Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 February 15

= February 15 =

False Non-Cognates
I'd like to collect a list of 'false cognates', i.e. where a word in one language is the same (or almost the same) in a completely unrelated language (as opposed to false friends, where they tend to have the same spelling/pronunciation, but only a related or sometimes opposite meaning, yet come from the same origin). Examples I can think of now are, Japanese 'miru' (to see) and Spanish 'mirar', or Japanese 'iraira' (frustrated, agitated) and Latin 'ira' (anger), Japanese colloquial 'anta' (you) and Arabic 'anta' (some dialects), Japanese 'itte' (imperative form of 'go') and Latin 'ite' (which, interestingly enough, is also the imperative form of 'go'). Anyone have any more?--KageTora (talk) 00:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I've changed the title to "false non-cognates". "Cognate" means precisely that they do have a common origin. I can think of one more example, also involving Japanese: wikt:arigato sounds as though it might be related to Portuguese wikt:obrigado, but apparently is not. --Anonymous, 00:59 UTC, February 15, 2009.


 * True, I have noticed that one in the past. Thanks. By the way, though, I beg to differ with the 'non-cognate' idea, as the word 'false' provides the meaning intended, as it does in 'false friends', which are not 'friends', as they are misleading. I will leave your edit for others to comment on, though (even though this is not the main purpose of this post).--KageTora (talk) 01:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * IMO you've just described a special case of false friends, where they don't come from related languages. --Kjoonlee 01:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

That is the point, Kjoonlee. I am looking for same/similar sounding words in unrelated languages.--KageTora (talk) 11:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I re-read the original question and if I understand it correctly now, it's asking for word pairs that are true friends (similar meaning and pronunciation), but false cognates (or non-cognates). Is that right? &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 23:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Classic examples are "bad" in Persian, a word resembling "dog" in an Australian Aboriginal language, and mata/mati meaning "eye" in both Indonesian and modern Greek... AnonMoos (talk) 02:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That language is Mbabaram. Lantzytalk 02:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Article false cognate is linked from "Mbabaram language"! -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That reminds me of Russian, where год (god) means year, and дог (dog) means not just any dog, but specifically a Great Dane. --  JackofOz (talk) 02:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Dogge means a specific kind of dog in German also. It's a borrowing from English -- the words "dog" and "hog" have no known origin beyond late Old English, while "frog" was apparently heavily modified to fit the pattern of the other two words... AnonMoos (talk) 03:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Heh. It just occurred to me that if the Chinese calendar had a Year of the Great Dane, Russians would refer to it as "Год Дога" (God Doga).  Such is my mind. :)  --  JackofOz (talk) 07:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Dogue de Bordeaux is a specific kind of dog in France, as well. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't be surprised if dog could be traced to a breeder named Docga or the like. —Tamfang (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * What about Persian setareh, which means "star". Cognates or not? --NorwegianBluetalk 16:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That is a regular cognate, Persian and English are both Indo-European. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a list somewhere (I forget who made it) to demonstrate the ease of finding false cognates if one ignores common sense. It's a list of Hawaiian and Greek cognates. They look convincing at first glance. I can't find it online. Dang. Steewi (talk) 23:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * My father has a book (now long out of print) called The Word: A Dictionary that Reveals the Hebrew Roots of English, where he attempted to trace many many English words back to their "original" Hebrew forms that sounded similar. For example, the word giraffe, he claimed, was from the Hebrew 'oref (meaning neck), and angle from 'aqul (crooked). It's really a piece of work... His website is here: http://www.edenics.org/. СПУТНИК CCC  P 15:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * See Adamic language. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's a few Polish words that are written (but not necessarily pronounced) exactly like unrelated English words (although some may be related to other English words) that just came to my mind:

