Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 January 22

= January 22 =

Anagram Help!
Hi guys! I need help with the following anagram: egiiilnnoorrstuv. The word means 'make new'.


 * I can't find a single-word answer, but there are a lot with two words, including "siring revolution", "rising revolution", and "virtuoso relining". The three-word answers include "girl into souvenir". Xn4  22:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

NO EXIT in multiple languages
I need the sign "NO EXIT" translated into the following languages.


 * Polish - Wyjścia nie ma Steewi (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Spanish — No salida —Keenan Pepper 02:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No salida definitely sounds strange for a sign. We would say "sin salida" (the former applies provided I have correctly understood what the original poster meant).--Taraborn (talk) 13:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Sin salida is the typical phrase for a sign, especially regarding roads. For doors, I guess "no es salida" is also possible. Pallida  Mors  18:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * French — pas de sortie — Michael J  03:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)— sans issue — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * German — kein Ausgang. Strad (talk) 01:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Russian - Нет выхода (nyet vykhoda) Steewi (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Lithuanian
 * Japanese — I don't know what "NO EXIT" means, but maybe 出口なし (No Exit), 出口ではありません (this is not an exit), 立入禁止 (keep out), この先行き止まり (no outlet / not a through street). -- BenRG (talk) 11:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Chinese — 没有出口  bibliomaniac 1  5  03:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC), 无尾(assuming like dead-end streets) --antilivedT 03:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)  Wouldn't that be 'NO THOROUGHFARE'? Javiskefka (talk) 07:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "无尾" is tail-less, as in like a koala. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes but when coupled with "street" (街) it becomes a dead-end street, which is basically synonymous to no-exit when used as signs for dead-end streets or the like. --antilivedT 20:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Err, no. What dialect uses "tail-less street" for dead-end? In Mandarin it's just called "dead street" (死路) and may be labelled in traffic signs "no through road" (此路不通). "No thoroughfare" is "不可通行". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess it's more of a southern/Cantonese thing then, but either way it's inappropriate for the OP's purpose. --antilivedT 23:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to point out that it's not for a road sign or a street but for a door in a shop. 86.41.133.81 (talk) 22:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "不可通行" (no thoroughfare) might be the most appropriate.
 * If it's for a door in a shop, use "Sin salida" for Spanish. --Taraborn (talk) 00:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Arabic - لا يمكن الخروج من هنا Laa Yamkin al-kharouj min hunaa. Steewi (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Korean - 무출구 Javiskefka (talk) 07:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 무출구 sounds weird; it isn't attested in actual use. I'd go for "막힌 길" or "길 없음"; "way blocked" or "no way". --Kjoonlee 00:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, 86.41.133.81 (talk) 00:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the meaning? Is it a sign that goes over a door that indicates that the door is not to be used as an exit? Javiskefka (talk) 07:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly. 86.41.133.81 (talk) 14:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Finnish: Ei uloskäynti. J I P  | Talk 21:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Malay: Dilarang Keluar. kawaputra torque 04:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

