Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 5

= August 5 =

about wikipedia
can i create a page in wikipedia for me...?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naveen nganesan (talk • contribs) 14:29, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You can create a User Page, if that is what you mean (click here to do so). If you mean you want to write about yourself and about some sort of achievements (Are you an author? Are you a sportsman? A politician? etc.) then we prefer that you don't. You can get someone else to write about you, but all articles must have links to reliable sources, otherwise they will likely be deleted.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:37, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * There are already the pages Naveen, Nganasan. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

What do you call phonetic nativization of borrowed words?
The issue came up in this thread on Johnson/Ivanovich as to what to call it when a language nativizes the pronunciation of a foreign word, such as the Russian spelling and pronunciation of Harvard as Гарвард "Garvard". The conversion in orthography is called transliteration. The change in sound can be described as a sort of assimilation, although this term is a technical one with a different meaning in linguistics. See assimilation (linguistics). Conversion specifically into English can be called Englishing or Anglicisation, but this is language specific, and does not only refer to pronunciation. Can anyone offer a relevant article (better than Hobson Jobson!) on this or a scholarly technical term with a source? μηδείς (talk) 19:50, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This article explains the different ways loan-words from one language change when adopted by people who speak another language: spelling, pronunciation, meaning, word order, and new combinations with parts of speech. However, the article addresses just one language pair. http://web.archive.org/web/20150824080748/https://www.csun.edu/~bashforth/301_PDF/301_P_P/EnglishLoanWordsJapanese.pdf And, yes, the word that linguists generally use is "nativization." The phonetic changes are nativization of phonology to conform to the phonetic inventory and co-occurrence constraints of the language doing the borrowing. There is also an element of code-switching that can occur when the native pronunciation and the foreign pronunciation vie for prestige. MichelleInSanMarcos (talk) 03:33, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "New Zealand"
The article on New Zealand includes a pronunciation guide which doesn't look right: a short e in Zealand, and emphasis on New. Before I, an English English speaker, correct it to what I think is right (long e, emphasis on Zea), can anyone confirm that I'd be OK doing so? Bazza (talk) 22:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * American pronunciation agrees with your proposal (without the y-glide in "new", of course). I imagine the enZedders will have something to say about this, though. -- Elphion (talk) 22:27, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Not all American pronunciation has yod-dropping. --Trovatore (talk) 20:45, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's definitely wrong as is in the article; I have watched Flight of the Conchords enough to know that. There might be an ɛ hidden in there somewhere, but is certainly not a plain short lax vowel.  More likely some odd antipodean diphthong.  μηδείς (talk) 22:32, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the article. Angr (talk) 06:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Bazza (talk) 07:42, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't the vowel marked as ɛ at least be long? μηδείς (talk) 18:11, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Does New Zealand English distinguish long and short ɛ? I know there are a few accents that do, e.g. shed [ʃɛd] vs. shared [ʃɛːd], but I don't know if NZE is one of those accents. But even if it is, it seems unlikely that "New Zea land" would have the vowel. (I've never heard a Kiwi pronounce it with a  vowel either, for that matter, as the article currently claims, but then I don't know that many Kiwis.) Angr (talk) 20:42, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I worked with quite a few kiwis in Japan, and they all pronounced it closer to /nju: zɯlənd/.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  03:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * But the question is, what do they mean by that? More precisely, what lexical set are they using for the stressed vowel? Are they pronouncing the first syllable to rhyme with the way they say heel or the way they say hell? Angr (talk) 20:31, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The OED is utterly useless, giving no New Zealand pronunciation, and suggesting that some Americans (Truman Capote?) say /nju ziln/. μηδείς (talk) 22:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This video blog of The Hobbit production (at 19:22) makes it quite clear the British pronunciation is the proper one, either [i:] or [ɪə] at the worst. (The first minute of the same video has the name "Wellington" pronounced with a nice lax normal open /ɛ/, while most other expected /ɛ/ sounds are hightened to approach closed /ɪ/, and /eɪ/ sounds to approach closed [i:].  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfX1PYv1FEY I am going to change the article to [i:] but welcome other interpretations. μηδείς (talk) 05:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

