Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 July 11

= July 11 =

Mystery Sanskrit omission mark
In this Sanskrit grammar I'm transcribing, it mentions the use of a circle along the level of the text to indicate an omission. I can't find any information about this though and it doesn't seem to be in Unicode's definition of devanagari. Anyone have any idea what it is? Source, it's item c on this page 76.106.103.106 01:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The Sanskrit abbreviation sign (॰) is 0970 in Unicode Devanagari (see here). I couldn't find any examples in these Unicode Skt. texts, but that's understandable (text editions don't abbreviate).  Wareh 02:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * (I don't see an item c – or any other item – on that page.) Could this "omission glyph" have been the inspiration for using a circle as the zero glyph? --Lambiam Talk  07:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Or vice versa? (I have, by the way, seen the zero used for omission.)  &mdash;Tamfang 07:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I doubt it; the Devanagari numeral ० (U+0966) for "zero" is the more likely source. I don't see any item c on that page either, but I have a copy of Whitney, and it's described under item c on page 9 of that work:

c. The sign ॰ is used in place of something that is omitted, and to be understood from the connection: thus, वीरसेनसुतस् ॰तम् ॰तेन vīrasenasutas -tam -tena.
 * So it looks like it's more likely to be used in dictionaries and grammars and the like than in literature. —Angr 07:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Since the Indian numerals were transmitted in the Devanagari form to the Arabic culture (at least, according to this source), I assumed that the Devanagari circle used for the digit for 0 morphed into the "Arabic" 0 used in the West. My question was actually, therefore, "could the Sanskrit omission glyph have been the inspiration for the Devanagari digit?". Unfortunately, our article on the glyphs used with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the largely overlapping section entitled Evolution of symbols in the article Arabic numerals give some lineages but not the tree, and shape-wise only a few identifiable data points for 0. --Lambiam Talk  13:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Accessibility of public domain Google Books
Strange that the Google Books link doesn't work for Lambiam and Angr (worked fine for me). It's a shame if such a valuable resource, which provides Whitney's ''Skt. Grammar'' to the world, can't be reliably linked to. Since the symbol stands in lieu of something and not nothing, I don't see the attraction of a connection to the zero symbol, but I'm sure I'm just being dense. Wareh 14:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've tried four different browsers and I always get the same thing: a page providing brief bibliographical information to Whitney's grammar in the top left, ads for buying the book in the top right, and then references to other books on the rest of the page. At this address I get a limited preview of the book, but excluding the page relevant for this discussion. Rather annoying, considering the book is in the public domain now. I don't suppose there's any chance it's up at Wikisource, but maybe someone else has uploaded scans of the book. —Angr 15:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I can see the sign in a "snippet view" of the 1867 edition, but the search for "sanskrit whitney 1913" warns me at the link: "No preview available". I've noticed before that I didn't get previews where others apparently did. I can only imagine this is IP based, but find no information on IP-based selectivity on the Google books site. --Lambiam Talk  18:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That I can see too. Geez, and people accuse us of copyright paranoia; the book is public domain, for crying out loud! —Angr 18:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems to be copyright paranoia plus foreign jurisdiction paranoia; the availability of full view titles seems to be more restricted for users not accessing from the USA. Here I found:"As far as I understand, visitors from the U.S.A. can view all books published in the U.S.A. before 1923 in their entirety. In other countries, where copyright is determined by the length of time since the death of the author, Google is applying a much more stringent criterion based on the date of publication. For example, for visitors in the U.K. only works published before 1865 are available. To complicate matters further, Google also appears to be restricting all access to books published outside the U.S.A. later than 1908. Of course, the great majority of books published between 1865 and 1923 are legally out of copyright in the U.K. and most other countries. I have tried to clarify Google's policy on future access to these books, without success." The non-public-domain works that display for me as "limited preview" may require sign-in with a Google account. I should add that, even accessing from the USA, too many titles that are in fact public domain are restricted&mdash;old periodicals, titles that have been reprinted, etc.  Too much caution!  In any case, Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar is also provided by archive.org.  Wareh 18:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm outside the United States. Is it safe to assume Wareh is in the U.S. and Lambiam is also outside the U.S.? We might have our answer... —Angr 19:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the archive.org link; they even have it as a TXT file, which will make generating a mediawiki file for WikiSource much easier. —Angr 19:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Amusingly, I actually started working on putting Whitney's Grammar on wikisource a bit ago (mostly because I noticed that he does a great deal of intertextual reference, which would be ideal for wikisource). I got somewhat stalled out but now I'm playing around with it again, which is why I asked about the symbol in the first place.  Assistance would of course be welcome! 76.106.103.106 06:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC) (edited to correct link 76.106.103.106 06:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC))
 * Oh, that's great! Are you doing the first edition or the second? Using the TXT file at archive.org will greatly reduce the amount of typing you have to do, but it is only the first edition. —Angr 07:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And note that (when a given PD title is accessible to a given reader!) Google Books has recently introduced the option of viewing the plaintext of the scan. Haven't checked to see whether archive.org or Google wins for less corrupt OCR scan.  Wareh 14:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Zulu name for South Africa?
What's the Zulu name for the country South Africa? It seems to be "IRiphabliki yaseNingizimu Afrika", but that seems to be the "long form". What is the "short form" for the country name, if there is one, as it would be used in everyday casual conversation.--Sonjaaa 09:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This from the Wikipedia article on Zulu language - "South Africa - iNingizimu Afrika / uMzansi Afrika" DuncanHill 09:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * What about iSotafilika ?--Sonjaaa 10:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That looks like a transliteration of "South Africa": "i" = class prefix, "Sot" = "South", "afilika" = "Africa". Many languages transliterate "r" as "l" in some or all cases and the Zulu language article doesn't show "r" as a native sound. Mike Dillon 15:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Azania? Corvus cornix 20:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This is not politically correct. Our ruling party ANC would get very upset and call you an imperialist pig if you used that term. Even our anthem talks about Africa (nKosi Sikelele Afrika) (God bless Africa) rather than South Africa. Southern Africa was a group of tribal areas before the Europeans colonized. A lot of colonial names are also changing, such as Durban to Tekwini and possibly Port Elizabeth to Nelson Mandela Bay! Sandman30s 11:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Did you read that article? I don't think Pliny the Elder spoke much Zulu. —Angr 20:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The Zulus never take on any loan words? Corvus cornix 21:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sure they do; for example, iSotafilika above! :-) —Angr 21:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. :)  Corvus cornix 16:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Number of languages
hi, in europe, before the romans, there were presumably many hundreds of languages (as people didnt travel very far). Then the romans came along and everyone spoke latin, which in turn seperated into french, spanish etc.. SO my question in this, now that we travel more, its clear that big langauges (english, spanish) are killing smaller but will they, in turn "do a latin" and seperate out into more languages, or will our new lust for travel mean that linguistic diversity remains a thing of the past? - will we one day all speak the same? (i know wikipedia cant predict the future, but whats seems likely) thanks130.88.205.43 11:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * well, the current trend seems to be more languages dying out than 'appearing'. English has arguably "done something of a Latin" with various creole languages popping up, though the core has not split. It seems that international communication (whether by travel, telephony, media etc.) does put the brakes on divergence of different varieties like UK, US and Australia. I think it was Sapir that said there are two different social forces involved in language change: parochialism and whatever the opposite is! (it results in dialect levelling, whatever he called it!). So with increasing contact between different populations, my prediction is for a decreasing number of languages, though I think parochialism will stop us from all wanting to speak the same. If "civilisation" collapses, English (and other languages) will probably eventually "do a Latin". Drmaik 11:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to add that French is indeed a Romance language, and thus a clone of the Latin language, but it did absorb some Germanic elements from the Frankish rulers (hence the name "French"). I think English is well on its way to become the first really universal language, and modern means like the internet will prevent it from splitting into different languages. But I don't think we will see most of the world become Anglosaxon in the first two or three centuries. Keep in mind that in many countries/regions, administration and education is only available in one or at least a restricted number of languages (even when practically every local does understand the English language), in order to protect the local languages. In fact, one could argue that Latin wasn't even the first language "to do a Latin" : you might find Proto-Indo-European language interesting.Evilbu 16:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

