Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 February 21

= February 21 =

Welsh
What is the Welsh for "Fuck off". Im not going to use it, I just want to know! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.132.10 (talk • contribs) 00:46, 21 February 2010

Cachau bant. Alos, in future, please sign your questions by adding four of these: ~ after it, because now it looks like I asked this question. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  15:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If we're being persnickety about formatting, I'll note that if you had used proper indentation (see Indentation) it would be clearer that you replied to an unsigned post. -- 174.21.254.47 (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If you are replying to a post like this which hasn't been signed by either its author or SineBot, you can (and probably should) fix it yourself using the unsignedIP template.—Emil J. 14:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Excellent, we learn something new everyday. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  04:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is it "cachau bant" and not "cachu bant"? Marnanel (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Have a look at this. Alansplodge (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I got a Symantec virus notification or something from clicking on that link, just so everyone knows. 74.105.132.151 (talk) 03:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Buryat and Mongolian (Khalka)
How similar are Buryat language and Khalkha Mongolian (usu. just called "Mongolian")? About the same mutually intelligibility as Spanish and Portuguese (the classic example)--or something like the various dialects/topolects of Mandarin (e.g. Beijing vs. Sichuan vs. Anhui vs. Jilin, etc.)? Any input is appreciated. --Dpr (talk) 00:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Why is mutually intelligibility between Spanish and Portuguese "the classic example", when it's rather notorious that Portuguese-speakers often find it easier to understand Spanish than Spanish-speakers do Portuguese? AnonMoos (talk) 00:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * And anyway, there is no real meaningful way to answer the question "How similar are languages X and Y?". There's no objective scale that can be used to measure language similarity; there's no spectrum running from "Bronx English and Brooklyn English" at one end to "Coast Tsimshian and American Sign Language" at the other, allowing someone to say something like "Buryat and Mongolian are more similar than Dutch and German but not as similar as Portuguese and Spanish" or the like. +Angr 16:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * To be fair to the OP, I don't think (s)he was expecting a mathematically precise answer, just a rough idea. Just because there's no numerical scale doesn't mean that an approximate answer is impossible.  We all know that Dutch and German are "more similar" than Dutch and Russian.  I'm guessing the OP wanted a coarse approximation based on the intuition of an expert on these languages, not a number. Lfh (talk) 18:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * But we don't know whether Dutch and German are more similar or less similar than Spanish and Portuguese, or Czech and Slovak, or Danish and Norwegian, or for that matter, Buryat and Mongolian. Still, Mongolian Buryat language suggests that that dialect has been more influenced by Khalkh than Russia Buryat and China Buryat have. +Angr 18:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is my plan (1) for measuring the complexity of an individual language and (2) for comparing the similarity of two different languages.
 * First, we compose a profile for each language, as follows.
 * Language A:
 * __ alphabetical letters: _______________
 * __ phonemes: __________________
 * __ grammatical cases: ________________
 * __ verb tenses: ________________
 * and so forth
 * Language B:
 * __ alphabetical letters: _______________
 * __ phonemes: __________________
 * __ grammatical cases: ________________
 * __ verb tenses: ________________
 * and so forth
 * To answer the question of how complex a language is, we refer to the profile of that language and we report the numbers represented by the short blanks. To answer the question of how similar two different languages are (to each other), we refer to the profile of each language and we report the number of elements in the intersection set of the element sets represented by the long blanks for each aspect listed.
 * Also, we can report the estimated lemma vocabulary of each language and the estimated number of lemmas in each language which are cognate with the semantically equivalent lemmas in the other language, as an absolute figure and as a percentage.
 * Also, we can compare them in aspects such as Subject Verb Object.
 * I propose that Wikipedia have tables of such information for all languages possible, for convenient reference for answering such questions.
 * The tables can be arranged by alphabetical order of the English name of each language, and also by language families and subfamilies.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 23:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Probably far more practically useful and scientifically valid would be to conduct psycholinguistic listening experiments to empirically determine how much speakers of language X can understand of language Y in the real world. AnonMoos (talk) 00:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the background, everyone. In retrospect, probably the only way to answer this easily is to get input from a couple of people who speak either language and report whether or not it's feasible to understand the other's spoken and/or written language and if so, how difficult it is. It doesn't seem too unreasonable (taking another example) for someone to say, "As an Italian I can understand a substantial amount in simple texts in Spanish and can hold a roughly mutually intelligible conversation with a Spanish speaker usuing rudimentary sentence structure and vocabulary." Unfortunately not too many Mongolian or Buryat speakers are on this reference desk.--Dpr (talk) 00:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You can refer to Category:User mn to find a Wikipedian who speaks Mongolian. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * However, the real meaning of such categories is "If you have questions to ask me, you can ask them in Mongolian"; it does not necessarily indicate any interest or willingness to answer questions about the Mongolian language (which is a quite separate matter). AnonMoos (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Even if the original purpose of Babelboxes was to facilitate communication in various languages, there is nothing wrong with using them for communication about various languages, and interest and willingness to communicate in a language are as uncertain as interest and willingness to communicate about a language, as well as interest and willingness to communicate about any of the other things represented by userboxes. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You're missing AnonMoos's point. There are 43 users in that category. In general, you (meaning, anyone who wants to know about the language) have no easy way of knowing who among them to write to, and if you write to all of them then it's spam, which is clearly frowned upon. On talk pages of users who speak rarer languages, I have seen messages like "Please translate the following for me ...", (e.g. with texts proselytizing the poster's religion, which is different from the recipient's), and I find that annoying. In the case of the OP's question, though, I think it's OK to ask, because it expresses a sincere interest, and Dpr is probably smart enough to figure out who to turn to among the 43.  &mdash; Sebastian 01:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * See GEONAMES - Mongolic | Tungusic glossary. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's really cool. that actually helps. thanks, Wavelength--71.111.229.19 (talk) 20:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC) (Dpr)
 * You are welcome. I searched that website for "Mexico City", but found that page instead.—Wavelength (talk) 23:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Referring to the original question, what is meant by "similar"? Mutually intelligible or genetically cognate? Those are two quite different categories. Listing phonemes, incidentally, is hardly a measure of similarity, as it does not take language change into account. [ɑ] in one language may or may not be related to [ɔ] in another, and either sound may or may not be intelligible by listeners in the other language. Bessel Dekker (talk) 20:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Mann von Geist und sogar poetischen Geist
In doing research for Joseph Christoph Kessler, I found the following said about Kessler by Robert Schumann:


 * Mann von Geist und sogar poetischen Geist.

I found this quote in a few sources (,, one other), but none of them translate it. What does it mean? My rough concept of it is that he's being called a man with the soul of a poet. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   06:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It means: a man of spirit, and a poetical spirit at that. TomorrowTime (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah! Thank you, TomorrowTime.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Your first link gets the German wrong, the second link gets it right: und sogar poetischem (not poetischen) Geist. +Angr 20:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Angr. I've made the correction in the article. --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Dog biscuits
Are there dog biscuits in the USA, or are they called something else, or not exist? Thanks 89.243.197.22 (talk) 17:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course we have them; see Milk-Bone, for instance. Deor (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * When I grew up in the USA, we certainly gave our dog dog biscuits, and called them either that or puppy biscuits. +Angr 17:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I asked because of the different meaning of biscuit in the US and UK. So the the "biscuit" in "dog-biscuit" has its UK meaning in the US? 89.243.197.22 (talk) 17:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Deor (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Speaking as an American, the biscuit/cookie distinction is not so much one of texture or consistency (or the number of times it's been baked), but one of sweet/savory. Cookies are, practically by definition, sweet. Biscuits are not. Dog biscuits are not sweet (though, to be honest, I've never tried one), so they can't be cookies. There are other "biscuit/cookie" like items which might have been used as terms, but crackers are flakey, and hardtack is only eaten by sailors. -- 174.21.254.47 (talk) 18:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I tried them a couple of times when I was a youngster—hardly the worst-tasting thing I've ever tried—and yes, they're not sweet. Deor (talk) 22:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If I may add a Canadian usage, we do call them "dog biscuits", but we usually call them "cookies" or "treats". The few dogs I am familiar with all knew/know what "cookie" means, and if they hear you say it, they will expect one, even if you were referring to cookies for human consumption. But I don't know how widespread that is. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I gather they were once called "puppy cakes", unless that's something different. Eating dog biscuits instead of cookies, or even hardtack, is probably kind of like eating field corn instead of sweet corn - probably harmless, probably nutricious, but not very tasty. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * of course, none of this should be confused with cow pies, which you which you probably don't want to eat if offered... -- Ludwigs 2  22:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless you're a fly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * ..or Desperate Dan. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This American has always violated trade mark by referring to dog buiscuits as Milk Bones. But, to return to your original question, I'll pile on and confirm what all the other Americans have reported: "dog buiscuit" is indeed perfectly acceptable American English.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 05:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * In South Africa, "dog biscuit" is a slang term for military-style field ration-pack biscuit. It's hard and dry and not terribly palatable but apparently full of sustenance. Dog food biscuits - as opposed to dog treat biscuits - are generally called pellets ar kibbles. Treats can be biscuits or cookies. Andre in SA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.214.78.114 (talk) 08:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)