Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 March 15

= March 15 =

"Xynthia" (origin and meaning)
What are the origin and meaning of the name Xynthia? It certainly appears to be from Greek, with initial X, vocalic y, and consonantal sequence nth. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:34, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As storms are often given human names, I believe "Xynthia" is derived from a Greek Κυνθία, Kynthía (from which the more common Cynthia also derives).  Intelligent  sium  02:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't know, but in Greek place names, an "-nth-" cluster is usually a sign of a word which was not formed from inherited Indo-European roots, but which was presumably borrowed from one of the unknown languages that were spoken in Greece before Greek arrived there... AnonMoos (talk) 07:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Book recommendations
I'm looking for books advocating linguistic prescription. Does anything come to mind? Thank you. -Pollinosisss (talk) 05:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, the first edition of Fowler (before it was tamed by subsequent co-authors). You'd go nuts if you tried to conform every single one of your utterances to every single rule or prescription laid down there... AnonMoos (talk) 07:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The Elements of Style. Also try searching Language Log which discusses prescriptivism a lot. --Normansmithy (talk) 11:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No book actively advocate linguistic prescription under that name, because the word was coined by external observers. Most big-name usage books will do fine, if by "advocation" you mean "complaining about kids these days". Circéus (talk) 11:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think William Safire was big on that, and he wrote some books. And the Academie Française prescribes at a national level.  The American Heritage Dictionary caused a stir for trying to prescribe good English.  66.127.52.47 (talk) 12:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I found the constrained writing in Ella Minnow Pea to be thoroughly stimulating, and funny too!  DRosenbach  ( Talk 16:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for all the suggestions. -Pollinosisss (talk) 17:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Another very pop one Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 17:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

