Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 January 25

= January 25 =

Mas
In Spanish, there is a conjunction 'mas' (no accent), presumably a cognate of the French 'mais', which is roughly synonymous with either 'pero' or 'sino', not sure which. I get the impression from native speakers that it is very rarely used. I spoke to an Argentine professor who professed total ignorance of it, but her Mexican colleague confirmed its existence and vaguely characterized it as formal. I suppose its usage differs regionally. My question is whether anyone, anywhere, uses it in daily speech, or whether it is confined to law/literature/etc. Lantzytalk 00:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have no idea if it is used in daily language. My sister is married to a Hispanic so I'll call her tomorrow and ask her : ).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.117.2.137 (talk) 02:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.21.40.253 (talk)


 * It's strange to hear from a professor not knowing the term. It is, however, an infrequent word. For most of its uses, the synonym pero will be used in a normal conversation. You may feel free to label mas a dated word. That said, you may find it in literature. Legal and formal texts may also have a place for it. The most frequent place for the word is though the basic grammar handbooks, which explain the diacritic accent with the cases mas-más, te-té, si-sí, etc. Pallida  Mors  03:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not only had she never heard of it, but she insisted it was a typo. Evidently the word has a very low profile in Argentina. Lantzytalk 03:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The entry in Diccionario de la lengua española, Real Academia Española, 22nd edition 2003:
 * "mas.(Forma átona de más). 1. conj. advers. pero (ǁ para contraponer un concepto a otro). 2. conj. advers. sino (ǁ para añadir miembros a la cláusula)."
 * –&thinsp; Noetica ♬♩&thinsp;Talk 04:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That tells me what it means, but not how it's used. What is its connotation? Is it used in certain common expressions? etc. Lantzytalk 13:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to my knowledge—most times "pero" would be used in lieu. An example where where "mas" could be used would be "sé que es peligroso, mas no debes preocuparte" (I know it's dangerous, but you musn't worry). It's an old word, and most likely limited to literature. Chris.B 15:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (re-indent) The meanings Noetica has given are two of the uses English but and Latin sed have. Chris has given a canonical example of the purely adversative sense (pero). The other meaning, related to sino, is completely dated, and only to be found in dictionaries and very old literature, I believe. One such example would be the sentence "no es tiempo de hablar, mas de huir", similar to the one given by the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas.
 * By the way, I'm an Argie, so there exists at least one Argentine that does know the word... :P Pallida  Mors  16:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm astounded by an Argentine professor not knowing the word. Presumably not a professor of literature! I'd agree that it's a bit archaic, though certainly still used in poetry and even in popular songs (though it would sound a bit bizarre in anything with a specifically contemporary tone). Poets like having a one-syllable alternative to pero. And even as a non-native, I was familiar with both uses mentioned here (although, admittedly, my Spanish is biased toward the literary). - Jmabel | Talk 19:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the responses. Lantzytalk 23:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Antonym
What is the antonym of Fickle? Where can I find on the internet an antonym dictionary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.2.51 (talk) 08:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess "consistent" would be appropriate, depending on the context. Steve  T • C 08:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * http://thesaurus.reference.com gives constant, resolute and unchanging as antonyms for the primary meaning of fickle. Algebraist 13:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Fickle is an old-fashioned word... can we imagine someone asking "Will she be fickle or will she be consistent?" In a context like that, 'true' or 'faithful' might be better. Xn4  17:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think "constant" would fit very well in the sentence, in the more appropriately old-fashioned sense of that word.--Pharos (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd go with "faithful" or "constant" (the latter as in Joni Mitchell's "A little before you left me / You said you were as constant as the Northern Star"). - Jmabel | Talk 19:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There's also "steadfast". Telsa (talk) 23:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Inuvik language?
What are the languages spoken in Inuvik,_Northwest_Territories, listed by number of speakers? Is a dialect of Inuktitut the dominant language? or English? or other?--Sonjaaa (talk) 09:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * According to the official website, the primary language is English, and secondary languages are Inuvialuktun, Gwich'in, and North Slavey. Our own article says the population is 40.8% non-native, 36.8% Inuvialuit (Uummarmiut), 15.4% First Nations, 4.9% Métis, and 2.1% other Aboriginal. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Quickie request
Hi. Please forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask the question (though being pointed in the right direction would be appreciated if this is the case), but I've translated part of an intended citation from Spanish to English in order to glean information for the article State of Play (film). I just wondered if anyone would be willing to give my paraphrased version a quick glance to ensure I've not completely messed it up. The relevant passages are in my Sandbox. Many thanks, Steve  T • C 09:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks like an appropriate paraphrase to me. - Jmabel | Talk 19:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I'm not a good Spanish speaker and even the results from Babelfish were ambiguous at best. Steve  T • C 20:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