And finally, a joke: what do you get when a truck hits a dining car? STAR WARS! (pronounced ) &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 17:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, and don't forget the Polish word (or brand name?) fart. Also, there's a word in Chinese that means that, the, or even "um..." (as a stall word). It's written "那个" and pronounced like "NAY-guh", which may offend some people if they thought they were speaking in English. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 19:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Fart, good one. I added it to the list above. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 19:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I just added the Polish word "ten" to the list above which reminded me of another joke: A Polish guy goes to a dentist in England, opens his mouth and says, "tu!" (here!). So the dentist pulls two of his teeth out, but not the one the Pole had been pointing at. The Pole thinks for a while how to better convey his message and finally opens his mouth again and says, "ten!" (this one!)... &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 20:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Russian also has кит (kit), but in this case it means "whale". --  JackofOz (talk) 21:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Er, neither this nor anything on that chart is what the questioner was asking for... -Elmer Clark (talk) 22:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, you're right; I didn't notice the part about the words having the same meaning besides sounding the same and being unrelated. Well, scratch that. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 23:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Re Hebrew: Theo Vennemann has published quite a few papers arguing for old borrowings from Semitic into Indo-European. They're published in scholarly places, but I don't think many scholars give them much credence. If he is right, for example, Arabic 'ard' and Dutch 'aard' really are cognates.
 * On a similar theme (but nothing to do with Vennemann) is Hebrew is Greek by Joseph Yahuda. At the time it was published a friend of mine knew the poor soul who had been assigned to edit this piece of worthless tedium (It was self-published, but the author paid a commerical publisher to print it). --ColinFine (talk) 19:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Specific way of communicating with deaf and blind people.
This question might need to be moved to the Science desk but I thought I would try here first. I saw a program on the BBC News channel called, 'Our World: Nicole's Story'. It was about a girl called Nicole Dryburgh who, because of tumours on her spinal cord, is blind and mostly deaf. People close to her communicate with her by touching her hands; they can spell out words by touching or stroking a specific part of her hand - it looks like each touch/stroke represents a letter. I wondered if anyone here knows what that system might be called? Thanks, JoeTalkWork 03:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Tactile signing. Algebraist 04:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent! That's just what I was looking for. Thanks, Algebraist. -JoeTalkWork 01:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Miracle Worker is a dramatization of a blind and deaf kid figuring out how to do this. It reminds me of Plato's Cave. --Sean 12:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

questions on the language used in a university certificate
This is seen on a University certificate. Whereas it has been certified by duly appointed Examiners that [name] is qualified to receive the Degree of Bachelor of Arts she having successfully completed the course in April 2008 and been placed in First class in subjects the senate of the University of [name] hereby confers on her the degree of Bachelor of Arts with all Rights, Privileges, and Honours thereunto appertaining.

