Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 January 30

= January 30 =

Aboriginal swearing - Translation from Latin
In the second volume of R. Brough Smyth's Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia, 1878), there is a chapter called °Terms of Abuse″, about swearing in Aboriginal lamguages. He quotes from two correspondents, one of whom was the Rev. John Bulmer (1833-1913), who was to spend 51 years at Lake Tyers Aboriginal Mission (starting in 1862). Mr Bulmer begins °When the natives were angry, and abused each other, they used epithets similar to those of the very lowest class of Europeans; not so bad on the side of blasphemy, but worse on the side of filth.″ But when it turns juicy, Brough Smyth drops into Latin:

Itemque saepissime, ut narrat Rev. J. Bulmer, de membris pudendis loquuntur; et rationibus vituperandi tetterrimi foedissimique sunt. In rem longius procedunt quum aliquid de re gravius agitur. Tunc quidem omnem colluviem ex memoria collectam in adversarios sine pudore sine dubitatione congerunt. Feminaeque procul dubio peiores si id quidem potest quam ipsi homines. Ut in albis hominibus °damn″ aut °proh! fidem″ aut °Dii immortales″ ita apud eos verba obscoenissima audiri potest. Ne parentes quidem se retinebunt quominus liberos parvos sermone pudendo alloquantur; liberisque coram disserunt ea quae numquam impuberibus dici fas est. Matresque semper pene liberis dant nomina nostris auribus foedissima prae illorum sententiis innoxia et pura. Puer saepe nominant Dango Willia (lappa). Hoc nomen extremum difficile expressu significat ut lappa cui affigat haerebit ita homo cui nomen "lappa" sit in deliciis veneris inhaerebit.

I can make a fist of it, certainly better than Google Translate (whose botched version I'll put up later, if you want it), but I'm rusty, e.g. never learnt quominus, isn't it related to quin? Besides, I'm hoping that someone out there will get a kick out of providing a translation.Djbcjk (talk) 10:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll give it a go this evening (GMT) if no-one else has tried by then. It's not helped by the fact that the Latin isn't explicit either: Smyth uses the word 'pudendus' (shameful) more than once. Oh, for the directness of actual Latin profanity! AlexTiefling (talk) 12:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I can come up with a proper translation later as well, but I can tell you it's a big letdown - he doesn't actually say anything dirty in Latin, just that the words the Aborigines use are frightfully shameful. The only dirty Latin word is "lappa" and that's hardly profane. Smyth just didn't want to discuss the subject at all in English! How Victorian! Adam Bishop (talk) 22:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * There are a number of ambiguities in the Latin, and my English isn't perfect either, but I'll give it a try: "And likewise, as is told by Rev. J. Bulmer, they very often speak about the private parts; and they are the most repulsive and dirtiest of people in their manners of scolding. The more seriously an issue is debated, the more they get involved into it. Then indeed they pour on their adversaries the entire load of filth that they manage to collect from memory, without shame or hesitation. And without any doubt the women are worse than the men themselves, if that is even possible. Just as white people say 'damn' or 'oh, faith!' or 'immortal Gods!', so among them the most obscene words can be heard. Not even parents will restrain themselves from using shameful language when speaking to their little children; and in the presence of their children they discuss such things as should never be said to those who have not yet attained puberty. Also, the mothers almost always give their children names that sound extremely foul to our ears, yet in the opinion of these people are harmless and unadorned. A boy they often call 'Dango Willin' ('thistle'). This last name is difficult to explain, but it signifies that just as the thistle will stick to whatever it is joined to, likewise, a man who carries the name of 'thistle' will continuously stick to venereal pleasures." Iblardi (talk) 23:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * You beat the rest of us to it! That's essentially what I came up with as well. It's funny that "Di immortales" is a "white people" curse. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:22, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Iblardi, for the translation. What were the main ambiguities? Was lappa ever a Latin profanity, for mentula, say? I think the curses of the albi homines are multicultural, and should go °[they] say ′damn′ [English] or ′par foi!′ [French] or ′Di immortales!′ [Latin]″. Aboriginal women here (in Menindee, western NSW) have already seen Smyth's sentence, Feminaeque procul dubio peiores si id quidem potest quam ipsi homines, and they agree totally. So here, as promised, is Google Translate's attempt: presumably it isn't as sophisticated as its other translation services because it hardly ever gets used:


