Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 January 8

= January 8 =

Footnotes 56
In footnotes 56 "hochchhe" is mentioned. What does it mean.174.3.101.61 (talk) 01:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * If I'm reading the section correctly, where it was referenced, it means "is". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the footnote says that the copula surfaces as 'hochchhe', meaning that the verb 'to be' (which is essentially the copula) is shown by the word 'hochchhe'. -- KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 18:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Corollary to the Spanish question
So, I saw that in yesterday's Spanish question that "quando" was suggested as being fixed to "cuándo", which seemed interesting to me - I'm learning French as a second language, and "quando" reminded me of the French quand (when). This begs the question: in Spanish when does one use "qu" and "cu"? Do we know how it would've been like in earlier stages of Spanish? --134.117.182.175 (talk) 04:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't say about early Spanish, but "when" in Latin is quando, which of course feeds both the French and Spanish terms. The Spanish "c" is pronounced 3 ways: as a hard "c" (like "k") when followed by a, o or u; as a soft "c" (like "s") when followed by e or i; and in combination with "h" is pronounced pretty much like the English "ch". That leaves a gap, which is how to form the "k" sound before e or i. The solution is "qu". As with English, "q" is used in combination with "u" and is typically followed by an "e" or an "i". In fact, my Spanish dictionary under "q" shows only "que" and "qui" words, nothing else. So "que" for "that" or "what" is roughly pronounced "kay"; and "quien" for "who" is roughly pronounced "kee-en". So why not just use the letter "k"? Like German, which always uses "k" for a hard "k" sound. The reason is that "k" does not normally occur in Spanish, except in words of Greek origin, such as "kilometro". In fact, my Spanish dictionary gives "quilo" as an alternate spelling of "kilo". So, as you say, "quand" in French, but "cuando" in Spanish. Seems like "quando" would have worked in Spanish, but they went with "cuando" for whatever reason. That was all kind of long-winded, and I hope it makes sense. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I found an interesting one: The normal Spanish word for "question" is pregunta, but the word "cuestion" also exists, apparently taken back from English or French. Note that it doesn't start with "q", though, because that would be pronounced "kay-stee-ohn", whereas with the "c" it works out to something close to the English pronounciation. Other switches include "cuanto" for "how many", obviously from the Latin from which we get "quantity"; and "cuatro" for four, which again comes from Latin "quarto" or some such. That also raises the question as to why Latin doesn't just use "c" instead of "q" in those cases. Some cunning linguist will have to answer that one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It has mostly to do with historical sound shifts. In Latin, using made sense as it helped indicate the phonemic distinction between  and .  The latter consonant was lost in Latin's daughter languages (that is, Romance languages) but in different ways.  From what I can tell, in early Spanish,  became  before front vowels and  elswhere.  Meanwhile, what was  (spelled ) before front vowels palatalized to become  (eventually becoming ).  This meant that  was spelled with  before front vowels and  elsewhere.
 * I don't know the specifics about the processes, and spelling reforms complicate the matter so that, eventually, Spanish orthographers decided  was only good for indicating before front vowels and indicated  with .  Also, like I said, the merger operated differently in the different daughter languages. In Romanian,  became  before . — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  09:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps part of the reason Spanish always uses cu + vowel to stand for /kw/, never qu, has to do with the diphthongization of Latin ŏ to /we/ (spelled ue) in Spanish. A word like "body", was corpus in Latin, which regularly became cuerpo in Spanish, with c mapping to Latin c and ue mapping to Latin o. Words like that would establish the precedent that /kw/ was to be spelled cu, so it was regularized both to cases like quando → cuando and to learnèd re-borrowings from Latin, like frecuéncia and cuestión. In other languages that didn't have the o → ue change, there was no motivation to spell /kw/ cu, so it stayed qu, e.g. in Portuguese, where those words are spelled quando, freqüência, and qüestão (Portuguese uses qü before e and i to indicate /kw/ rather than /k/). +Angr 09:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The Portuguese convention is similar to Spanish use of ü to differentiate between and  before front vowels (agüero vs. aguerrido).  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  11:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Portuguese does that too, of course. However, according to Portuguese orthography, qü and gü are used only in Brazil, and not even always there, and according to Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990, qü and gü are to be abolished in BP as well, with the result that spellings like que, qui, gue, gui will be ambiguous as to whether /k ~ g/ or /kw ~ gw/ is meant. No problem for native speakers of course, and it's one less letter for them to have to worry about (will it free up a key on Brazil computer keyboards?), but it's hard cheese on foreigners learning the language, who will lose a pronunciation hint in the spelling. +Angr 11:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Usually, in Spanish, if a word is pronounced /kw/..., then it probably starts with "cu" (like cuando), if it's pronounced /kj/... or just /k/... then it probably starts with "qu". L&#9786;g&#9786;maniac chat? 15:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That's actually too specific a rule. In that context, the  is actually phonemically an  that has become a semivowel.  That's the source of Spanish  as well. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  21:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * "kj"??? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, as in quiere /kjere/ or quién /kjen/. +Angr 16:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a "ky" sound. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In IPA, /j/ is the 'y' sound... L&#9786;g&#9786;maniac chat? 16:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * IPA must have been designed by Germans. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, French and Britons for the most part. — Emil J. 17:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ironic, since neither language pronounces "j" that way, in general. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really ironic, is it? Not in the generally understood sense of the word. Or are you Alanis Morrisette in disguise? 87.113.122.165 (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hush. Don't give away my secrets. :) In a further oddity, many Spanish-speakers pronounce 'y' like the English 'j'. For example 'yo' sounds a lot like 'joe'. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:48, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As has been pointed out, statistically speaking, nobody understands IPA, and nobody uses it, and it's a shame that it's a standard on Wikipedia instead of remaining in the Linguistipedia ghetto. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And, as has been pointed out many times, it's understood by far more people than any other system of phonetic transcription. (Shavian alphabet or Visible Speech, anyone?) The only alternative to IPA on Wikipedia is having no phonetic transcription at all. What's a shame is that some people spend so much time badmouthing IPA instead of spending the 45 minutes required to learn it. +Angr 18:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there a dictionary of these pronunciations, or is it based on original research, i.e. on what a given editor thinks a word sounds like? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * (e/c) Well, neither language pronounces "x", "q", "c", or "ç" the IPA way, either. There are only so many letters to choose from, and they apparently deemed "y" more useful to serve for the close front rounded vowel. — Emil J. 18:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Not much to add to previous answers. Let's just point out that we do have es:Qatar. And that es:Gonzalo Correas seems to have been the first to try to reform the c/qu ortographic issue (though he apparently wanted them to be merged into k. Anyway, by 1815 the question became completely settled by the Real Academia Española. Pallida  Mors  18:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * "Cuestión" means "question" in the sense of "matter", as in "the matter at hand". You wouldn't ask a "cuestión".--Atemperman (talk) 20:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Certainly, as in "issue", like "What is the issue?" A narrowing of that term "question" to a specific meaning. You would ask a "pregunta". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The name of a door
Hello, could you please help me? I'm looking for the name in English of this type of door. It's a metal door which can be rolled up and down, much like a blind. Here is another picture:. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.229.148.222 (talk) 08:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That would be a roller shutter.--Shantavira|feed me 08:25, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

