Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 February 3

= February 3 =

Aboriginal language
Hello, my name is Ann and I would like to know if you are able to tell me what these names mean, who speaks this language eg:what tribe and where do they come from. Here are the names:bunda, dumbye, wangai, marung, buru, milbi, dilal, gunggarnbil, gehgre and mabin. Are all these numbers or animals. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Ann —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.177.157.239 (talk) 11:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Where did you hear them? r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 18:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The meaning of "bunda" is given in the Bundaberg article and we have an entry on wangai. Others may be available after some diligent search.  As there are numerous Aboriginal languages only an expert in these may be able to give a full answer.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Considering that the two names discussed by Cookatoo come from opposite ends of Australia and from two very different languages and peoples, clearly the list does not come from a single language or tribe. Marco polo (talk) 21:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

'Artists'
In the UK an artist is someone involved in painting or sculpture only. In the US it apparantly has a looser less precise meaning and includes musicians, writers, etc etc, people that British people would not think of as artists. When and why did the two meanings diverge? Is it something to do with "artistes" - sometimes used to describe down-market entertainers. 78.146.251.66 (talk) 11:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You state "In the UK an artist is someone involved in painting or sculpture only." This is simply not true. The OED defines an artist as "one who practises or is skilled in any art." Although a British musician or composer is more likely to describe themself as a musician or a composer in some contexts, they would certainly use the word artist in the context of their creativity.--Shantavira|feed me 12:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that would be rare. Only in a theorectical sense perhaps, since music is part of the "arts", hence by extension. 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've noticed a similar thing with the US use of 'Athlete' to refer to any sporting person and not just those who compete in athletic events. e.g. Tiger Woods is apparently an 'athlete' according to the news reports surrounding his recent hoo-ha. Maybe it's just one of those cultural differences people keep talking about. Nanonic (talk) 15:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's like Americans refering to for example being a cook as a "profession", or a hamburger stand operator as an "entrepreneur". 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think (IMO) it has something to do with the peculiar form of semi-egalitarianism practiced in the US. Painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, and etc. are all 'artists' because they all fit in a particular class - those who provide culture - and Americans are uncomfortable with intra-class distinctions.  same with athletes, same with employees, same with races (though the latter is tempered by discomfort about racism).  In the American mindset, members of a particular class of people should all be essentially equal, if not actually interchangeable.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Now that I think really is true - in the UK, "athletes" are people who participate in "athletics", which in the US is called "track and field". In the US, "athletes" are all people who participate in any kind of sport, so football players, baseball players, basketball players, hockey players (i.e. ice hockey players!), tennis players, etc., etc., etc., are all athletes. But the bit about "artist" being more general in the US than in the UK is nonsense, I'm pretty sure. The whole thing reminds me of a friend of mine, a professional singer, who gets very upset when people distinguish "musicians" from "singers" (i.e. when they use "musician" to mean "instrumentalist"). +Angr 15:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone in the UK would raise their eyebrows when reading about a 'recording artist' or 'performance artist', or even when in conversation when somebody says that they are such. But if a person said to me 'I am an artist' in response to the question 'What do you do?', I would immediately assume they meant visual arts, painting or sculpting. If they then went on to elaborate that they were a musician or a dancer, I would then reach the conclusion that they were a bit of a tit. FreeMorpheme (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "Recording artist" may in origin be an Americanism, or could have originally been "recording artiste". As far as I understand, a performance artist is a visual artist whose work includes themselves (or sometimes others). 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually here in the US, I would reach the same conclusion, but if they instead said first they were a musician or dancer and then said they were part of an "artists' cooperative" or they gave a talk about "artists' rights" or something, that would seem perfectly appropriate to me, and I wouldn't think twice about it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What that boils down to, is that it's ok for a non-visual artist to refer to themselves as an "artist", as long as they first clarify that their art is non-visual. From then on, it's a sort of abbreviation.  That seems to place visual artists in a sort of special category, with a more superior claim to the word "artist".  But that's probably the way it is.  What amuses me is the (spoken) reference to "ardists".  I've always wondered what "ard" is.   --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   19:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps prototype theory may be of help in describing this. When one hears the word bird, they do not usually think of an ostrich even though an ostrich is technically a bird.  Similarly, musicians and writers are part of the larger group artists, though they are apparantly less central than the group consisting of sculptors and painters.  While it's possible for people to function normally in western society while excluding writers and musicians from the group artists, I'm not aware of any British-American divide on the matter.  I suspect that one's exposure to the arts may have more to do with how they categorize.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * From my perspective in the UK, it would only otherwise describe a band or solo artist, where one wanted a catch-all term. In that case, I'd spell it artiste. Performing artist is another acceptable phrase, but one for the corporate title-building people and not me. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 19:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * When notorious Brit Roger Waters sang, "The bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand", did you Brits really think he was just talking about painters and sculptors? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of him, but the article says he was part of Pink Floyd. Since many musicians and other cultural-product-producers get most of their income from the United States, they are quite prepared to tailor their product to the American audience's understandings. I have also seen this in things like films for example. (Pretending to be Cockney, Mockney, or exaggeratedly British for the benefit of Americans was a rather feeble joke in Britain. You did know that Austin Powers was a parody of Britishness, didnt you?) Many British musicians are much better known in the US than they are in the UK. Sorry to break the illusion, but its a contrived in-character knowing performance for their audience. See Divergent Speech in Communication Accommodation Theory. Edit: I've just looked up the lyrics, and my interpretion would be that it could be shorthand for con-artists or piss-artists, or referring to artists (ie painters or sculptors) as slackers. Its deliberately ambiguous, it could mean anything. Many Lyrics sung by singers are nonsensical - didnt Elvis say something about a rabbit in one of his songs? 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * @Jack of Oz: Is that because they are "'ard" at work? (You knew someting like that was coming, did you not?) Bielle  (talk) 19:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, not really, but tks anyway, Bielle. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   18:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Technically, "art" is anything that's made with skill or craft. Those who making something are kind of separated into "artisans", who provide things that are "practically" useful; and "artists", who provide things that are "culturally" useful. Recording artests create recordings. Artisans create the devices that record and play back. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Engineers make things with skill or craft. Ergo, engineers are artists. Those guys down at the garage, they're "artists", that's their "profession". LOL. 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * actually, they would be 'artisans' - skilled practitioners of an art - as opposed to 'artists'. there's an element of creativity in artistry that's absent from artisanship.  -- Ludwigs 2  02:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've always thought it was the element of usefulness that was present in artisanship and absent from art. Artisans can be very creative too. — Kpalion(talk) 10:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