How do americans sound to brits?
I'm amazed by how american Hugh Laurie sounds in House and it made me think about my own accent.. I hear just neutral speech, but like I hear brits talk like "oi ahve a wok dauwn the t'ames eh ol chap?" what does the American accent sound like to a brit? -- f f r o  t   h  03:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please do not post such bigoted questions. 80.254.147.52 (talk) 12:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't find a single trace of bigotry in this question. --Taraborn (talk) 13:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Try re-reading the unbelievably stereotyped rendition of what "Brits" sound like. Quite aside from the fact that it conflates about seven different regional accents into one (possibly that was the purpose of the question), it is extremely rude to take the piss out of the way a nation talks and then assume it will be taken in a good-natured way. Imagine if the question had been about how Chinese people sound to Americans and had included a snippet of Charlie Chan-style dialogue, or if it had been about how "African-Americans" speak and featured an Uncle Tom-style sentence. Reducing the British to a group of Disneyfied cartoon characters (and then expecting your stereotypes to be taken in good humour) is bigoted. 80.254.147.52 (talk) 13:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * He only said, surely exaggerating and joking a little, how an "average" British accent sounded to him. If it were done with the Chinese or Blacks I would feel exactly the same way, though probably there wouldn't be just one person complaining, but a few more. I'm not interested in carrying this discussion on, so it's up to you whether you futilely reply again or not. I suppose I should have just ignored the first reply. --Taraborn (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably not as "foreign" as Brits sound to you. Simply because Brits are more familiar with American accents due to the ubiquity of them in the popular media. I have lived a good part of my life in the UK and speak with what would probably be called a mild British accent. However, having lived in the US now (for a few years) I find the US accent to be pretty much "neutral" and my ears perk up when I hear a British accent. I also think Brits are better at determining accents than Americans are, because they are used to extreme variations over a small geographical region. For example, there are extreme differences between Scousers and Mancunians and between Weedgies and Edinburghers, yet the respective cities are only about 50 miles apart. Most US based Brits I know can place a regional American accent pretty well, but almost all Americans I know struggle to distinguish between Irish and Scottish accents, never mind identifying regional variations.
 * Incidentally, while Hugh Laurie indeed does a pretty good accent, there are quite a few impressive ones on US television at the moment. Kevin McKidd did a decent job in Journeyman, Lena Headey's is good in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as is Damian Lewis in Life. However, the best American accents by Brits has got to be in The Wire. Dominic West does a sterling job, but Idris Elba is phenomenal. In contrast, Americans generally struggle to do accents (Gwyneth Paltrow, Leonardo Di Caprio, Edward Norton and Gillian Anderson perhaps excepted)  Rockpock  e  t  03:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Vasser's a brit! I had no idea! Kudos to Kevin! Wrad (talk) 03:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Cough. He's a Scot.  I never thought his accent was very good, myself.  I do like Sophia Myless's, though, and Alex O'Loughlin has a good American accent, for an Ozzie.  I wonder what Irish folk think of his Irish accent in August Rush?   Corvus cornix  talk  20:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Compared to Dougray Scott's in Heist, it was impeccable! Rockpock  e  t  03:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And of course Scots are British. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Isn't around about now in discussions about British accents that someone mentions Dick Van Dyke? - X201 (talk) 14:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In Grosse Pointe Blank (a favorite movie) I had no idea that Minnie Driver was not one of us. – In The Sandbaggers, I could never decide about the two actors who played CIA agents. —Tamfang (talk) 06:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You may get some idea of how we sound to foreigners by listening to foreign comedians speaking in exaggerated American fashion; for example, Graham Chapman in the "Splunge" skit or Michael Palin in "Mister Neutron" (both from Monty Python's Flying Circus) or David Calder in Sleepers. —Tamfang (talk) 06:47, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think many Americans have had exposure to Irish and Scottish accents besides very poor ones on television, but I'm pretty sure most Americans can tell the difference between, say, a Southern accent and a Brooklyn one.  bibliomaniac 1  5  03:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. To clarify, I meant British regional accents, not American regional accents. Rockpock  e  t  05:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I once asked a German girl how American English had sounded before she had learned the language. She said it sounded like two cats about to fight.LShecut2nd (talk) 14:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Global Phoneme Frequency
Where would one obtain detailed data on the distribution of various phonemes (or perhaps non-phonemic sounds) among the world's languages? (E.g. in what percentage of languages spoken today is /q/ a phoneme?) Mo-Al (talk) 04:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ian Maddieson's Patterns of Sounds is a good place to look for that sort of thing. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 05:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strictly, a phoneme is a meaningful concept only within a language, or sometimes a dialect of a language, so the question really needs to be about phones to be coherent. It is true that many languages do have phonemes which map fairly closely onto those of other languages, but for a universal question like this, that approximation isn't really helpful. It is easy to be misled by notation - for example Chinese has two phonemes which are rendered in pinyin by p and b - but these are distinguished by aspiration not voice, and so do not map onto the /p/ and /b/ of most European languages. --ColinFine (talk) 09:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