How do they do that?
I will phrase this question the best way that I can, so bear with me. Some languages (like English) use the "regular" and "traditional" alphabet ... characters such as a, b, c, ... x, y, z, etc. Some other languages (I am thinking of Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc.) use other "odd" characters or symbols. I can't recreate them using my keyboard ... but, you know the kind of symbols I mean. The Chinese symbols that people sometimes get tattoos of or that you see on a Chinese menu, or the Arabic symbols that you see on those Al Quaeda terrorist videotapes sent to TV stations or on Arabic language TV news casts, etc. They all look like squiggly lines / curves, basically. So, my question is: how do people using those languages put things (words, lists, names, etc.) in "alphabetical" order? Surely, they must have a need at some point to generate long lists, and I can't imagine that they just willy-nilly put any squiggly symbol in any random order? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:20, 25 January 2008 (UTC))


 * Just to point out - Arabic language is an alphabetic language, if we're lucky this will shew up blue Arabic alphabet. DuncanHill (talk) 16:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * We also have Writing system which explains about the different systems of writing. DuncanHill (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And see "How do you put Japanese words in 'alphabetical order'?" in the January 23 section of this page, above. Deor (talk) 16:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Even among languages (like English) that use the Latin alphabet, not all have the same rules for alphabetizing. For example, in Spanish, "ch" and "ll" are each treated as a single letter (following "c" and "l" respectively). You might find collation of interest. It's probably the broadest article on the subject, handling both alphabetical and non-alphabetical writing systems. - Jmabel | Talk 19:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * True, the Welsh alphabet goes "a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y" with the digraphs all counting as single letters where crossword puzzles are concerned. -- Arwel (talk) 23:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Chinese characters represent ideas rather than sound, so they can't be automatically alphabetised. See the thread about "Japanese words" for links to the traditional radical-and-stroke ordering. However, Chinese characters are nowadays usually arranged alphabetically in dictionaries by their pinyin romanisation. Pinyin is a scheme to represent the pronunciations of the characters in Roman letters (what you called "regular" writing).

This is analogous (though a much younger development) to developments in other countries that formerly used Chinese characters, e.g. Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, all of which have "gone phonetic" by developing their own, phonetic, writing systems which can be ordered "alphabetically". Vietnamese, especially, is now written with Roman letters.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, the Chinese dictionary addresses the issue of there being no "alphabetical order" for Chinese. Yet Chinese dictionaries have been made since ancient times. The article says that the Chinese "developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations", and then goes on to describe how each of these three systems works. Pfly (talk) 08:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The Arabic alphabet comes from the same source as the English one, and it used to be arranged in a similar order, but at some point the standard order came to be grouped by the shapes of the letters. So now instead of alif-baa-jiim (like aleph-beth-gimel in Hebrew, alpha-beta-gamma in Greek, and a-b-c in Latin/English), it goes alif-baa-taa-thaa-jiim-haa-khaa etc, since b-t-th are based on the same shape, jiim-haa-khaa on a different shape, etc. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, Chinese characters have no alphabetical order, but a relatively new invention allows one to spell out the sounds (and type them out with the right software: pinyin. However, many of the sounds are different from confentional English letters. C is pronounced "ts", g is always hard, i is pronounced "ee" except in some cases such as "shi" and "chi" and "zhi" that makes it a sound I can't discribe, although some westerners describe it as "er". To name a few more, u is pronounced "oou" (with round lips instead of flat), z is pronounced "dz", zh is pronounced "j", and so on. One major difference is that there is no v, instead there is a(n) ü with omlaut-like accent, so "he is not big fish" would be ta1 bu2 shi4 da4 yü2, with numbers representing tones, although they don't commonly use numbers for this, flat caved, and slanted accent symbols arew often used. Hope this helps. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 19:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the helpful responses and links. Much appreciated. I did not realize there was so much to all this. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC))


