Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 April 19

= April 19 =

French translation
Les conventions du mariage avec Nicolas de Laval[3] furent arrêtées à Vierzon, le 27 janvier 1499. Une procuration donnée par son père, le 27 mars 1499, enjoignait à Guillaume de Poitiers-Valentinois de chercher à la marier au gré du roi.

Nicolas, ayant accompagné la princesse Anne et le roi Louis XII, son époux, en 1500, au voyage de Lyon, il fut du tournoi qui s'y donna en l'honneur de leurs majestés, et fut le chef du parti de la reine. Le 20 juillet[4], le mariage fut célébré dans l'église de Sainte-Croix de Lyon. Et à ce mariage, dit Bertrand d'Argentré[5], furent faicts d'étranges tournoys, et les lices tendues de draps de soye en la place de Grenette. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk • contribs) 02:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This starts out easy but then seems to get a bit weird, which probably means I have some important words wrong. The only translation of "tournoi" in my dictionary is "tournament", and I assume "faicts" is an old spelling of "faits", but that gives me the following:


 * The agreement of marriage with Nicolas de Laval was stopped at Vierzon on January 27, 1499. A proxy given by his father on March 27, 1499, required Guillaume de Poitiers-Valentinois to seek a marriage within the king's liking.


 * Nicolas was accompanied by Princess Anne and King Louis XII (her husband), in 1500, on the trip to Lyon. There was a tournament and he was given the honor of Their Majesties, and was the chief of the queen's party. On July 20, the marriage was celebrated in the Church of St. Croix of Lyon.  And at this marriage, Bertrand d'Argentré said, there were made strange tournaments, and the lists were held from silk clothes in the place of Grenette.


 * --Anonymous, 04:42 UTC, April 19, 2010.


 * The second part starts off with "Nicholas, having accompanied" (not "accompanied by" since he is accompanying far more important people). I'm not sure about "il fut du tournoi", maybe literally "he was of the tournament", i.e. he participated in it, and he was the leader of the queen's team, which would presumably mean two teams battled each other, one supported by the king and one by the queen. If so, it says "he participated in the tournament which was given there in honour of their majesties, and was the head of the queen's party". The "lists" are the boundaries of the tournament area, and in this case they were decorated with silk curtains. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This is very strange. The first part is modern French, but the last part, starting from "Et à ce mariage", is spelt using French spelling 1790 or earlier. Like a patchwork. Weird... --Lgriot (talk) 07:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The last sentence is a quotation in old French from Bertrand d'Argentré (a little bit modernized however, I think). It could have been written: Bertrand d'Argentré a dit : « [Et à ce mariage] furent faicts d'étranges tournoys, et les lices tendues de draps de soye en la place de Grenette. » That's the reason why the sentence is in italics in the French Wiki [Here] — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, that makes sense. I wonder if "étrange" means "foreign" or "strange" or something else ("different"? Maybe there were two tournaments?) Adam Bishop (talk) 12:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Arrêtées means "settled" or "decided," not "stopped." Les conventions du mariage means the "antenuptial agreement" or "matrimonial conventions" of the marriage. I agree with Adam Bishop's corrections. Étranges probably means "strange" here, and his interpretation of il fut du tournoi is correct. "Place de Grenette" means something like "Grenette Square." It should be left as is, since it's a placename. 82.120.187.159 (talk) 19:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * "Tournoi" would be jousting in English, if it's unclear. --Xuxl (talk) 19:23, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Freida Pinto
What is the etymology of "Freida" in Freida Pinto('s name)?174.3.123.220 (talk) 03:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary has one for Frida. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

English possessives of French names ending in silent -s
Is the wife of Monsieur Thomas (pron. to-mah):
 * (a) Monsieur Thomas's wife, or
 * (b) Monsieur Thomas' wife?

Some people baulk at adding –'s to a noun ending in –s, so they'd be uncomfortable with how (a) looks. But it sounds OK when spoken: / to-mahz waif / (which requires the speaker to remember that the s before the apostrophe is silent but the s after the apostrophe is not, which may be just that little bit too tricky for some people).

Those people would prefer to write version (b), which might look OK if you're only half-familiar with the rules for English possessives, but sounds completely wrong: / to-mah waif /. Or do they somehow add in a / z / sound, despite the spelling not so indicating?