English is becoming universal, but we will still probably see it mutate and evolve. Heck, txtspk and 1337 alone are fairly complex offshoots when you think of it, since they go beyond just slang. 1|= ! \/\/3R3 +0 +47|< +0 j00 71|<3 +|-|15, how ez wuld it b 4 u 2 undrstnd me? Blv t r nt, bcz f th pplrty f txtmsgng, w mght nt hv mny vwls lft, sn enf. lnguge s lwys evlvng, nd t's nt lk nglsh mks mch sns N-E-wy. We will probably see specific groups speak in complex slang, much in the way that MMO players nowadays do, with a number of in jokes, shorthand, and terms that can change meaning even from one game to the next. -- L augh! 14:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

"From your students you will learn"
Does anyone know the source or history of this saying? Thanks, Aviad2001 23:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't knoew if this is the original, but 6th century is good enough for me. (If someone would like to translate, (for the future reference): ”רבינא אמר כל האוהב ללמד בהמון לו תבואה והיינו דאמר רבי הרבה תורה למדתי מרבותי ומחבירי יותר מהם ומתלמידי יותר מכולן“ - Makkot 10a - 216.187.106.148 00:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please could someone translate? This is the English-language Wikipedia. DuncanHill 00:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * A crude attempt:
 * Said Ravina: ‘(the verse : “nor he that loveth abundance, with increase”) [means that] he who loves to learn with the masses, to him [comes] increase. And this is what Rebbi said: “Much learning I learnt from my teachers, more from my friends, and from my students most of all.” ’
 * Ratzd&#39;mishukribo 02:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Excellent, thank you. DuncanHill 09:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)