Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 March 1

= March 1 =

Blood
Why isn't blood pronounced like brood (for example)? I don't think it's a dialect thing, it's always pronounced the same way. 212.201.71.43 (talk) 05:02, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Phonological history of English high back vowels has all the answers. --Kjoonlee 05:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * In short, it used to be. Still is in the other Germanic languages. (c.f. German blut). --Pykk (talk) 13:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Breendonk vs. Breendonck
I'd queried this back in Aug. '06, and now discover I haven't received any response. None of the interwiki pages I've checked (= de/fr/nl) for Breendonk or Fort Breendonk in Belgium use the ck spelling, but it crops up all over the web, e.g. in testimony texts. How to sort out the variant spelling, if such it is? -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 10:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, 'donck' is a variant spelling. It means a small hill. I'm not Dutch but I think it's typical for Brabant place names. (Although that might just be because the south is somewhat less flat.) Since the article is titled "Breendonk" I'd assume that's the more common form now at least. --Pykk (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Two questions about German pronouns
1. In this discussion, it was said that Guten Tag is in the accusative, there being an implied "Ich wünsche Ihnen einen ..." But according to the table at German pronouns, Ihnen is the formal form of 'you' in the dative, not the accusative.

2. If a friend asks me Was machst du heute?, and I want to return the question back to them, is it correct to say und du?, und dir? or und dich?, and why?

Many thanks. --Richardrj talkemail 11:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Others will come up with better answers than me, but until they do:
 * It is Ihnen because it should be in the dative. Guten Tag is the object: literally I wish a good day (accusative) to you (dative). It's just one of a group of verbs that take the dative: helfen (ich helfe dir), gratulieren, schenken, geben, sagen are others.
 * I would think und du because they are going to be the subject of the reply. In English, it is "And you?", not "And to you?", if you see what I mean. On the other hand, if your freinds ask Was gibt deine Eltern dir?, then one might suppose that you could say und dir? in those circumstances.
 * Hope that helps, - Jarry1250 (t, c) 11:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * But if wünschen takes the dative, doesn't that govern the case of the entire sentence? Why does it suddenly change to the accusative? --Richardrj talkemail 18:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Wünschen is what's known as a ditransitive verb: it takes two objects, one in the dative (Ihnen) and one in the accusative (einen schönen Tag). —Angr 18:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Both of Jarry1250's answers are correct. However, "What are your parents giving you?" is Was geben dir deine Eltern?, and if you were to return the question with Und dir? you'd be implying that your own parents were giving your interlocutor something. In other words, in the following conversation:
 * Was geben dir deine Eltern?
 * Einen Pullover. Und dir?
 * Meier is asking what his own parents (Herr and Frau Meier senior) are giving Schmitt, not what Schmitt's parents are giving him. To change the subject from Meier's parents to Schmitt's parents, he'd have to say Und deine dir?. —Angr 12:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. You learn something new every day (especially where GCSE German is concerned I suppose). - Jarry1250 (t, c) 15:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The Outsiders
Is The Outsiders based on a TRUE STORY or not?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.32.148.57 (talk) 14:58, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't believe so, no. The Outsiders (novel) would likely have mentioned that, if it were true. StuRat (talk) 16:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * And straight from the authors mouth, "Sometimes things from real life inspire me -- the social situation in my high school inspired a great deal of The Outsiders, but the book itself is fictional." (From her FAQ at www.sehinton.com.) - EronTalk 22:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Japanese translation
How do you say "Gay Pride" or "Proudly Gay" in Japanese?, I am writing it in a lot of a languages .. --190.49.116.122 (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't help you with Japanese, but it might help to add that a good literal translation in Chinese is 同性爱的自尊(tongxing'ai de zizun). It literally means "Homosexual pride". There isn't a good not derogatory, not official word for gayness in standard Chinese. Zizun means self-respect or pride (rather than arrogance). Steewi (talk) 23:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The standard Chinese for homosexual(s)/(ity) is 同性恋. 同性恋的骄傲 is the usual translation for "gay pride", but it does not carry the same sloganeering connotations. 自尊 means dignity, self respect, or self esteem.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * They just transliterate it, thus ゲイ・プライド --K.C. Tang (talk) 03:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * ゲイとしての自尊心 or 同性愛者としての自尊心. Literally, pride as a gay. Oda Mari (talk) 05:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * But is it better to keep the slogan? Perhaps something along the lines of