 * Whoops, for some reason fish is yu, not yü in dictionaries and software. Maybe when it can only be pronounced one way, it is then this. Well, an example of when u and ü are used non-interchangeably would be in the case of nu and nü, for example one meaning for nü could be female or woman. Hope this helps. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 19:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

How to pronounce wikipedia
Do you pronounce it wick-i-pedia or why-ki-pedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Naruto Tron (talk • contribs) 17:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The first way. The part before "pedia" is like the girl's name Vicky, but with a /w/ sound instead of the /v/ sound. (Apologies to those who haven't learned to read the IPA.) —Angr If you've written a quality article... 17:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In my experience, it's much more likely to be pronounced "wicca" than "wicky". And there has always been a minority that prefers "wee-kee", which is nearer to the original Hawaiian word. Lantzytalk 23:16, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have never heard anyone say it like 'wicca'. It has always been 'wiki' for me and everyone else I know, and everyone I see on TV. --ChokinBako (talk) 08:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you never heard the second syllable reduced to a schwa? Not once? I rarely hear it any other way, except of course when "wiki" is used as a stand-alone word. Lantzytalk 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, sir; do you pronounce the name of your state 'Hawaii' or 'Havaii'?" "Havaii, definitely," said the local. "Thanks." "You're velcome." - Nunh-huh 19:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've heard many people pronounce it "wicca-pedia". Usually it comes from those increasingly few people who've only just heard of us for the very first time - and who, more often than not, in my personal experience, immediately decide that the concept couldn't possibly work, and obviously doesn't work since they've never heard of it before.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I'd fail that shibboleth. I've always pronounced it with a schwa, and I usually hear it that way. Perhaps it's something more common among Americans. If I heard  it would probably strike me as odd. Lantzytalk 00:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In some accents, like a Southern US accent, there isn't much difference between "wicky" and "wicca". Vowels tend to sound similar ("pen" pronounced the same as "pin".)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vultur (talk • contribs) 17:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The pronunciation is common among speakers of other dialects. For instance, Lewis Black (1:04) and Keith Olbermann (00:43). It's probably force of analogy to the pronunciation of "encyclopedia", where the O is a schwa. Lantzytalk 19:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have a British RP accent (after a fashion!), and when I'm narrating spoken versions of articles I always say ("Wick-ee").  Hassocks5489 (talk) 13:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm an American, and I've always pronounced /wikə'pidiə/. As with Lantzy, /wiki'pidiə/ strikes me as odd. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 17:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Homo Sapiens
Why are humans known as homo sapiens? Isn't sapiens latin for to know by taste? ISnt sciencas more accurate ? --Gary123 (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The form that you want is Homo sciens. However, the name sapiens was chosen for our species by Carolus Linnaeus because in Latin it meant "wise, discerning, clever".  It suggests not just knowledge but wisdom.  While it is derived from the Latin verb sapere, whose original meaning is "to taste", the participial form came to be used mainly in the sense "having good taste or judgement, wise, discerning".  Marco polo (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)