IIe
What is IIe?174.3.107.176 (talk) 08:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Didn't follow the link, but in many cases French for deuxième... AnonMoos (talk) 08:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * In this case: Apple IIe. ---Sluzzelin talk  08:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Is that how a Frenchman might refer to Tasmania? --  Jack of Oz   ... speak! ...   10:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's a reference number in this case, 2e. In other words, an Apple 2 with something special added! Maybe a Mac user will be along to confirm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TammyMoet (talk • contribs) 12:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * e = "enhanced" (it's in the first paragraph of the article). Alansplodge (talk) 13:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * And here was I thinking it was the Welsh word for 'place'! ( I was going to link to http://cy.wiktionary.org/wiki/lle [Is there a way to interlink to a foreign language Wiktionary?], but that doesn't seem to exist ) --ColinFine (talk) 00:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You need to get yourself some serifs! (And lle exists, but gives only a Galician word, not the Welsh one.) +Angr 00:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * To link to a foreign-language Wiktionary, type  lle  or  cy:wikt:lle . If you put the language code first, you have to put a colon before it. +Angr 00:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, neither of those works.  lle  goes to "cy:lle" in the English Wiktionary, and  cy:wikt:lle  goes to "wikt:lle" in the Welsh Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 00:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * They both work fine here: lle, cy:wikt:lle. ---Sluzzelin talk  17:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Aha! There's deep server-fu here. I didn't follow the links, just looked at what they expanded to. There must be URL redirections (or rewritings, more like) for these things. Well, you learn something every day ... --ColinFine (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Both lle & cy:wikt:lle go to the welsh wiktionary. There's something wrong.  Maybe someone can notify the appropriate authorities?174.3.98.20 (talk) 21:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Apple II europlus Sleigh (talk) 12:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Polish: monity
A colleague translating a Polish text is stumped by the last word of this sentence (transcribed here from her handwriting): "'Nie odpowiadat na żadne nasze monity.'" We'd appreciate a translation to English (or Hebrew :-). Thanks! -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:11, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the last word means: requirements, instructions (I'm not a native Polish speaker). HOOTmag (talk) 09:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It should be Nie odpowiadać na żadne nasze monity, which I would translate as "Do not reply to any of our dunning letters." If "dunning letters" don't make sense in the context, then please let me know and I'll look for other meanings. — Kpalion(talk) 10:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I had never heard of dunning until I looked it up just now. Perhaps "reminder" might be more widely understood. Alansplodge (talk) 16:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about "reminders" too, but wasn't sure which is better. I'm familiar with "dunning" because this is the word the English version of SAP uses. But SAP is a German company so they may not have used the most common English term. — Kpalion(talk) 16:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Dunning is probably the best English word for its meaning, and it is in use, but it is probably not universally understood in the United States. For American English, a more commonly understood compound would be debt-collection letters or collection letters.  Marco polo (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I just realized, Deborahjay, that what you took for a "t" could have been, even more likely, an "ł", which would make it Nie odpowiadał na żadne nasze monity, "He did not reply to any of our reminders." — Kpalion(talk) 18:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Kudos for a deft pickup, Kpalion: odpowiadał it is! As handwritten, that terminal letter's "crossing" stroke is above and perpendicular to the downstroke; had it been at a slant I'd have been more likely to recognize the ł. -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I worked in accounts departments in the City of London for 25 years without ever hearing the word "dunning". We used to say "chaser" for a letter requesting payment, but that is a bit colloquial. Alansplodge (talk) 09:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See here for my supposing that dunning might be more familiar in AE than BE. -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Caption, editorial cartoon from Nazi-occupied Serbia
View it here. Basically I need the word "ПOCЛA" in the main caption, as in "Jewish ..." – especially if it's idiomatic or ironic usage. (Caveat! Not sure I typed the fourth letter correctly, due to the stylized print and my only rudimentary knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet.) -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 13:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Google Translate renders Јеврејска посла as |en|%D0%88%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%98%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0 "Jewish business". — Kpalion(talk) 14:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's correct. "Posla" is plural of "posao"="job, business". When used in plural, it's ironic and means, how can I say, "Jewish ways" or "Jewish way to live", almost always in negative sense. No such user (talk) 15:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * On second thought, the most accurate translation would be "affairs". No such user (talk) 12:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a bit of a pun - the several captions on the top are what seems like several different contemporary businesses, like "Gutman" and "Plavi Kamen" with a couple of nondescript captions thrown in, like "cement factory" or "leather cartel", which could be described as "posao", i.e. business undertaking. Then the main caption says "Jevrejska posla", literally "Hebrew (i.e. Jewish) affairs" - "posao" in this case has a strong negative connotation, so the meaning is close to "Jewish meddling" or something along that line. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I ran the image through tineye.com and came up with a slightly better resolution color version of the poster: . There is a whole bunch of Serbian WWII anti-semitic/anti-Communist posters in the thread where that came from: [ http://www.stormfront.org /forum/showthread.php?s=4fc1d48d3a777c9b0fddbbb6eb79924b&p=3453027] (beware, abundant Nazi propaganda in the link - it's a Stormfront forum thread) TomorrowTime (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