What wins out here – the look or the sound?

To put this into perspective, it doesn't seem to be an issue with other silent letters. For example, nobody would write Cochet' wife; it's always Cochet's wife. The fact that the silent letter in question in the Thomas case happens to be an -s rather than a -t or a -d shouldn't make any difference to the principle, should it? -- (Jack of Oz =) 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The way I understand it is that:
 * James'
 * James's
 * both spellings are perfectly acceptable. I personally prefer the s's spelling when a "schwa" sound inserted, and the s' spelling when the pronunciation is unaffected, but that's probably just me. --Kjoonlee 07:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, but that's a case where the ‹s› at the end of the word is pronounced anyway. Jack's asking about cases where the ‹s› is silent, as in the French name Thomas. Certainly here at Wikipedia we talk about Arkansas's congressional districts and Illinois's congressional districts, where those names have a silent ‹s›, but then we also talk about Texas's congressional districts and Massachusetts's congressional districts, so we follow the rule of always adding 's even to names ending in ‹s›. Jack's question is more this: If you're the kind of person who writes "James' hat" rather than "James's hat", what do you with the hat that belongs to Jacques (with a silent ‹s›)? Pronouncing it is easy, but do you spell it "Jacques' hat" or "Jacques's hat"? If you say/write "James's hat" to begin with, then "Jacques's hat" is obvious; but what do people who say/write "James' hat" do? See this link for a related discussion (careful, rather spammy link). +Angr 07:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Couldn't have put it better myself. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   08:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thomas' hat, surely. You could consider that the apostrophe itself is providing the 's' sound. Then it would look like it is pronounced, with only one sibilant. FreeMorpheme (talk) 09:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * How could an apostrophe provide any sound except perhaps a schwa? You choose not to write the 's' in, but pronounce it anyway, as if it were there.  If you're going to pronounce it, what's the objection to writing it in?   --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   12:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, think of a count noun that ends in silent ‹s› in the singular, like chassis. That's pronounced in the singular and  in the plural, but it's spelled the same either way – the plural isn't spelled *chassises. If the ‹s› of chassis can be silent in the singular and pronounced in the plural, why can't the ‹s› of Thomas be silent in non-possessive forms but pronounced in the possessive Thomas’? +Angr 12:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * How, then, would you distinguish between some property of a single chassis (the chassis' ) and properties of multiple chassis (again, the chassis' )? Looks like the context is the only way to tell them apart, yet the whole point of punctuation is to make it clear enough that we don't need to rely on context.
 * Now, say there was a Frenchman named Thomas (pron. to-mah) and a Welshman named Thomas (pron. to-məs), and we're comparing their respective hats. Which of the following is preferable (the Frenchman is mentioned first each time):
 * Thomas' hat is bigger than Thomas'
 * Thomas' hat is bigger than Thomas's
 * Thomas's hat is bigger than Thomas'
 * Thomas's hat is bigger than Thomas's.   --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   13:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Linguistic description is lost at sea on this question, because usage is disorganized. The question was one part of a lengthy discussion, with no clear resolution, now archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 17:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Fascinating reading, Wavelength. I had no idea I'd stumbled over one of the Great Unanswered Questions.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Italian sentence
What's Italian for 'Please give me some earplugs'? 213.105.212.205 (talk) 09:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know the language well, but possibly Per favore da'mi tappi per le orecchie (informal) and Per favore diami tappi per le orecchie (formal). Not sure about the conjugation of dare "give" in the first one.  --  the Great   Gavini  17:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It's: Per favore, dammi i tappi per le orecchie. A more formal phrase would be Per favore, mi dia i tappi per le orecchie, if you're asking a stranger, a professor, a doctor... If you're asking it to more than one person, is Per favore, datemi i tappi per le orecchie (this is valid for both informal and formal conversation). Da'mi doesn't exist in Italian. --151.51.15.200 (talk) 09:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Slovenian B - German labiodental correspondence
I have found the following examples for the Slovenian B - German labiodental correspondence:


 * 1) Begunje - Vigaun
 * 2) Bekštanj - Finkenstein
 * 3) Bela - Vellach
 * 4) Bela krajina - Weißkrain
 * 5) Beljak - Villach
 * 6) Bistra - Freudenthal
 * 7) Bistrica - Feistritz
 * 8) Bled - Veldes
 * 9) Bohinj - Wochein
 * 10) Bovec - Flitsch
 * 11) Borovlje - Ferlach
 * 12) Borovnica - Franzdorf
 * 13) Braslovče - Frasslau
 * 14) Brezno - Fresen
 * 15) Breže - Friesach

Are there any other toponyms with a Slovenian B - German labiodental correspondence? --84.61.146.104 (talk) 12:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know the exact answer. However, I have a couple of points to make:
 * See this interesting (albeit short) post which explains [one source of] the consonant mutation.
 * About half of your examples are wrong, because the Slovenian and German names are not cognates at all, thus the labiodentals are mere coincidence. That's the case with 4) (Bela krajina), 6) (Bistra), 10) (Bovec), 11) (Borovlje), 12) (Borovnica) 15) (Breže) and probably 3) (Bela) and 8) (Bled).
 * No such user (talk) 13:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think anyone claimed that they are cognates (from PIE), but this doesn't mean that they are coincidences either; they are loans, where one language has altered the other's toponym in accordance with its own phonology and lexis (folk etymology). When you are "correcting" the OP, you are actually correcting the mediaeval language users who made these adaptations. The correspondences with Borovnica, Borovlje, Breže, Bela, Bled are definitely real; the one with Bela krajina isn't quite of the same type, because it's actually a case of partial loan translation. The ones with Bistra and Bovec, on the other hand, are so wildly different from the German counterparts that the possibility of a complete coincidence can't be ruled out.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * When I said "cognate" I meant it in a wider sense, i.e. "related": either that one form is adapted from the other, or that they share a common ancestor. Still, I don't see why you are so certain that "Borovnica, Borovlje, Breže, Bela, Bled are definitely real". As Emil pointed out below, "Franzdorf" means "Franz's village", while "sl:Borovnica (grm)" means "billberry", and the other forms are also markedly different; they might be related (Bled likely comes from older "Ueldes") but I don't see why you are so confident in it. No such user (talk) 07:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see how you are not. There are an enormous number of such "coincidences" in the area where the non-Slavonic and the Slavonic names of the same place sound similar, but are adapted to make sense in the respective languages. And as I said, the fact that the exact "senses" they make are different is irrelevant. Völkermarkt means "the people's market", and Velikovec mean "the great place" - do you seriously think that these just happen to sound the same? Konstanz is known to originate from one of two Roman emperors named Constantinus, yet the Czech name is Kostnice, which is a perfectly legitimate Slavic word for "a place of bones". Leipzig, on the other hand, was adapted into German from Slavic Lipsko (still so in Czech). With "Borovnica, Borovlje, Breže, Bela, Bled", it is obvious how the names have been adapted in a perfectly sensible way to make sense in Slavic/Germanic phonology and roots (whichever name was the original in each case), and the adaptations would seem relatively minor to anyone familiar with the history and current form of both languages.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 17:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that while some of the pairs in your table may indeed be loanwords, many are just random coincidences. For example, Bistra is derived from the Slavic root meaning "fast" (I don't know Slovenian, so I'm not sure of its exact meaning in this language), while Freudenthal means "valley of joy", there is no etymological connection between the two. Similarly, Borovnica derives from the root "bor" ("pine"), while Franzdorf is "Francis' village". Weiß in Weißkrain is a translation of Bela ("white"), but the respective Slavic and Germanic roots are again unrelated (according to, the Germanic root is cognate to a different Slavic root, "svet-").—Emil J. 13:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * As I said above, the fact that both counterparts have completely different etymologies in the respective languages tells us nothing about whether it is a loanword or not, because these name adaptations were often made through folk etymologies. Yes, Borovnica and Franzdorf have reasonable etymologies in their respective languages, and yet it is clear that one actually originated as a "nativization" of the other, based on the similar sounds. This is a very common pattern in Slavic-Germanic correspondences in that region.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it is not at all clear, actually it is highly unlikely. Furthermore, there are almost no similar sounds except for the initial b/f. I also come from a similar region with lots of places having parallel Slavic and Germanic names, and I can assure you that quite often the names are not adaptations of one another, they originated independently.