Given under the seal of the University

Vice Chancellor Obsolete expressions, convoluted construction, what else? Do the participial clauses ("she having ..." and "been placed ...") miss their cue? "Vice Chancellor" as two words? A prefix can't be an independent word, can it be? "First" without a definite article looks clumsy, doesn't it? The closing phrase "Given under ..." needs some punctuation? Caps for "Rights, Privileges ..."? Thanks for any suggestion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.91.253.201 (talk) 11:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I would say the punctuation is horrendous, as it's hard to read it all in one go whilst trying to break the sentence into its component clauses, AND be comprehensible at the same time.--KageTora (talk) 11:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The lack of punctuation is probably deliberate - commas are virtually never used in documents which may have to be scrutinised in a court of law. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 11:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks right enough to me. I would use a comma at the end of the mile-long introductory phrase, but that is purely stylistic and optional. "Vice Chancellor" is two words, positively. You might be thinking of "viceroy", which is a different matter ("vice king" would be two words, too, if there was such a thing); here in the US, we all know "vice president" is two words. "First" does not need an article because it is being used as a full-fledged adjective and not an ordinal marker; imagine it had been, say, "exemplary". The question I have is what does "First class" mean here, and why is "first" capitalized (and "Rights, Privileges, and Honours, for that matter)? I assume it means something I don't know about and that it's capitalized for a good reason. I see nothing wrong with "she having", but, again, they've made a style choice I wouldn't have by spanning the conjunction with the helping verb "having". It's not wrong, but it bites (in my opinion). I suppose "Given..." would mark where the actual seal itself goes. Not everything has to be a complete sentence. --Milkbreath (talk) 13:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed a "to" too many as pointed out by an editor. Milkbreath, the language in this case is supposed to follow British English and when I checked the Vice President article I see that it clearly states in the intro that B English has vice-president. I suppose the same is the case with the vice-chancellor. Capitalisation of First Class is okay as it names a grading system. The other capitalisation is clearly meant to lend some sanctity to the conferred things, which seems very old-fashioned to me. When you say "spanning the conjunction with the helping verb 'having'" I can't see any helping verb there. Correct me if I am wrong, It is a participle introducing a participial clause. However, the second participial clause is passive and juxtaposing it with an active participial clause jars on my non-native ear and I would be happy to hear further opinion from native users. I am familiar with starting a clause, or a sentence for that matter, with a present participle or its passive or a perfect participle or its passive or past participle but haven't seen past participial clause in passive in common usage. When you say first without definite article is okay, aren't you reflecting the current fashion to omit definite article wherever plausible? Given the extreme old-fashioned style used here, shouldn't it have a "the"? 59.91.253.55 (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As I recall seeing it written, "vice chancellor" is two words in British English, as least according to some users of British English. The online version of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary seems to confirm my understanding. --173.49.17.152 (talk) 17:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I wasn't thinking "hyphen" when you asked about "Vice Chancellor". That's my fault; British English uses far more hyphens than American English does in words that are in the process of merging and in two-word nouns, and I knew you were in India. Yes, I would expect "Vice-Chancellor", but the other is not wrong. As for "first class", are you now saying that you made another typo and it should be "First Class"? That would explain the capitalization, it being understandable as a ranking in a system. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt as far as "placed in First Class in subjects", which is not understandable in any ordinary way. It seems to be saying that there is something called "First Class in subjects", and this reader wonders what the subjects are and how any class can be "in" them. I'm supposing this is academic jargon. As for "having", you seem to be better versed in the terminology than I am. I see "having completed" and "[having] been placed" as verb forms. We can call "having" the participle if you like, which it is no matter what its function. My contention is that "having" is best repeated so as to present a complete form both times; the reader has to backtrack to retrieve it otherwise when he gets to "been". Again, that's style, though, and not grammar. The use of the two forms is perfectly natural and unremarkable to this native speaker's ear. The question of the article before "First" is tricky. Articles are slippery little devils. I'm trying to express why I think it's OK the way it is, not to justify the omission or parse it for Mrs. Girdlebottom. Think of the omission of the article in "He finished in first place" vs. "He found it in the first place he looked." --Milkbreath (talk) 20:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Could "subjects" be a placeholder, like "[name]"? Otherwise, that's the only thing I find wrong with this.  I'd put comma after Arts and subjects and capitalize fewer words, but given the intentionally archaic register that's okay.  (Documents issued by the College of Arms are similarly deficient in punctuation; they wouldn't even put the comma after Rights.)  I don't see a problem with having completed and been = having completed + having been.  —Tamfang (talk) 22:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Australia has a Governor-General, but Canada has a Governor General. We have an Attorney-General, but the USA has an Attorney General.  Any vice-presidents we have (of companies, etc) are indeed vice-presidents, not vice presidents.  In the unhyphenated version, the word "vice " always appears to me to be an attributive noun, suggesting the person has some connection with crime (which may be coincidentally true in the case of Dick Cheney and Spiro Agnew, but not generally speaking).  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Re the First, see British_undergraduate_degree_classification. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Missing out the word 'the'
On about every page I go, the word 'the' seems to be missing. Why is this? Filper01 ( Chat,  My contribs ) 11:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Could you provide some examples? Do you refer specifically to Wikipedia pages, or elsewhere? -- Aseld  talk  11:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Is it missing on this page? --KageTora (talk) 11:20, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Like 'Chichester in United Kingdom'. Filper01  ( Chat,  My contribs ) 11:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, that is incorrect, so I would attribute this usage to linguistic ignorance. -- Aseld  talk  11:29, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * People do that by analogy with "in China" or "in Guatemala", which obviously don't take the article. If you get to the point where the name of the country is construed as the abbreviation itself, it makes sense. I guess most of us still think "United Kingdom" when we see "UK" and "United States" when we see US, but that is eroding, especially I think among ESLers, whose quirks we had better get used to since there are going to be more and more of them all the time. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:02, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Some of the UK ones might have been changed from "Britain" or "Great Britain" and the editor forgot to add "the". It's sometimes hard to find that in the edit window because of all the brackets and re v ference quotes.  76.97.245.5 (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2009 (UTC) (Oops, thks. Jack.  Dyslexia can lead to Freudian slips.)