practice vs work
Why is it that when doctors and lawyers are performing their jobs they are said to practice, while the duties entailed in most other jobs is called work? Googlemeister (talk) 14:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Not only doctors and lawyers. Professionals are typically said to practise their professions. See practitioner. Also, from the Online Etymology Dictionary:
 * "practicing (adj.) is recorded from 1620s in reference to professions, from 1906 in reference to religions".
 * Profesionals are considered to be practised in their field. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * So then engineers and accountants practice as well? Googlemeister (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the implication is "following correct procedure." Thus "practice" is a locution used to highlight standards upheld. I think "practice" carries the implication of "well-rehearsed." This in turn would relate to the lengthy training (educational) period involved in professions. Bus stop (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yep - if they are professionals, engineers and accountants practice in the US :) Zain Ebrahim (talk) 16:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Checking my Webster's, "practice" and its variants go back to Greek, and basically means "to carry out". That's opposed to "theory". So you study the theory (in school or wherever), then you practice it. That sense is the primary definition. Secondary is repetitive performance in order to "get it right", but it seems like the same overall idea - learning about doing vs. actually doing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Sapir-Whorf and Orwell
In the lingustic relativity article, there is a mention of Newspeak from Orwell's novel nineteen eighty-four, and how it related to linguistic determinism. I was wondering if anyone has heard of any further literature on this? 142.244.91.82 (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My only contribution is pretty general: In case you haven't read it somehow, the Newspeak article is of course a good source; it has a number of related wikilinks at the bottom.  Related is Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Not mentioned there is something Steven Pinker says in The Language Instinct: in real life, the Newspeak attempt would fail, because cases like creolization and the birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language show that when children are exposed to impoverished linguistic input, they don't grow up unable to think of things they don't have words for. Rather, they expand their language to include words for the things they can think of. As far as I know, virtually no linguists still believe the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. +Angr 20:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Virtually no linguists believe in a simplistic one-way deterministic broad-brush version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis ("the Hopis have no concept of the future", etc.), but studying culture-language interactions of a more subtle or complex kind isn't necessarily out of the mainstream... AnonMoos (talk) 21:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Angr, AnonMoos - what would you say the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis actually is? Linguistic relativity has a link to a fairly vituperative essay, The Great Whorf Hypothesis Hoax, arguing that such a thing never even existed.  The fact that Wikipedia also has no article with the title "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" suggests - at least to me - that somebody on here must be of a similar mindset.  I mean, if we're talking of articles about things that might not exist, we're allowed Greys, so why not Sapir-Whorf? Lfh (talk) 15:53, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You can read the works of Whorf yourself (they're kind of interesting in their own way, and not all that technical), but the brief answer is that the rise of a popular interest in Whorf's works about 50 years ago ultimately led to a backlash among professional linguists, some of whom concluded that much of Whorf's work amounted to sweeping unjustified conclusions often based on shoddy primary linguistic data (the assertion that the Hopi have no real concept of the future as we understand it being one of the prime examples). Then the influential Berlin-Kay color terminology work started to swing the pendulum back a little -- but the new work was generally carefully classified under the rubric of "cultural linguistics" or similar, definitely not under "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"... AnonMoos (talk) 16:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If there isn't a specific statement or formula that can be identified as "the S-W hypothesis", perhaps the article should make it clearer that this term was only ever applied retroactively, to a general body of work, and that mostly of only one man; particularly in the absence of a dedicated article on the term "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis". Would you agree? Lfh (talk) 17:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm doing a research paper on Sapir-Whorf, and I would like to bring in a concrete example. I am having some issues really clearly describing it. Is 1984 a good example of this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.244.91.82 (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * See Genie (feral child). -- Wavelength (talk) 21:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What does Genie have to do with linguistic relativity? Genie is usually cited as an example of the Critical Period Hypothesis. rʨ anaɢ (talk) 14:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1984 is a good example of using Sapir-Whorf, assuming it is true. If you want a more modern issue revolving around it, research the Pirahã language. It is *very* controversial though, and you'll find few linguists who are convinced by the assertions that Daniel Everett makes. Steewi (talk) 23:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Other novels that embody the idea are The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance, Babel 17 by Samuel R Delany, and Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin. The last is written by a linguist, and the way in which the language changes the society is left vague (to a degree which undermines the novel, in my opinion - but I suspect that she could not have brought herself to write the simple-minded Sapir-Whorfianism of the other books). The Delany takes the idea to an almost mystical level. --ColinFine (talk) 00:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Foreign language names of school districts
The following names of Fairfax County Public Schools are needed to be placed in text on here: * Arabic: http://www.fcps.edu/otherlanguages/arabic.htm * Chinese: http://www.fcps.edu/otherlanguages/chinese.htm
 * It may be 費郡公立學校 - Would anyone mind confirming if this has all of the characters of the district's name in Chinese?
 * Yes that's correct. 費郡 is an acceptable transliteration, albeit not 100% faithful. 費 is used here for Fairfax (2 syllables). 郡 = county. This is a common pratice. --Kvasir (talk) 22:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much :) WhisperToMe (talk) 22:44, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The only thing is--technically the terminology Fairfax County Public Schools, New York Public Schools, etc. etc. is synonymous with school district...would we want to establish a rule regarding translations of "XXX Public Schools" being the same as "XXX School District"?--达伟 (talk) 09:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess it is up to the district - In terms of English names of school districts, XX Public Schools and XX School District roughly means the same thing, so a district with an English name XXX Public Schools can use a Chinese name that literally means XX School District. Anyhow, for Chinese names of school districts, I would use the Chinese name officially given by the said school district.
 * Also, would you mind checking the Chinese name at Commons:Category:School District of Philadelphia to make sure it matches the one at http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/l/language/chinese/ ? WhisperToMe (talk) 10:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The article name should be 费城教育局 (only 5 characters). As to your first question, 教育局 is more like "Board of Education", but it's an acceptable translations for "School District". I would probably translate "school district" as 校区/校區. Regardless, these are accepted translation used by the school and we'll have to respect that in our wiki article. --Kvasir (talk) 19:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much :) WhisperToMe (talk) 22:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