 * --K.C. Tang (talk) 11:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have changed your code a bit, looks like you triggered a bug that indented the rest of this page. --Tokikake (talk) 11:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Tokikake. :)--K.C. Tang (talk) 14:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There's no sloganized word in Japanese. If you don't like the translation, use ゲイ・プライド. Oda Mari (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Random German question
So I've been set this question to answer: Was würdest du am liebsten am Wochenende machen?. Obviously, that translates as What would you most like to do at the weekend?. It's probably just my teacher forcing me to use the conditional, but I really wanted to know whether I should be writing about this weekend, or weekends in general. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 16:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * In principle, it could mean either one, just as "on the weekend" could in English. For purposes of your assignment, and to maximize your practice in using the conditional, I'd interpret it as "on weekends in general". —Angr 16:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Aside: in British English the standard idiom is still "at the weekend". "On" has been gaining ground in recent years but still feels like an import to me. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Unless, of course, the question were: Was würdest du am Liebsten zum Wochenende machen? Who said that German does not lend itself to jokes of subtle obscurity?  But then again, I seem to be casting pearls...  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * With "würdest" it would not be idiomatic to consider it to concern all weekends. Then it would either be "Was machst Du am leibsten am Wochenende/an Wochenenden". or "Was würdest Du am liebsten an den Wochenenden machen." "Würdest" indicates desire for the future. "Am Wochenende" = an dem Wochenende is only one and would usually be understood to be the one that is coming up/being discussed as part of planning an excursion.  Since it's an exercise just put together a list of activities starting with "Ich würde gerne..." - "Ich möchte ..." - "Ich wäre für ."  It doesn't really matter whether you'd generally like to do that or only next weekend. - Unless it's a one time event. (LOL Cookatoo :-)76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Languages with only one preposition
The book The Power of Babel discusses a Papuan creole language which only uses the preposition "long"(derived from "along" in English), and notes that there are other languages, some of them "full" languages rather than pidgin or creole, with this feature. Is this correct and, if so, what are these languages? 69.224.37.48 (talk) 23:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Most of the languages that use only one preposition are creoles and pidgins. I think The Power of Babel talks about PNG Tok Pisin, which is similar to most of the Pacific pidgins (Bislama, Aboriginal Creole English, etc.), and he might talk about Russenorsk, which uses pa as its preposition. I can't think off the top of my head of any not-creole languages that have only one preposition, but I imagine that there are one or two. Most, however, have a number. Steewi (talk) 23:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Tok Pisin contains the following paragraph.
 * There are only two proper prepositions: bilong (from "belong"), which means "of" or "for", and long, which means everything else. (Note that longlong (i.e. long reduplicated) means 'crazy'). Some phrases are used as prepositions, such as long namel (bilong), "in the middle of".
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 00:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't consider Russenorsk a true language or proper creole though. Using (or over-using) the preposition 'paa' is logical since it works as both Norwegian på and Russian по. But given that the speakers of 'Russenorsk' tended to follow the sentence structure and such of their native language, I suspect it did have other prepositions - just no others that a native Russian or Norwegian speaker would agree on. --Pykk (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In the early 20th century, some linguists thought that Proto-Indo European didn't really have prepositions as such. That is, there were a number of words in the proto-language which generally developed into prepositions in the different daughter languages, but in the proto-language itself such particles functioned much more as adverbs than as true prepositions (e.g. using a particle to modify a basic verb could mean that the modified verb would take an additional noun object in a specified noun case -- as happens sometimes in Latin -- but the particle would be modifying the verb, and not the noun directly). AnonMoos (talk)


 * According to Proto-Indo-European particle, the modern explanation for the same facts seems to be that Proto-Indo European had postpositions (words serving the same function as prepositions, but occurring after the noun), while almost all attested older Indo-European languages have prepositions. It's less typologically unlikely in what it reconstructs for the proto-Language, I guess, but still a little strange... AnonMoos (talk) 23:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

German railway term
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains

Re: the article History of rail transport in Germany - are the terms Epoch III etc actually ever used outside the world of 'modeleisenbahn'?

From a german point of view, are the sub heading titles eg "Epoch IV (1970-1993)" incorrect usage for this type of article?FengRail (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The German article uses proper descriptive headings for the sections. The term "Epoche" (=epoch) is used but once in the text in the normal meaning of "era".  I would suggest to take the German headings as a guide for English translations, but I know next to nothing about the subject matter.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 00:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The article http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoche_(Modelleisenbahn) seems to suggest that the titles in History of rail transport in Germany are based on a misunderstanding - and are probably not suitable for a 'real world' article.
 * Unless I'm wrong of course.. Can anyone confirm my suspicions?
 * FengRail (talk) 01:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I can confirm that that German article is about toy railways. And that the article says those "eras" were created so that customers have it easier to figure out which toy railway components fit to each other. Yaan (talk) 14:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Ithought so too.
 * A question is : have those model railway terms since entered common usage? if not then the article History of rail transport in Germany needs some work.FengRail (talk) 15:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)