German article genders
If Junge (boy) and Mann (man) take the masculine article "der" and Frau (woman) takes the feminine article "die", why does Mädchen (girl) take the neuter article "das"? Dismas |(talk) 05:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Because it ends in the suffix "-chen", which makes all nouns neuter. The more interesting question is, why is Weib (an old-fashioned and now rather derogatory word for "woman", cognate with English "wife") neuter? —Angr If you've written a quality article... 05:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Gender and sex don't always map. In French, for example, the masculine-gendered un docteur can refer to a woman, while the feminine-gendered une sentinelle can refer to a man. Rhinoracer (talk) 13:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The archetypical example is "la patrie" (as in, Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé ...) . It means "the fatherland", but it's feminine.  --  JackofOz (talk) 13:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * French is also good for the contradictory forms la bite (feminine; "cock (penis") and le con (masculine; "cunt"). —Angr If you've written a quality article... 17:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You just have to get over the fact that you need to memorize every single gender, plural and genitive for each new word you learn. --Taraborn (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In Irish, the word for "girl", cailín, is masculine, while the word for "boy scout", gasóg, is feminine. In both cases it's because of the suffix, just like Mädchen. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 17:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah. And in Spanish, sometimes not even the suffix helps. Contrary to common practice, "la moto", "el poeta". Well, to be fair, moto is short for motocicleta, and poeta is a strange incorporation from Greek through Latin. Pallida  Mors  20:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * And what's even more confusing is el agua, since agua is feminine, but uses the masculine article, because otherwise la agua would wind up being pronounced as l'agua.  Corvus cornix  talk  20:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's true. And it's easy to say that it's no big deal, once you know the rule. But it makes people fall in errors, like saying *este agua instead of correct esta agua, or worse, believing hambre (famine) is masculine, based on "el hambre". (Agua is such a frequent noun, and is so commonly used with femenine adjectives that [so far] this confussion does not affect it.) Pallida  Mors  20:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Another example is the Russian word кофе, meaning coffee. It's an indeclinable noun ending in -е, which are almost always neuter.   But someone once apparently decided this particular example should be masculine, so it's masculine in the dictionaries.  Most native speakers seem to ignore this rule and apply neuter adjectives to it, e.g. чёрное (neut.), black, rather than чёрный (masc.), and do a double-take when they hear someone using the officially correct masculine adjectives being used, so descriptively it's become neuter, but prescriptively it's still masculine.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Japanese To English
Could someone please translate the following:

">ワラｻン：学問のできなかった百姓は、ワラを色々な形に結んで文字、数字の代わりに私用された."

? Thanks.68.148.164.166 (talk) 08:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This would seem to be a continuation of the Kaida script from a few weeks ago. Anyway, translation: "Warasan: Uneducated farmers would tie straw into a variety of shapes and use them in place of letters and numbers." Warasan, like above, is used by communities without scripts to express or record values etc. Bendono (talk) 08:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hentaigana
How many hentaigana are there? What was the maximum number? Some say 900, owing more than 20 hentaigana per syllable, while other (university level) sources say い has 5. Thanks.68.148.164.166 (talk) 09:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * A very quick count:


 * hiragana: 300
 * katakana: 118
 * For い, there are at least the following six bases: 以, 伊, 移, 意, 異, 夷
 * Sources: 『仮名変体集：改訂増補』, 新典社 1966 and 『字典かな』, 笠間書院刊 1972 Bendono (talk) 12:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your answer, but do you have an upper limit anwser, for both katakana hentaigana and hiragana hentaigana? And if you do, could you list all the katakana hentaigana and hiragana hentaigana?  Thanks.68.148.164.166 (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Due to the nature of hentaigana, there is not a realistic upper bound. Consider the history. Before kana existed, kanji were selected to to represent similar sounds (see Man'yōgana). For example, to express /i/, any of the following characters may have been used: 伊, 夷, 怡, 以, 異, 已, 移, 易, 揖, 因, 印, 壹, 射, 胆. As long as the Chinese sound was close, it could used. As such, even this list is probably not exhaustive, but there is very little new writing being done in man'yōgana now a days. After writing these characters so many times, certain glyphic styles became prominent. Thus the birth of kana. (For lack of a hentaigana font, I will continue to refer to the base kanji for which they are derived from.) The favored base kanji used to write /i/ in the new kana were 以, 伊, 移, 意, 異, 夷. (Notice that it is mostly a simplification, but 意 has now been added.) With the education reforms of 1900, a 1 sound - 1 character policy was implemented. Notice that modern い is derived from 以.
 * Without an exhaustive survey of all historical texts, there really is no way to account for all hentaigana. Even so, calligraphers may still devise new hentaigana on a whim. There are also a few other more complicated issues as well that may affect counting. With that in mind, I think that resources above may be used as a fairly comprehensive list of the most common characters. For that list, please refer to the provided references. Bendono (talk) 08:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Gulzaar e akbari
i can not locate a book in persian called gulzaar e akbari by Haaj akbar ali nihavindi? this is a religious book regarding shia islam

can anyone tell me where is that available? and if i get it i need to get 2 pages of it translated into english can anyone help me with it?

