Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 December 2

= December 2 =

Translation of Sanskrit text
I know someone who found a stone etched with characters while vacationing in India last year. They are trying to figure out what the characters mean. They wrote them down in MS Paint. See the following link for a picture.

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/566/vtxs.png

Thanks in advance. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It's very unlikely to be Sanskrit, if only because the words are short between spaces (individual Sanskrit words can be short, but when sandhi occurs between them they are usually written without a space). I suspect it is Hindi, but I don't know enough to be sure. --ColinFine (talk) 22:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I can barely read Devanagari in printed font, so it is extremely hard for me to make out this handwritten text. The first word appears to be लिंकन for which I could find no entry in either my Sanskrit or Hindi dictionaries. If that is indeed what the word is, however, a google search turned up this link which indicates it's a transliteration of "Lincoln" and this search result page is all about Abraham Lincoln. Not much, but it's a start.....maybe.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 07:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

← I understand Devanagari script and the language seems to be Hindi, though some of the words don't make sense to me. Below is the best English transliteration I could come up with (line-wise) -


 * Linkan Vaah-Vaahi
 * Maagn Freeman Vaah-Vaahi
 * Gadrvatita (GAP IN RECORD)
 * Parmeshwar ki stuti
 * Namaaj (Samaaj?) ke apne

Out of these, I know that "Vaah-Vaahi" means "praise", "Parmeshwar ki stuti" means "God's worship", "Samaaj ke apne" means "the society's own" or "to be on of the society". I am sure if you post this question at WP:IND you'll get a better response.  Such a gentleman  19:44, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You can try your luck at WP:IND  Such a gentleman  19:46, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Such a gentleman's interpretation is quite reasonable (my "reading" differs at a few points, but makes no more sense), and the text is surely in Hindi/Hindustani, rather than Sanskrit. Any chance of a photograph, or some context of where the stone was found, what type of a "stone" it is (street-side rock, amulet, etc), or what the text is supposed to be (random graffiti, poem, slogan,...) ? Abecedare (talk) 20:03, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Solid
What's the etymology of the noun solid in the slang sense of "a favor"? (I could imagine it might be an abbreviation of "a solid favor", but is that a common phrase?) Card Zero  (talk) 01:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * A quick survey of various Google references suggests it is short for "solid favor", keeping in mind that "solid" implies "good" or "strong" or maybe even "big". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Tradent
What does this word mean in the context of an oral tradition? I suspect it comes from the Latin word tradent but I can't find it in any dictionaries. 64.106.114.133 (talk) 02:19, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you link to an example where it's used? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:22, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * See tradent.—Wavelength (talk) 02:29, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * There's a use of it here in the second paragraph. But I am asking because it's used in The Formation of the Hebrew Bible by David M. Carr. And Wavelength I understand that it's a word in Latin but I'm asking about its use in English. 64.106.114.133 (talk) 02:41, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The OED has a definition that applies to Roman law, "The person who delivers or hands over any property to another", which perhaps doesn't immediately illuminate the usages you cite, but their meaning is nevertheless fairly transparent. Latin trado means "to hand over or hand down", so that a tradition is something handed down and a tradent would be a person involved in the handing down of a tradition (just as a correspondent is a person engaged in correspondence and a suppliant is one who supplicates). One might, I guess, say that Dante was a tradent of the idea that hell is within the earth. Given the form of the word (and, I hasten to say, without any source to cite), I'd guess that the word was originally used in this sense by French scholars and then adopted by English-speaking ones without having made it into dictionaries yet. Deor (talk) 09:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * In Latin, tradent is the third person plural present indicative, "they hand down". The noun from the participle would be tradens, tradentis, which might become tradent ("the one passing down") in English.  But it would be ungrammatical in Latin.  The word tradition comes from the same root. μηδείς (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * In Latin, tradent is the third-person plural future indicative active, whereas tradunt is the third-person plural present indicative active.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 17:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll go with that, since "tradunt" was tickling me as I typed it. Must be one of those futures that are the same as the subjunctives, then, like dicere? μηδείς (talk) 21:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You can see the subjunctive forms at trado.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 22:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Fær øer: norse name in italian?
Hello, in italian Wikipedia we have just faced a problem in etymology which arose my sense of curiosity and left me with some open questions. Here they are:

In Italian language, Faroe Islands are usually called "Fær Øer" and this spelling is found in many sources, both contemporary and old, from television to modern atlases, by way of old catholic documents and old maps (at it:Discussione:Fær_Øer one may find at some point of the discussion a table we made containing which names are used by atlas in Italian). In modern Italian, there is no word with ø or æ, so "Fær Øer" should be a loanword from another language. But one may discover easily that Fær Øer isn't really a Danish nor Faroese name. Since "Fær" means "sheep" in Old Norse and "øer" stands for "isles" in Danish, I thought "Fær Øer" might be an Old Norse name or a name in a old Danish/Faroese dialects, but I hadn't found evidence of this in any source. Also, the old catholic diocese in those islands, according to this site, was called "Diocese of Fær Øer", with the same spelling spelling of italian, and the dioceses lasted from 1080 to 1538, while first written document in modern Danish is the Bible of 1550, according to en.wikipedia. So, what language is the word "Fær Øer" from?? Is it truly Old Norse? And, (IMHO it's hard), where did Italian use this word for the first time?--Nickanc (talk) 15:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That fact about the Bible of 1550 is in History of Danish, which also mentions Middle Danish, dating from the 12th century, and before that Old West Norse, in which "the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for island". So "Fær Øer" would be Middle Danish for Færeyjar, and there you are. First Italian use of it sounds hard to find, I agree. Card Zero  (talk) 15:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I don't know the Italian etymology but they are also called Færøer in Italian. The current Danish name is Færøerne where "øerne" means the isles while "øer" alone means isles, so the Danish name is quite close. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Political Correctness
I note, from this BBC article, that what in my day (and the journalist's day, apparently) were called "pupils", and, until recently, were called "students", are now called "learners". Is there any official justification/explanation for this change? It doesn't seem to be a typical euphemism treadmill. Tevildo (talk) 20:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * As a sometimes cynical teacher, one of my first mischievous thoughts was that calling them learners was wishful thinking. But more broadly, all industries have their jargon, and education is no exception. In fact, as someone who has worked in several industries before teaching, I'd say education is one of the worst. New, unnecessary terms for old things are constantly being invented. In my neighbourhood teachers sometimes speak of being "in-serviced". My understanding of that is that it's a verb created from the noun "in-service". There was a concept of doing "in-service-training", meaning training they did while in employment as a teacher. They threw away the noun there and turned the adjective, "in-service", into the noun, then it, in turn, became a verb. For people allegedly teaching our kids how to speak, that's gruesome. HiLo48 (talk) 21:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * What a great concept, the "euphemism treadmill". This is the product of a conspiracy between rent seekers who need to prove their worth and supplicants hoping to become rent seekers who need to prove their mastery of the newest buzzwords.