ik heb hem geslagen
Of this issue, Edith Bosch writes "IK HEB HEM GESLAGEN". The BBC are translating "geslagen" from Dutch as "beaten" but given the circumstances and her being a judoka, isn't "defeated", "overcome" or "subdued" a better translation? In particular, would a Dutch judoka use "geslagen" when describing a victory in judo, which usually doesn't involve a beating (that is, punching and other blows). Would a Dutch tennis player having beaten another say "geslagen"? -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:47, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * "To beat" can mean "to defeat in a competition" in English, so I'm not sure I see the problem. AnonMoos (talk) 03:54, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * But this wasn't a competition, this was an Olympian beating down a drunk. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 04:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know about Dutch, but in German, "Ich habe ihn geschlagen" could mean "I beat him [in a competition]" but it could also mean simply "I hit him". Maybe Dutch is the same. Angr (talk) 06:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand her sentence as: "A drunken guest in front of me throws a bottle on the track! I HAVE BEATEN HIM .... Unbelievable! # mad # disrespectful". Perhaps "I hit him" would be better. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The word 'geslagen' is never used to mean 'defeated' in modern Dutch (the word 'verslagen' is used for that purpose). The BBC's translation as 'beaten', in the sense of punching etc. is accurate ('hit' is also an option, like Pp.paul.4 suggested above) . - Lindert (talk) 23:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

