Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 December 18

= December 18 =

Ram Khamhaeng or Ramkhamhaeng?
The first sentence of the article Ram Khamhaeng the Great reads: "Pho Khun Ram Khamhaeng (Thai: พ่อขุนรามคำแหงมหาราช; Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng [...]". Is the name one word or two words? Both usages appear not only in the first sentence but throughout the article. It's confusing because this is done with no explanation whatsoever in the article. —SeekingAnswers (reply) 18:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I know nothing of Thai, but it's not all that unusual for an article to include alternative transcriptions, or include both a semi-"popular" rendering and a stricter transliteration... AnonMoos (talk) 06:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (Moving this down and out of "Archive" because there's still no answer to the question.) Can someone on here who knows Thai provide some clarification? Thanks. —SeekingAnswers (reply) 00:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know Thai either, but I've observed that Thai writing has no word-breaks, so it's not surprising that two transcriptions disagree on whether to break a word. (The Ram element is probably Rāma.) —Tamfang (talk) 01:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

English Malayalam dictionary software
Where can i download the English Malayalam dictionary software as free --RAIJOHN (talk) 05:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If Malayalam is the same as Malay, You will find it here. --Omidinist (talk) 16:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Malayalam is spoken mostly in Kerala in India. The Malay language is spoken mostly in Malaysia.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 17:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And they are unrelated. —Tamfang (talk) 19:46, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

--RAIJOHN (talk) 03:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC) English Malayalam dictionary software used in Kerala ,India, not Malay language in Malaysia. --RAIJOHN (talk) 03:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, but there are some English-Malayalam and Malayalam-English translations on English Wiktionary. Also, I suppose, on Malayalam Wiktionary.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 20:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Comparisons of importance
Let's say there is someone who thinks that some X thing is important, and someone else who thinks that such X thing is not so important as the other does (for example, in how influential is the cause of an event in such event). Which is the word to describe this action by the second subject? Verbs like "downgrade" or "disparage" seems to carry the connotation of insulting or ridiculing the first perspective, or critizing it in a disdainful manner, which is not the meaning I'm seeking MBelgrano (talk) 18:55, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that is possible without coming across as weasely, but if I had to write something like that, I might use a word like "deemphasize", or perhaps "discount". Looie496 (talk) 19:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If it's a case of 2 people sharing their opinions in a civilised manner over a cup of tea, then neither is doing anything to the other's opinions. One might "disagree" with the other, or "dispute" the validity of their argument, and that will lead in to friendly debate and discussion, but at the end they still allow each other to think what they like.  "Dispute" does not have to refer to anything belligerent, although it often does.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   19:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "De-emphasize", maybe...AnonMoos (talk) 21:51, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Downplay, minimize 67.162.90.113 (talk) 22:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The example you give can sometimes be a case of ultimate vs. Proximate causation. That is, speaker 1 says "X is an important cause of Y". Speaker 2's response can often be paraphrased as "X is only somewhat important (as a proximate cause), but the ultimate cause of Y is Z." SemanticMantis (talk) 21:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

死ンドラー
What is 死ンドラー? --84.61.182.248 (talk) 21:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Googling suggests it's a reference to the Minato Ward 2006 elevator accident. 死ンドラー is "Schindler" with the first character replaced by the homonymous character meaning "death". -- BenRG (talk) 00:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

How often occurs the katakana ン after kanji? --84.61.182.248 (talk) 08:08, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't, not usually. As indicated above, there is some wordplay involved in the word you quote. The usual シ you would expect is replaced by the kanji for death which is pronounced the same, to make the whole word sound (well, look, really. It sounds exactly the same when pronounced) more ominous. TomorrowTime (talk) 09:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is this word game also possible with Mitsubishi or Toshiba? Why not with OTIS, Hitachi, or Fujitec? --84.61.182.248 (talk) 17:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Is this homework or something? I'm trying to figure out what would lead you to ask this question if you didn't already know the answer... -- BenRG (talk) 19:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The IP locates to Nordhein-Westfalen. This user periodically comes here asking questions such as 'why cannot xxxxx be a [insert your language of choice here] word'. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  20:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)