 * Heh, "reverence quotes" - I like it. I've mentioned this before, but one of my pet peeves is sentences like "She married Peruvian cheesemaker Gonzalo de Luna".  There's a "the" missing before "Peruvian" - or at least an "a" (which then requires a comma after "cheesemaker").  Many others disagree, though, so I'm in the minority here.  --  JackofOz (talk) 20:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Fwiw, it's a way of avoiding making him "the" big cheese since he's not mentioned for notability (so far), or any old cheesemaker since he's named. Wikipedian Julia Rossi (talk) 08:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC) (de-comma'd)
 * I'm with Jack on this; the missing the in such cases is a bête noire of mine, as well. If one removes the restrictive appositive ("Gonzalo de Luna," in this case), the problem becomes apparent. (And don't try to tell me that "Peruvian cheesemaker" is a quasi-title; only Time magazine believes that.) Deor (talk) 13:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've just come across another example:
 * Cage wrote Etudes Australes for pianist and friend Grete Sultan.
 * If they'd made no reference to Sultan being a pianist, they wouldn't have written:
 * Cage wrote Etudes Australes for friend Grete Sultan.
 * No, it'd be for his friend. By analogy, it could also have been:
 * Cage wrote Etudes Australes for the pianist Grete Sultan. --  JackofOz (talk) 06:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The deprecated language hints that Sultan was his pianist as well as his friend. Of course it ought to be for his friend Grete Sultan, a pianist. —Tamfang (talk) 22:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Redundant "that"s
In the following sentences, are the "that"s redundant? It seems grammatically incorrect.

"You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope that by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, that it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure that for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, that cloned humans aren't banned similar to doping."

Is the following better? I'm pretty sure it is, but would like some confirmation that it is.

"You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope that by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure that for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, cloned humans aren't banned similar to doping."

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You have my confirmation, for what it's worth. I might add a comma after each boldfaced that, but that's a purely stylistic matter. (I should add that "banned similar to doping" needs some attention.) Deor (talk) 18:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The former is 100% wrong, but the second is much better. Just remove the subordinate clauses: left (removed) "... and hope that (that) it is legal... make sure that (that) cloned humans"! The latter makes so much more sense. The commas would be a nice touch though. While we're on the pedantry, IMHO you want similarly and not similar in the last sentence. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 11:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks to everyone for their help! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree that the comma Deor suggests is "purely stylistic". The adverbial phrase between that and its dependent clause ought to have a 'parenthetical' comma at both ends or neither. (Likewise Urbana, Illinois ought to be followed by a comma if it's not the end of the sentence; otherwise the words after the comma appear to be disconnected from what goes before.  Illinois is a parenthesis clarifying the meaning of Urbana.)  — The that can usually go at either end of the adverbial phrase (though in the first sentence it doesn't fit well after); likely people often put that before and then afterward feel a need for a that closer to its dependent verb; this is excusable in speech but less so in writing.  — As for similar, Jarry1250 is on the right track: the problem is that the adjective similar is pressed into service as an adverb, in an effort to escape the low register of like. —Tamfang (talk) 23:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How about?
 * "You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope that, by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure that, for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, cloned humans aren't banned in a manner similar to doping."
 * Or?
 * "You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, that it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, that cloned humans aren't banned in a manner similar to doping."
 * A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:11, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It still grates on me, since the comparison of "cloned humans" and "doping" isn't on all fours. I like your first version better with regard to the positioning of the prepositional phrases, since they belong to the clauses introduced by that, not to the sentences' main clauses, and are therefore better placed after that; but the last part would be better as "… cloning humans isn't banned like doping" or "… cloned humans aren't banned like those who use performance-enhancing drugs" or some other wording in which both parts of the comparison are logically parallel. Deor (talk) 02:24, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, that it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, that cloned humans aren't banned in a manner similar to doping."
 * A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:11, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It still grates on me, since the comparison of "cloned humans" and "doping" isn't on all fours. I like your first version better with regard to the positioning of the prepositional phrases, since they belong to the clauses introduced by that, not to the sentences' main clauses, and are therefore better placed after that; but the last part would be better as "… cloning humans isn't banned like doping" or "… cloned humans aren't banned like those who use performance-enhancing drugs" or some other wording in which both parts of the comparison are logically parallel. Deor (talk) 02:24, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * "banned in a manner similar to doping" suggests a comparison between doping and the manner of banning, rather than doping and cloning. —Tamfang (talk) 06:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