i have wasted lot of time on net but couldnt find it?> maybe its a cannonical work —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.128.4.231 (talk) 11:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It in not a famous book, so it is highly improbable that you find it in any non-Islamic country. And even in Islamic coutries, you will find it only in some libraries. --Omidinist (talk) 16:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Bang/dead to rights
For some inexplicable reason, whenever I hear these expressions, I cringe. One day maybe I'll discover why. In the meantime, can anyone tell me (a) where they came from, (b) whether they're synonymous, and (c) what are the "rights" referred to? Thanks. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * For a gloss on "bang to rights", see here. --Richardrj talkemail 14:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Dead to Rights (catch phrase) is, besides being miscapitalized, absolutely no help at all. - Nunh-huh 18:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * According to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, "the phrase uses to rights in the sense of 'at once'." Same source also gives the orgin as, "[Slang; mid-1800s]" . - Azi Like a Fox (talk) 12:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * How odd, since that sense doesn't match any way that I've ever heard the phrase used. The phrases.org link seems more like it, from a likelihood point of view. Skittle (talk) 18:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The phrases.org is backed up by the OED etymology. If the American heritage dictionary does have a mid 1800s source, then the OED editors will no doubt be interested to see it: their first usage is early 1900s. Gwinva (talk) 19:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It was more the 'in the sense of' bit I was querying, which I don't think they even give a date for. Skittle (talk) 01:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, well just to muddy the waters some more I've got the Online Etymology Dictionary which says, "The phrase to rights 'at once, straightway' is 1663, from sense 'in a proper manner' (M.E.)". Also, CancerWeb Online Medical Dictionary which buried in there has "At once; directly" as a definition but without any elaboration . Make of that what you will. - Azi Like a Fox (talk) 05:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * What I make of all this is that the phrases are not well described in the literature, and nobody really knows exactly what the component words originally meant. I guess the whole phrases are more significant than the sum of their parts.  But I still won't be using them anytime soon.  Thanks all for your thoughts.  --  JackofOz (talk) 12:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Amerigo Vespucci —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.117.2.137 (talk) 02:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I suspect this is meant to be a contribution to the thread below. If not, are you saying that Signor Vespucci coined the term "dead to rights"?  How extraordinarily unbelievable, if I may say so.  A source would be a great help.  :)  --  JackofOz (talk) 05:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

"America"
From what name of the European man came the word "America"? Peckgarr —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peckgarr (talk • contribs) 17:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * We have an article at Americas which discusses this. As a Bristolian, I naturally tend to support the theory that it is named for Richard Amerike. DuncanHill (talk) 17:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, and as you may already know, there was an edition of QI that agreed with you, and thoroughly pooh-poohed the Vespucci theory. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 23:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reminding me, I did see that episode. DuncanHill (talk) 00:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * However, most believe that it's named for Amerigo Vespucci. -Elmer Clark (talk) 19:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And even last night's Jeopardy! had "America" as the question to the answer: "This country named for an Italian is only referenced in one of Shakespeare's plays". so Jeopardy! goes with the Vespucci theory.   Corvus cornix  talk  20:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to have to take that money away from Alex Trebek; surely the country was not named in The Comedy of Errors? Continent or land-mass or something, perhaps.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  20:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the question didn't say country, it said something more vague (I think it was "land"). -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure the question is technically correct, anyway. If it said "named", then there'd be only one, but "The Tempest" references America several times (Caliban swears by a Patagonian god, Bermuda and its trade are mentioned. Vultur (talk) 23:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * According to the J! Archive web site, the actual wording was: This land, named for an Italian, is mentioned just once in a Shakespeare play -- in "The Comedy of Errors" (my emphasis added). Okay?  Good.  Incidentally, none of the three players knew it, although one successfully guessed it (and won the game). I was surprised; I didn't know either, but I thought the guess was obvious. --Anonymous, 19:44 UTC, January 24, 2008.


 * I like the guy who said "Padua", that was hilarious. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Latin to English Translation
helpme translate the latin text from Giovanni Baptista Ferrari regarding the Diamante citron, as well as the same about the Greek Citron in the following page. Shoteh (talk) 18:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a big task for the Reference Desk! You want the entire pages? Adam Bishop (talk) 02:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, and it looks like an 'order', so you'd better do it fast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.138.109.72 (talk) 05:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed, it sounds like a "homework" question :) --Taraborn (talk) 09:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like a good faith editor trying to sort out different usages of the word Esrog. DuncanHill (talk) 12:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, obviously not homework. But we usually just get requests for sentences from Omidinist, or occasionally a longer paragraph...but two random pages from a book about a subject we are not really familiar with is much different. That takes significantly more effort. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll try to help if the original poster can tell me which of the citrons described is the diamante one (I'm assuming that the Greek one is the one that Ferrari says grows on Corfu). Deor (talk) 00:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's the Calabrian one, judging by the wiki page for it. That's where I was starting, at least (at "Calabri"). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)