—Emil J. 10:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Or rather someone told you they just happened to originate independently (probably some nationalist who wanted to claim that the name in his native language is original and not dependent on another language). Borovnica ("borovnitsa") and Franz ("frants") are extremely similar, phonologically; all three consonants of Franz other than the /f/ (/r/, /n/, /ts/), are also present in Borovnica, in this order, and the change in vowels was justified by the desire to give it a meaning in the target language.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 17:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Or rather you are fixed on the idea that they have to be related, despite that there is no evidence for this claim. While you will be searching the archives to find one, you may also explain to the "nationalists" your theory of how Eger transformed into Cheb, Hluboká into Frauenberg, Gmünd into Velenice, or Vratislavice into Maffersdorf (note that the last one will require a serious amount of telepathy, given the name's origin).—Emil J. 17:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I assumed that you were talking about something relevant to the discussion, but I was obviously wrong. When you said that you "come from a similar region with lots of places having parallel Slavic and Germanic names, and quite often the names are not adaptations of one another", you meant names that are phonologically similar like the ones that we have been discussing. Of course many parallel names are not borrowed. But when both names for the same place contain a labial obstruent, a rhotic, an alveolar nasal, and a voiceless alveolar affricate, in this order, and the remaining difference is in suffixes or second compound members, the probability of this having occurred by chance is not even worth discussing. So I won't be discussing it any longer.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 19:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not my fault that you read something in my post which I didn't write there. Your argument is bogus. On the contrary, the probability of Franzdorf transforming into Borovnica is not worth discussing. As you seem to come from Bulgary you may not be aware of this, but in Catholic countries, Francis of Assisi had always been one of the most renowned saints, and a lot of people were named after him. Undoubtedly the local form of the name was as popular in Slovenia as Franz was in Austria. There is no way in hell how Franzdorf could be analyzed by a Slovene speaker as German gibberish vaguely similar to bilberry, it would be analyzed as something starting with the name Franz. I sincerely hope that you are not proposing that the loan went in the opposite direction, requiring the German speakers to invent a nonexistent person who supposedly owns the village.—Emil J. 10:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Some similar correspondences are found in Czech exonyms: Venezia - Benátky, Waidhofen - Bejdov, Villach - Bělák, Wolgast - Bolehošt' (but there are at least as many counterexamples: Wien - Vídeň, Völkermarkt - Velikovec, Weimar - Výmar, Wangen - Vanky). Not with /f/, though. Similar stuff may be found in Names of European cities in different languages and the articles linked to them.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Real estate
Hi, in 'American English', 'real estate' means space or an estate agent in 'British English' terms (I think). What would the equivalent word be in 'British English' and is there any place where I can find the history of the usage of this word? Chevymontecarlo. 14:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * These entries from EO may help or lead to some other lookups: ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for that. Chevymontecarlo . 16:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Also see Real property and Personal property. --ColinFine (talk) 20:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Being British, my understanding is that "realtor" in AE is "estate agent" in BE, and that "real estate" in AE is "property" in BE. "Real estate" may have other rare technical legal meanings in BE. I don't understand what you mean by "space". 78.149.175.91 (talk) 19:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * He might be talking about the increasing tendency for home designers to refer to a house or part of same as a "space". But maybe he'll explain. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Japanese island demonyms
Is there any attested use (in Western languages) of demonyms to describe residents of the various Japanese islands (something like "Honshuan" or "Shikokuan")? --140.232.11.37 (talk) 20:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * If you google those forms, you'll get some hits. Marco polo (talk) 00:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * To be honest, in my personal experience I've never heard of any of those particular forms being used, but I have heard them with respect to certain towns and their inhabitants, such as Osaka (Osakan), Nagoya (Nagoyan), etc. I have also heard Tokyoite as referring to someone from Tokyo. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  10:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Q would be whether people identify by island like that, or go with city, prefecture, etc. For example, Honshu is so large, that identifying someone as from there isn't very specific.  Why wouldn't you list their city, instead ?  If there was some ethnic or cultural difference which varied by island, then that might be different. StuRat (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)