nl:wiki problem
Hi. Could someone with a grasp of dutch please do something to resolve the page http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Trains - the problem being that since it was moved from "Angel trains" to "Alpha trains" the text is now almost completely inaccurate - (see Angel Trains for details). Thanks.10:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Alpha Trains - european mainland
 * Angel trains - UK
 * Both separate companies
 * Alpha trains not a player in UK.

Nihongo translation please -.-;
Hello. This is gonna sound weird, but... what is the bunny girl saying to the right of the stage in this page? (You need to wait for the animation to load.) Thanks in advance~! :3 Kreachure (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * 「欽ちゃん＆香取慎吾の第８３回全日本仮装大賞　　　たくさんの応募ありがとうございました　　放送日が決定いたしました♥　　2010年1月10日（日）夜7時～」. It means 'Kin-chan & Katori Shingo's 83rd All Japan Dress Up Grand Prix    Thank you for so many applications   The date of broadcast has been decided    From 7pm 10th Jan 2010 (Sunday)'. -- KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 17:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Doumo arigatou gozaimasu. m(_ _)m Kreachure (talk) 17:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No worries! Good luck! :) -- KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 17:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Question About Facemarks/Emoticons
Can anyone tell me what this means: （；´Д｀）ﾊｱﾊｱ

I've searched google but I can't find the answer, and goggle translate just returns and load of gibberish unicode characters —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.124 (talk) 19:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's 'face characters' or 'facemarks', a type of text-based emoticon used mainly in Japan. You can find a site with a huge list of them here. Yours may be there. Basically it's a smile or something. PS I've changed the title to your question, as simply 'Question' is harder for you to find in archives. \(>..<)/ -- KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 19:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Found it. Yours is in our article on List_of_emoticons. The ﾊｱﾊｱ after it just says 'haahaa'. -- KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 20:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! That makes sense with the context

Knighting sword
What is the best term for a sword used in a knighting ceremony? Knighting sword? Dubbing sword? Accolade sword? Something else? — Kpalion(talk) 19:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem to have a special name: descriptions of knighting ceremonies just describe it as a sword. Queen Elizabeth II uses one of her father's old ones .  Ka renjc 20:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Excalibur refers to Clarent, used by King Arthur for knighting, as a "sword of peace". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, maybe I'll put it another way: which of the three terms I listed (knighting sword, dubbing sword, accolade sword) do you think sounds best or is most understandable? — Kpalion(talk) 21:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * To be honest, they all sound a bit awkward in general prose. "He knelt, and felt a gentle tap from the knighting/dubbing/accolade sword." None of them sound right somehow.  I think the context will be key, but if it's just a matter of getting across the point that this was a sword used in knighting ceremonies, I would understand what you meant by any of them.  Maybe "accolade" might be the most easily misunderstood by some readers, but that's just my personal feeling.  Ka renjc 00:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think "accolade sword" sounds most understandable of the three, but if you were writing that sentence, it would be obvious what you meant if you just wrote "...from the sword." Marnanel (talk) 00:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The kind of sentence I'm thinking of is: "The museum contains a display of ceremonial weapons, including a 13th-century coronation sword and a 16th-century accolade sword." Would that be understandable? — Kpalion(talk) 16:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I wouldn't understand it. How about "The museum contains a display of ceremonial weapons, including a 13th-century coronation sword and a 16th-century sword used in knighting cermonies"? +Angr 16:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I hoped there was a word for that, but apparently I should use a description instead. Thanks a lot! — Kpalion(talk) 18:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)