"L" in Bavarian
What's with the Bavarian dialect's tendency to stick an "l" after every ending consonant? For example, Münchner Kindl or Hofbräuhaus am Platzl. Is it some form of diminutive (compare mainstream German -lein) or just a fancy way of being oh-so-dialectal? J I P | Talk 20:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The former is definitely true, the latter is probably often true as well. —Angr 20:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There are two "normal" diminutive suffixes, "-chen" and "-lein", both of which may be used in High German. There are also dialectical dialectal diminutives, used in Austro-Bavarian (but also in Allemannic and a few more regional dialects).  One of these is the suffix "-erl" (in Austria), "-l" (in Bavaria minus the Frankish part) or "-li" (in Switzerland).
 * You may compare that to the Australian habit of adding an "-ie" to the end of a noun as a diminutive, as in "barbie" for barbecue, or the notorious "Chrissie pressie".
 * BTW, I read with interest that there are no diminutive elements in Finnish adult language, so this may sound pretty infantile. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * CEZ, the standard adjective from dialect is dialectal, not dialectical (which has different meanings from dialectal).
 * Such an -ie or -y in English can be diminutive, or it can turn a short, common adjective into a noun (when it may also have diminutive force): The Goodies; "Wow, that's a biggy!"; "He took a sickie to go to the cricket" (Australian: "He feigned illness and took the day off, so he could go to the cricket").
 * So-called diminutives do not always have to do with material size or stature. They may also connote something evaluative or emotional, such as contempt, disrespect, familiarity, or general positive affect toward the subject; or they may function as markers of informal register, like your example Chrissie (nursery talk, annoyingly adopted by adults), and your barbie. SOED notes this use of -ie as especially Australian (and Scottish):
 * "Var. (esp. Sc. & Austral.) of -Y6, as in birdie, doggie, roughie, sickie; used also in independent formations, as bookie, movie."
 * But I think SOED conflates the categories. Movie, listed here, is particularly interesting. For the record, here is the content of SOED's entry "-Y6":
 * "Forming nicknames, pet names, and familiar diminutive nouns (occas. adjs. and vbs), as Charley, doggy, goody, Johnny, Limey, loony, Mummy, shinny, shorty, Willy."
 * – ⊥ ¡ɐɔıʇǝo N oetica! T– 22:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Is the word dirndl related to this discussion?-- Wavelength (talk) 23:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes. The noun "Dirne" originally meant the same as girl (a derivative of the Latin "virgo", it seems) and thus "Dirndl" is a small girl.  The word Dirne later became a term for a prostitute and is only used dialectic in Austro-Bavarian in the innocent "girl" meaning.   A Dirndl, as in the sense of the folkloristic dress does not exist outside the Alpine areas of Bavaria and Austria, anyway.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Is this a genuine dirndl then? =) J I P  | Talk 06:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Definitely a Dirne in the making. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Eh? Which word is a derivative of virgo, and how did it get there? —Tamfang (talk) 06:13, 20 February 2009 (UTC)