* Farsi: http://www.fcps.edu/otherlanguages/farsi.htm * Urdu: http://www.fcps.edu/otherlanguages/urdu.htm In all of those cases the text cannot be copied.
 * Korean: http://www.fcps.edu/otherlanguages/korean.htm

In addition, what is the name of the Long Beach Unified School District in Khmer? http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/Khmer/ has the name, but the text cannot be copied.

Add: Another one - the name of Montgomery County Public Schools in Korean (From http://web.archive.org/web/20071005091101/montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/personnel/docs/korean.pdf )

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 20:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The FCPS links have links to PDF documents from which text can be copied. Of course, you still have to be able to read the language in question well enough to recognize which bit says "Fairfax County Public Schools", which means I can't help you with any of these languages, but maybe someone else can. For the Khmer of the LBUSD, I can't read the text either, so I don't know which bit is relevant, but if someone else does, this is a link to a Khmer character picker that makes typing Khmer easy. +Angr 20:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know if this is a normal feature of PDFs, but on three different computers, whenever I try to copy and paste Arabic/Persian/Urdu it comes out backwards. But in any case, the Arabic is "مدارس مقاطع فرفاكس الحكومة". I'll see if I can get the other two. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Farsi is "مدارس ﻋﻤﻮﻣﯽ فيرفكس ﮐﺎﻧﺘﯽ" (that they spell "Fairfax" differently and "county" is transliterated...in case you're wondering). Adam Bishop (talk) 21:34, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ugh, the Urdu is uncopyable, but it is an exact transliteration of "Fairfax County Public Schools", just like the Houston one. I'll have to copy individual letters from the Urdu alphabet article when I have more time. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's an Urdu character picker; it may go faster than copying letters one by one from the article. +Angr 21:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, too late, thanks though, that should be useful. The Urdu is "فيرفيکس کاونٹی پبلک اسکولز" (with another different spelling of Fairfax). Adam Bishop (talk) 22:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Adam, thank you very much for getting the Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu :) WhisperToMe (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Another question: http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/l/language/arabic - Is لدى إدارة مدارس فيلادلفيا Arabic for "School District of Philadelphia"? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:56, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just إدارة مدارس فيلادلفيا, yeah. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much :) WhisperToMe (talk) 10:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

While I'm trying to get help for the Korean, I found another Chinese name of a school district - this time it is the Alhambra Unified School District: http://www.alhambra.k12.ca.us/documents/EnrollEngSpan2010-2011.pdf (Page 5 of 15) - What is the Chinese name of the district? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 阿罕布拉聯合學區 --Kvasir (talk) 14:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Lemme start that category on the commons WhisperToMe (talk) 04:02, 18 March 2010 (UTC)