How Similar is Modern Greek to Ancient Greek?
I've heard that ancient Greek to modern Greek is like Shakespearean English to modern English. Was the info that I heard about this correct? Futurist110 (talk) 23:55, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a bigger difference than that. The phonology has changed significantly, with many vowel sounds changing to "ee" and b, d, and g changing to v (β), th (ð), and gh (ɣ) as well as u > f in certain circumstances.  Much of the grammatical vocabulary has been reanalyzed.  Except for some nouns and verbs, I am lost trying to read modern Greek, and entirely lost trying to follow spoken Greek.  (I studied enough as an undergrad that my prof wanted me to add Greek as my third major, and worked with and did business with Greeks in NYC for about a decade.)  I would say the difference is about the same or slightly more than that between Chaucer and SAE.  See the Great Vowel Shift which is a similar radical change in English phonology that accounts for the discrepancy between our spelling and that of Latin and most European tongues. μηδείς (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Which SAE? —Tamfang (talk) 04:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sure regulars here know this, but for the record, the "SAE" in question would be Standard American English. -- 04:49, 6 August 2012‎ WilliamThweatt
 * Oops, didn't occur to me there would be need for disambiguation. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you have seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, at one point the groom is tricked into saying έχω τρία αρχίδια (exo tria arxiðia) "I have three balls". This is almost good Ancient Greek, but αρχίδια would have been ὄρχεις and έχω was more at "carry" or "bear" than just "have". μηδείς (talk) 02:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In ancient Greek, it would have an omega (ΕΧΩ); not sure why there wouldn't be an omega in modern Greek also... AnonMoos (talk) 12:35, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It does indeed have omega in both modern and ancient Greek. By the way, in both versions of the language this is the normal word for 'have' - it would not normally mean 'carry' or 'bear', to my knowledge. Maid Marion (talk) 14:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maid Marion (talk • contribs) 14:18, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * In ancient Greek, it can mean "to hold" or "to keep in a position" almost as often as "to possess"... AnonMoos (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Written Katharevousa and New Testament koine Greek are kind of similar (though by no means the same), but as indicated by Medeis, modern spoken Greek would be completely incomprehensible to any ancient Greek speaker, and even in written form, ancient Attic and modern Dhimotiki are quite strongly divergent. AnonMoos (talk) 03:51, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a topic I have commented on before, and I repeat my opinion that Modern Greek differs from Classical Greek much, much more than Modern English differs from Chaucer. I have placed classical Greek texts in front of modern Greek native speakers and they are unable to fathom any meaning at all. Chaucer admittedly appears somewhat foreign to modern English speakers, but with a little practice it becomes clear that the structure of the English language is pretty much now what it was then; the main problem is the unfamiliar vocabulary. Whereas the structure of an ancient Greek sentence is drastically different from that of its modern Greek equivalent. In particular, the modern language has lost most of the rich range of the ancient verb structure and expresses every kind of subordination by means of the particles na and tha, neither of which existed in ancient Greek (though I assume that na is a relic of ancient hina - please correct me if I'm wrong). Maid Marion (talk) 09:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's the previous thread that Maid Marion is (I believe) referring to. The OP may find it of interest. Deor (talk) 14:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * In my experience, the radical change comes with the Koine: most modern Greeks can (or at least should be able to) read a Koine text with ease (I remember sighs of relief at school when we got to the Hellenistic texts), while Classical Greek, with its more complex grammar and syntax and odd vocabulary, is very difficult to follow and is regarded pretty much as a related, but foreign language. Constantine  ✍  14:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I fixed the typos above, I blame interference from Spanish. I had three semesters of Attic Greek with a purist who pronounced the iota subscripts and would sing the tones. After Xenophon, reading New Testament Greek was like being on vacation. The oldest meaning of εχω is "bear, carry, bring" which naturally evolves into "hold", then "have". The word (ϝ)εχω is cognate with weigh, wagon, vehicle; PIE had no verb "to have". μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * He pronounced the iota subscripts!? He sang the accents!? May I ask the name of this paragon? In many years of mingling with scholars of ancient Greek I have never come across anyone like this. Though it does remind me of an infamously pornographic book that circulated among the boys during my school days 40 years ago (Frank Harris, My Life and Loves). The boys were interested in other stuff, but my attention was caught by a reference to a professor of Greek who was said to be able to converse in ancient Greek. Can this really be true? Maid Marion (talk) 14:29, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * When I studied Ancient Greek at the University of Texas a quarter-century ago, lots of professors and graduate students pronounced their iotas subscript. At least one grad student, in addition to faithfully rendering the pitch accent, meticulously pronounced all the unwritten digammas when reading Homer out loud, too. Angr (talk) 23:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)


 * There are two different verbs ἔχω. The one that comes from *wekhō means "bear, carry, bring" and is very rare, but the one that means "have, hold" comes from *sekhō via *hekhō with deaspiration to ekhō via Grassmann's law and is very common. Its aorist is ἔσχον with the zero grade *skh-. Pais (talk) 17:20, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right. Guess that makes them even differenter. μηδείς (talk) 17:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am curious. Are there common cognates for the *segh- root?  Do you know what it means originally? μηδείς (talk) 00:08, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-Europen Roots says that the basic meaning of the root is "to hold", and most of its development appears to have occurred in Greek—at least, those developments that have given rise to English words, which is the focus of the dictionary. For instance, an agentive suffixed form *segh-tor lies behind the name Hector, a zero grade form *sgh- lies behind σχῆμα (and thus scheme) and σχολή (and thus scholar, school, etc.), and a reduplicated form *si-sgh- lies behind ἴσχω (and thus ischemia). The only two developments it gives in other languages are a suffixed form *segh-es- as the source of German Sieg and names such as Siegfried and Sigmund and a possible suffixed (abstract) form *segh-wēr as the source of Latin severus and its derivatives. Deor (talk) 00:55, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Most interesting. The word sieg did occur to me, but its underlying sense is unclear.  Severus did not occur, but I am familiar with it, and it is quite plausible.  Perhaps seize?  I'll have to look it up in Mallory (or Pokorny if necessary) to see what the PIE gloss for the root is. 01:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)