Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 23

= August 23 =

Is Japanese an Altaic Language
This began as a discussion here of whether Swedish had a Saami or Uralic substrate and wandered into the relations of Japanese. I am continuing the discussion in a new thread.


 * Yes. How well accepted is the Altaic theory among mainstream academics? It certainly has some strong support, but so does Greenberg's Nostratic, for that matter.Van Gulik (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Altaic is quite well supported by the evidence, Nicholas Poppe demonstrated its validity in his Vergleichende Grammatik der altaischen Sprachen (Comparative grammar of the Altaic languages. Part I: Comparative phonology), see his Introduction to Altaic Linguistics for a more approachable English work. The bi/min 1st person nom/gen correspondence alone virtually proves it.  Poppe meticulously reconstructs the proto-phonology and gives regular sound correspondences.


 * Unfortunately, it became fashionable in the 60's to deconstruct comparative work. Doerfer and Clauson suggested on the basis of negative evidence and ad hoc supposition that Altaic was invalid and correspondences in Mongolian and Tungusic were based on borrowing.  Once the supposition of borrowing was made, without any actual evidence of it, they held the burden of proof to be on the one supporting genetic relatedness.  It would be like saying German and English are clearly unrelated because Kopf and "head" are not cognates, and unless you can prove otherwise, correspondences like Hand and "hand" are more economically explained by borrowing.


 * Poppe reconstructed *padak for PA "foot" from Turkish ayak, Mongolian *hadag Tungusic *pagdi and Korean patak ("foundation"). Note that there is no way to borrow the eastern forms from the Turkish with its zero initial.  (Poppe shows plenty of examples of Altaic *p- to 0- in Turkish.) Clauson called reconstructing a p>h>0 evolution "using wildcards" and said that one could "prove anything" with starred proto-consonants.