what is correct pronunciation of St. Donat's?
I put a query on the discussion page, but not surprisingly have not yet received a response. Does anyone know the correct pronunciation of St Donat's Castle in Wales?--Eriastrum (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Mmmmmm, St Donat's. Homer Simpson (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC) [Sorry, I couldn't resist. Deor (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)]
 * Jokes on the ref desk are frowned upon, ironically enough, and if this kind of thing continues, I'll be forced to try and top you. :) For example, what sign did he have on his door, Deor? :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * According to John C. Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, "Donat" is pronounced, i.e. "DOE-nat". So just like "doughnut" except that the second syllable is homophonous with "gnat" rather than with "nut". +Angr 21:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Or rhyme with Robert Donat? Richard Avery (talk) 11:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The best way to use Tengwar in English
Perhaps someone here can explain something to me.

I've been working in odd moments on a transliteration of Mozilla Firefox into the Shavian alphabet. Not surprisingly, there wasn't a huge amount of interest, but several people suddenly became interested when I mentioned that it ought to be possible without much trouble to transliterate Firefox mechanistically into tengwar as well.

Here's my question: I don't know much about tengwar other than what I know from the books themselves, and I don't know what the Tengwar-using community as a whole expects or what would be most useful to it. But I've received a lot of conflicting advice about the correct way to use tengwar to represent English. Can anyone suggest a direction for either of the following points?
 * 1) sites like this one say that tehtar go on the tengwa of the following consonant where possible, and that "long vowels" go on long vowel carriers, whereas this page says that Tolkien used "full modes" for writing English, i.e. the tehtar appear on carriers of their own, and that the long vowel carrier is never used (so diphthongs should be written as pairs of short vowels).
 * 2) there's also the issue of orthographic representation (the only one recommended by omniglot) versus phonemic (which a conversion from the existing Shavian transliteration would necessarily be).

Thanks. Marnanel (talk) 22:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Tolkien said that in general, the languages where most words end with vowel sounds are written such that a diacritic on a consonant letter is interpreted as representing a following vowel, while the languages where most words end in consonant sounds are written such that a diacritic on a consonant letter is interpreted as representing a preceding vowel. Tolkien's practices for writing English with Tengwar follow the latter or "Sindarin" convention, since consonant-final words predominate in English.  For the details, you may find it helpful to download font zip file TengwarQuenya_v19E.zip and look at the PDF file TengwarQuenya_Help.pdf contained inside, which contains a nice capsule summary of some of Tolkien's different practices in writing English... AnonMoos (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)