfect: I've been drinking for the last 24 hours and haven't stopped yet.  Colin's translation looks right to me, but I was never good with dead languages. --Diderot 10:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)