 * The other mystery is "pupil-free day". I thought that schools were all about the pupils and their needs, and that language was generally framed from the pupils' perspective.  When my kids started telling me they had a "pupil-free day" coming up, I thought they were planning to take their eyes out and give them a good wash.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, it is from their perspective. Those are the days the pupils are free :-) --Trovatore (talk) 01:15, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * These things must arise from cunning linguists trying to keep the language evolving (or devolving). In my day, the folks who passed laws were called legislators, congressman and senators. Now they're called "lawmakers", those other terms apparently being too complicated. Trouble is, when I hear that term, the mental picture I get is of an old shoemaker whose work gets finished by elves (which, come to think of it, isn't far from the way it works). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:22, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I prefer the more telling version: Political correctedness Manytexts (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * "Learners" is in order to bring together those in "education" and in "training". Students, pupils, apprentices, trainees, all are learners. I can see the point, but it was nice to visit a training scheme where they deliberately used "students" rather than "trainees" because the learners requested them to do so. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much, at least it's not illogical. Is this sort of issue the subject of diktats from the DES (or whatever it's called these days), or down to individual report writers to adopt the latest trends? Tevildo (talk) 20:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Both. The DfE (was DES) will make their own civil servants use it, then they "encourage" others like consultants who they have commissioned to do research, then other writers pick it up. But they won't admit that they make such diktats. They replaced LEA (local education authority) with LA (local authority) in the same way. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:22, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This gets to a fine point of English. Like if you step into the batter's box, are you a "hitter" or just a "batter"? It's to be hoped that they're learners rather than just sitting there. The origin of the term "pupil" is interesting and ironic. It's cognate with "pupa" and "puppet", and actually refers to a "doll"... which is a pretty much inanimate object... as are some students, from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:28, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

German to English
In the article Apprenticeship in the section for Germany, Industriekaufmann needs added translation to make sense - in English I can find "all-rounder" and "industrial manager" on google guess there's more to it. Taking the first solution, is it the English equivalent "tradesman" as in fully-qualified? Thanks in advance. Manytexts (talk) 23:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BiBB) translates it as "industrial clerk" (see that link for the "training profile" in English). ---Sluzzelin talk  23:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I confused a para before & something else. When I read the whole para slowly (after following your link) it is what you say and does make sense. Manytexts (talk) 23:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * http://dict.leo.org/ende/index_de.html#/search=Industriekaufmann&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on gives   clerk in an industrial firm   industrial business management assistant   industrial clerk   industrial manager  industrial sales representative .. but dict.leo.org is user-edited and not fully reliable. None of the topic-related german professions or apprenticeships or school-Levels have any corresponding article in any other language on wikipedia. Industriekaufmann (salesman focussed on merchandising and commercing around the production process in industry like raw-materials, production-machines, parts of goods´ production) like (what it should be seen opposed to the other °-kaufmanns°: ) Einzelhandelskaufmann (trained shopkeeping retail salesman, seller) and Groß- und Außenhandelskaufmann (something like: trained international wholesale, storage & retail import-export salesman, sell- and reseller), Speditionskaufmann (transport and logistics clerk in conveyance, freight, shipping and forwarding business) and Versicherungskaufmann (insurance-salesman, focussed on contracts and conditions) is in any case an apprenticeship to a named trained profession needs two to three years of combined theoretical and practical-employed training and an exam at the so called [germ.: Industrie- und Handelskammer] public industrial and sales-chamber. No school certificate is needed by law, but firms offering the training mostly want germ.: Fachhochschulreife roughly comparable to sort of economic-section-focussed A-Level. literally it´s   industrial salesman   which i think fits best cos´ it leaves open the possibilities of becoming an industrial manager, an industrial salesman or an industrial clerk or an industrial representative (anything between - but not excluding - worker to CEO in industry) as a matter of fact.  Or maybe an industrial commerce salesman? trained industrial merchant (?) / tradesman (?) / °commercant° (??!)? trained industrial employee also would fit well, cos in apprenticeship, you usually learn to know the whole business without specializing (that´s the concept) telling nothing about in which part or section of a firm in that economic sector one later will specialize as employee. ( And that goes for all of the kaufmanns-apprenticeships. --217.84.69.206 (talk) 17:57, 6 December 2013 (UTC) .. forgot Bürokaufmann, trained bureau-salesman. --217.84.112.180 (talk) 12:56, 14 December 2013 (UTC) .. and - of course - the Bankkaufmann, salesman in banking sector. --217.84.112.180 (talk) 13:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)