 * Unfortunately, recent work has not been helpful. Sergei Starostin's huge Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages is chock full of vague random resemblances and ad hoc pleading for etymologies that are not really there.  He basically loads a bunch of phonological and lexical nonsense on top of Poppe's valid work, obscuring the issue and severely harming the case.  In the meantime, when they do face the evidence, Clauson's followers have come to the point of re-reconstructing what is actually proto-Altaic under the name of Proto-Turkic, (actually pre-Prot-Turkic, since they use what they presume are "borrowings" in the other Altaic languages from this "proto-Turkic, 'even when those forms are not found in any Turkic language) and then 'explaining' eastern correspondences as being derived from this pre-Turkic.  Greenberg's short article Does Altaic Exist? addresses this all rather well, and you should read it now.  (Although, beware, Greenberg's position that Japanese and Korean group with Ainu (!) rather than Macro-Altaic is as silly as saying French and Spanish are related to Basque, not to English or Russian.) See also, Japanese and Other Altaic Languages (History and structure of languages) by Roy Andrew Miller (well worth the dollar at amazon) which shows regular sound correspondences between Japanese and Turkic that can only be explained by common descent, not borrowing. μηδείς (talk) 17:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Besides the Japanese-Korean-Ainu bit, I think that was Greenberg at his best. There's certainly a strong pro-Altaic case; I've been trying to find a strong anti-Altaic argument, but most of the ones I've found have been of shoddy scholarship, many with a Japanese nationalist slant. Do some linguists take the differences between the Japanese dialects of the south (not including the Ryukyuan languages) and those of the north to be a difference in substratum; i.e., a Malayo-Polynesian or other Austronesian substratum in the south and an Ainu or Gorguryeo substratum in the north?Van Gulik (talk) 15:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * My interest in Japanese, except for its relation with Altaic, is only general, I do not speak or read it. My very limited contact with Ryukyuan, which is, as far as I can tell, basically just the southern extension of the Japanese dialect chain, has been in a comparative context, and I have never come across any serious mention of a substrate influence on it.  (My impression is that its character is due to internal developments, isolation and drift.)  I suspect that a rather big deal would be made of it if there were any plausible evidence.  A quick search of google scholar for "ryukyuan language austronesian substrate" doesn't return anything of obvious value.  More of interest to me are such things as the word ishikoro, "pebble", which breaks into two roots each having cognates in Old Turkish, tash and görö, both meaning stone.  The intervening dialects (Chuvash, Mongol, etc.,) have words for stone of the form TVl- such as Chuvash чул http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swadesh_lists_for_Turkic_languages and Mongol чулуу.  This correspondence of sh in the Shaz Turkish dialects to l in the Chuvash language, Mongol and Tungus has been the basis for reconstructing a second l2 phoneme.  The presence of it in Japanese is confirmatory, and indicates that the word must go back to Altaic rather than being a borrowing from a neighboring dialect that collapsed the difference between the l1 and l2 phonemes.  For more, read Japanese and Other Altaic Languages (History and structure of languages) by Roy Andrew Miller. μηδείς (talk) 01:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ishikoro breaks into two, ishi and koro. ishi means stone, but koro doesn't. According to Daijisen, koro, as a component of compound, denotes something small or round. Examples given are ishikoro (small stone or pebble) and inukoro (small dog). Given the Chinese character 転 in the heading, and related word korokoro, it does not seems koro itself is related to stone. --Kusunose 06:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll have to see if I can find Miller in storage and get back to you, since I am going on what I remember of his authority. μηδείς (talk) 16:31, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I have found Miller's discussion of the Japanese ishikoro in an Altaic context. It starts at the bottom of p 68 of his Origins of the Japanese Language and continues for half a dozen pages. He mentions two roots which he reconstructs as pA *tyāl2 with a general meaning "stone", and *görö, meaning a small round stone perhaps with peculiar properties; precious or metallic. The first root is found in Turkic *tāʃ, (Chuvash чул), Mongolic *čilaγun, Mongol чулуу, Tungusic ʒolo, Korean tol and Old Japanese *yisi. The second root is found in Turkic *gör- (Gyula Decsy's Proto-Turkic dictionary), Mongol *gürü and Japanese -koro. Mongolian has a perfect parallel to ishikoro, gürüčilaγu, "pebble". μηδείς (talk) 06:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Dr. Barnes' Eyemart Express
Notice the placement of the apostrophe. This is how it is listed on their website. Is this correct punctuation? Ditch &#8733; 03:24, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It depends on how many Dr. Barnes there are. If there is one Dr. Barne, it would be Dr. Barne's.  If there are two doctors named Barne or Barnes, then it would be Dr. Barnes'.  If there is one Dr. Barnes, then most style guides would recommend Dr. Barnes's, though some older sources would use Dr. Barnes'.  It is common, for example, to find Jesus' and Moses' as the possessive forms in many Bibles, rather than Jesus's and Moses's.  English possessive and Apostrophe cover all of this and more.  -- Jayron  32  03:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * We can already tell there's only one doctor, because multiple doctors would be Dr s . . Barne as a surname is probably not unheard of, but I reckon it's much more likely to be Barnes.  The possessive of Dr Barnes is as you say, Dr Barnes's, or some people prefer to leave off the -s, Dr. Barnes'.  Either way, the apostrophe should not go after the e, as the OP seems to think might be a valid option.  That's unless the name really is Barne and not Barnes.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  03:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * If there are two doctors and each is named Barnes or each is named Jones, then the plural possessive is Barneses or Joneses respectively.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC) and 01:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Correct in general (e.g. "The Barneses' house is a dump"). However, if these 2 doctors named Barnes owned the Eyemart Express, it would have to be Drs. Barnes' Eyemart Express, I believe. It looks very clumsy, and almost nobody would get it right, but I think any other formulation would be misleading.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  06:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * So, is there any scenario where "Dr. Barnes'" would be correct (other than colloquially...like Snuffy Smith uses "t'ain't" = "it is not")? Since they are using plural possessive, then it should be "Drs." even if the name is "Barne", correct? Ditch &#8733;  23:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * If there is only the one Dr Barnes, then Dr Barnes' Eyemart Express is correct. Some people would prefer to write Dr Barnes's Eyemart Express, and they would also be correct.
 * But if there are more than one person, both of whom are doctors, then the title must also be pluralised. We say "Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower were often at loggerheads", or "Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin are famous French historical figures".  So, we would talk about "Both Drs. Brown and Jones recommended surgery".  When both doctors have the same surname, it could be "Both (the) Drs. Brown recommended surgery".  If these 2 Drs. Brown jointly owned a house, we'd say "That's the Drs. Brown's house".  If their surname happened to be Barnes rather than Brown, it's "That's the Drs. Barnes' house", or if you prefer, "That's the Drs. Barnes's house".   --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  23:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Not everyone would agree; I once got to the brink of edit-war with someone who said "the two Sirs John" is nonsense (preferring "Sir Johns"). —Tamfang (talk) 23:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * My gut is agreeing with the other guy, in this case, unfortunately. Referring to them jointly in the 3rd person in a situation where everyone knows who we're talking about and it's not necessary to use their surnames, it's "the Sir Johns", not "the Sirs John".   I've looked in vain for a reference to back up what is currently merely my opinion (shock, horror!) on this. But here are some of my rationales:


 * "Sir John" is not comparable to "General Smith". The latter is a title, the former a form of address.   One is a general, and there are many generals; the other is a knight or baronet, of which there are also many.  He is not a "Sir".  We say "Three knights entered the room", not "Three Sirs entered the room".
 * Writing to a company whose owners are unknown to you, you might once have started out "Dear Sirs". I suspect that sort of context is the only occasion where Sir is well-pluralised.   We sometimes see "Sirs Paul McCartney and Elton John …", but that seems like journalese (enough said).
 * Writing to Sir John Smith, you'd start out "Dear Sir John".
 * If Sir John Smith and Sir Peter Brown were jointly in charge of a company, it would be "Dear Sir John and Sir Peter" (not "Dear Sirs John and Peter")
 * If Brown was also a John, it's then "Dear Sir John and Sir John" (not "Dear Sirs John", or even "Dear Sir Johns"). --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Your first bullet makes a valid but non-conclusive point, your next two are orthogonal to the question, and your last two argue against using a plural form at all rather than for one or the other.
 * Exploring the first bullet a bit further: is "There have been 22 earls of Shrewsbury" more correct than "There have been 22 Lords Shrewsbury"? —Tamfang (talk) 21:52, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. In my opinion.  I wonder why the rules about these pluralisations are so hard to track down. --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  09:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * So, it is *possible* that "Dr. Barnes'" is correct, grammatically, however unlikely? Is that what I am to understand?  It is *possible*?  Ditch &#8733;  01:16, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, not only correct, but also also likely. That's assuming there is only one Dr Barnes.
 * An analogy is that some people write about "Brahms's Lullaby", but most people refer to "Brahms' Lullaby". (Then there are those who are apparently listening to an entirely different piece of music, called "Brahm's Lullaby".) --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, let me put it a different way: Assuming you were the owner of "Dr. Barnes' Eyemart Express" and somebody e-mailed you to say, "I think the apostrophe is not used correctly."  How would you respond?  Ditch &#8733;  01:19, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You sir or madam need your eyes checked. [optional hrmph] Sincerely, Dr. Barnes' assistant's secretary. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In New York City it would, following Gollum, often be Jesus's's and Barnes's's, which is what I prefer in speech. μηδείς (talk) 22:56, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Translation request
Somebody left the following message on my talk page and didn't leave a useful response when I stated I had no idea what it meant:


 * Zdar! Hele, mám dotaz. Proč jsi smazal mou editaci v rozcestníku? Máš k tomu nějaký důvod?

Clarityfiend (talk) 05:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Google translate gives, from Czech: ": Hi! Hey, I have a question. Why have you deleted my editing signpost? You have to have a reason?" --Modocc (talk) 05:56, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * And that is (surprisingly) correct :). Google translate gets better. Lectonar (talk) 07:02, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The last sentence would be much better translated as "Do you have some sort of reason for it?" μηδείς (talk) 20:27, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Okěy, dokěy. Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I hope you are not mocking us Bohunks. μηδείς (talk) 22:53, 25 August 2012 (UTC)