Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 12

= November 12 =

Name for an earthquake
There have been many discussions about the name of the article 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, because the 'official' Japanese version appears to be "2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake", which most people find cumbersome, particularly if we add 'and tsunami', although that's another argument that we don't need to go into. Scientific papers are now being written on this event and almost universally they are using the name "2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake". I assume that in this case 'Oki' has been added as a romaji version of a Japanese word that expresses some of the meaning of "off the Pacific coast of" - am I right? Mikenorton (talk) 12:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right. These are ja to en dictionary pages of "oki"., , and . Oda Mari (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, so it basically means offshore and in the case of Tohoku that would be the Pacific coast. Now all I have to do is convince other editors to make the change in the article name :). Mikenorton (talk) 14:56, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It does just mean 'offshore'. I think the problem is that about 1/3 of the Tohoku region has coastal areas on the Japan Sea, not the Pacific, and some feel the need to be more specific.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  13:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Shakespearean scholar?
I keep seeing this phrase in Shakespeare-related articles, and, my question is: isn't it better to say simply Shakespeare scholar? --  Kenatipo   speak! 21:28, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, saying each in my head, I think the former sounds better. The -ean at the end kind of smooths the transition between Shakespeare and scholar, I would offer, regardless of any arguments made about what may be technically more proper. Vranak (talk) 23:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * To my mind, it conjures up a scholar (in any discipline), dressed in tights, with a human skull in one hand, soliloquizing, in Elizabethan, about life. It's almost like calling a Lincoln scholar a Lincolnesque scholar, if you see what I mean.  Do we call a Lincoln scholar a Lincolnian scholar?  --  Kenatipo    speak! 00:14, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Compare "Dickens scholar" (16,000 ghits) with "Dickensian scholar: (844); "Shaw scholar" (4,590) with "Shavian scholar" (661); "Milton scholar" (14,600) with "Miltonian scholar" (318).  But Willy boy bucks the trend: "Shakespearean scholar" (244,000) cf. "Shakespeare scholar" (186,000).  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  00:19, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that because it "sounds better", like Vranak says? (Thanks for the research, Jack of Oz).  --  Kenatipo    speak! 02:46, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Sounds, madam? Nay it is; I know not sounds." (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)--Shirt58 (talk) 03:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Mind your haviour and mend your 'seems', Shirt! (I'm not a madam).  --  Kenatipo    speak! 17:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * How about "O noble judge! O excellent young man!" (MoV, IV, i), then?--Shirt58 (talk) 09:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Much better! --  Kenatipo    speak! 04:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly by analogy with "Shakespearean actor", which is much more common than "Shakespeare actor"? Deor (talk) 12:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I like that answer, Deor. I guess the answer is that Shakespeare is in a class by himself!  --  Kenatipo    speak! 17:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Wagnerian. Freudian. Jungian. Darwinian. Newtonian. Gaussian. Jeffersonian. And a couple fun ones, Cartesian and Beethoveenian. Pfly (talk) 11:05, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Chinese lingual evolution
How did the Chinese spoken language develop and evolve into the dialects today? Is there a chart or tree that show this? And which is the oldest dialect?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know the answer to your questions, but in order for anyone to answer the last one, you have to explain what you mean by "oldest". Do you mean which dialect is attested earliest? Given the nature of Chinese writing, that might be extremely difficult to answer. Or do you mean which dialect has changed the least from the point where the dialects broke apart from each other? Angr (talk) 23:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)


 * You might want to read Varieties of Chinese and language change/language evolution. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * As Middle Chinese speakers encountered the native peoples who spoke various Sino-Tibetan languages or Tai-Kadai languages in the south, some radical changes in pronunciation and grammar took place. One will notice that the Southern dialects are far more diverse than those in the north. This is due to the assimilation of non-Han groups into Chinese society. For example, the dialects spoken in Guangxi are heavily influenced by Zhuang and other 'indigenous' Tai-Kadai languages, as evidenced in phonological changes. In addition, the wave of linguistic simplification that took place during the Sui dynasty onward affected the Northern dialects greatly, as shown by simplified phonology. This did not affect the south to a great extent. As a result, Cantonese is a better representative of Middle Chinese than Mandarin is, so one could call Cantonese the oldest existing dialect. You could check out Schafer's wonderful book 'The Vermilion Bird', which talks about the Tang colonization of the south; that gives you an idea of where dialects came from.Van Gulik (talk) 02:34, 16 November 2011 (UTC)