 * So again, very often, in order to Rev tells a story. J. Bulmer, members of private talk and criticize arguments tetterrimi foedissimique are. In the more serious thing they advance further on the matter whenever a man is at stake. Then, indeed, all of the memory assembly plunged into opponents without shame, without doubt, collect. And women, if that is, indeed, beyond a doubt, it can be worse than the men themselves. So that in white men "amount of damage" or "alas! Faith" or "The gods of the immortal" can be heard in such a way among them by the words of the obscoenissima. Parents not to say that he was refusing to prevent little children talk shameful address, children, before discussing what we may call that never age. Mothers and children, almost always give names to our ears because of their terrible decisions innocent and pure. Child often called Dango Willis (bur). This means that the name of the last hard pressed burr to fasten stick man named "burr" is a pet attached Friday.Djbcjk (talk) 06:13, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I think your suggestions are excellent. I don't think much of Smyth's latin, though, if he thinks homines rather than viri is the appropriate contrast with feminae! AlexTiefling (talk) 10:24, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * To answer your question about lappa, Djbcjk: The word is not mentioned in Adams's Latin Sexual Vocabulary, so I think its safe to conclude that it had no off-color connotations in Latin. Smyth's (or Bulmer's?) interpretation of the "Thistle" name would seem to apply only to the Aboriginal usage. Deor (talk) 11:08, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that Google Translate's °burr″ for lappa is more locally appropriate than °thistle″. Burrs can be annoyingly adherent. The sow-thistle is a food vegetable and there's even a word for it (parlumpa) in the Darling River Aboriginal language, but all the textbooks say it is an exotic. As for Smyth's Latin being suss, surely Puer saepe nominant should be Pueros saepe nominant.Djbcjk (talk) 12:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You're probably right. I thought that "thistle" would be an acceptable translation for bur(r), which looked unfamiliar to me as a non-native English speaker. But I guess I should have "stuck" to Lewis & Short.
 * Ambiguities include the second sentence, the translation of the "white man's curses" (should these be modernized?), and some grammatical and lexical irregularities(?) such as the "puer" and "homines" you mentioned. Iblardi (talk) 14:06, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure the 'white man's curses' can be modernised. The whole thrust of the paragraph is that the locals' discourse makes extensive use of explicit and implicit sexual references, while the white folks tend to use mild blasphemies. That's totally changed in the intervening period: westerners' profanities nowadays are strongly focused towards sexuality and bodily functions. This came up as an issue in the production of the TV series Deadwood - when they tested audiences on a version that used authentic 19th-century swearing, it was found to be too silly to modern ears, so they changed to using modern swearing (especially lots of 'cocksucker') to convey they correct overall effect. We can't really make an equivalent change to the passage here, because it's exactly about that contrast. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * But would "damn" have been considered a mild blasphemy in those days? I doubt that it is a case of "mild" and "strong" utterances of abuse being contrasted here. Immediately above this passage, Bulmer is quoted as saying that "[w]hen the natives were angry, and abused each other, they used epithets similar to those of the very lowest class of Europeans; not so bad on the side of blasphemy, but worse on the side of filth." This seems to imply that there is no essential difference between whites and aboriginals in this regard, because white folks (lowest-class Europeans) can be just as bad; they merely use a different register. Iblardi (talk) 15:14, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * (outdent) Yes, I should say that he's reporting that the Europeans use blasphemy, but his examples are as mealy-mouthed as his Latin. 'Damn' was mild enough that it's used for a joke (about swearing) in HMS Pinafore - make of that what you will. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Interestingly enough, G. Hughes, in An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006), p. 117, refers to the same piece, but uses it to argue the opposite point: "When the relevant fascicle of the OED came out in 1894, damn carried the comment: 'Now very often printed 'd__n' or 'd---.' . . . [F]or the Victorian bourgeoisie, damn had a great power to shock. In the comic operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), W.S. Gilbert has the Captain declare: "Bad language or abuse, / I never, never use . . . . I never use the big, big D.". Hughes also cites Anthony Trollope, who has a villain utter the word damned in front of his young wife: "It was to her a terrible outrage . . . . The word had been uttered with all its foulest violence, with virulence and vulgarity..." Iblardi (talk) 21:20, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Let's not condense the Victorian era too much. Pinafore debuted not long before Trollope's death. What Hughes does not mention - at least in the extract you have cited - is that the punchline in the operetta comes later, when the Captain forgets himself, and exclaims 'Damne, it's too bad!' Clearly such language was thought appropriate for the stage of the Savoy. One might also consider Gilbert's correspondence about the title of Ruddigore, and whether 'Ruddy' was swearing, and whether the title made use of it. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:51, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "Ruddy" was the closest my Dad ever came to swearing (in my hearing, anyway). Words like "damn" and "bloody" and even "pooh" - let alone worse - were completely unacceptable in my household.  When Dad used "ruddy", you knew he was very pissed off with someone.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:10, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The examples Smyth quotes in English are indeed mild. This, in a quote from Bulmer, °It is amusing to hear them commence at the head of the person they are scolding, and end at the toe-nails. Thus they will call a person Poork gatti (big head); Barrat poork (bald head); Barrat mree (squint eye); Barrat birndang (bad arm); Barrat jerran (bad leg); Booloon gatty (belly big);″ etc. With regard to the worsening AlexTiefling notes in white man swearing, a couple of years ago the film Kokoda premiered and a number of Kokoda veterans were invited. They were scandalised by the language: °We didn't swear like that in those days,″ they said.Djbcjk (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I (as a Christian) do consider this a worsening of swearing. Certainly I take far fewer oaths by sacred things than my father, while I curse like a trooper on many more occasions than he does. I expect that my swearing would make him as uncomfortable, if he were to hear it, as his does me. It's highly subjective. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:51, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to reconstruct a currently spoken language (grammar, vocabulary, phonology) given it's parent language and sister languages?
We know that linguists use languages spoken today to reconstruct the vocabulary and grammar of languages that evolved to the modern languages. How to do the reverse: given the ancestor language (for example Latin) and sister languages (the Romance languages) of a language (Spanish, reconstruct the language (Spanish)? Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 12:13, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Not possible. The whole point of reconstructed proto-languages is that they are estimates - though we can construct an estimate, the idea that people actually spoke in exactly that way is extremely unlikely. Currently spoken languages should reflect reality. It would be impossible to determine where loanwords would come from, which patterns people would invent arbitrarily, which structures and words would be affected by events / media, and a whole load of other chaotic behaviour. - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   12:29, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Same argument on a more abstract logical level: if we know that it was possible for a certain form in Latin to evolve into that of, say, French, and it was also possible for the same form to evolve into that of, say, Portuguese, then we can logically conclude that it would also be possible for the corresponding forms of our hypothetical Spanish to have gone either the way French went, or the way Portuguese went (or some other way entirely). It would never be possible to make any logically sound conclusions about which of the different possible options our language would have chosen. As Filelakeshoe rightly says, there is an element of chaos in language development, which means that while it is possible to make predictions about what types of language change are generally probably or typical based on a given starting point, predicting whether and when and in what sub-groups of the speaker community such a development will actually happen is not. Of course, it is possible to make reasonable guesses: if we know that all daughter languages of Latin have developed definite articles based on the demonstrative ille, and all have a Future tense based on the auxiliary habeo, then it is a reasonable guess that any hypothetical lost daughter language would also have had those features. Also, reasonable guesses can be made if the to-be-reconstructed variety can be assumed to have been part of a dialect continuum with a dense network of wave-like isoglosses. Say, we know what Old Irish was like; we know what modern Scots Gaelic, Manx and modern Donegal or Connacht Irish are like, but the former Irish dialects of the geographical area in between (i.e. eastern Ireland) have been lost. It would presumably be safe to assume that in many ways these dialects would have turned out to be intermediate between their extant neighbours, had they survived. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:13, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * You just posted the same question on the Humanities desk. As I said there, any attempt to predict modern English based exclusively on Old English and modern German would almost certainly be a miserable failure... AnonMoos (talk) 14:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No. Reconstruction works only in one direction: backwards. If you have several different descendant languages, it is possible to predict with moderate confidence what form could have preceded the various forms in all descendant languages.  You can figure out predictable processes of language change could have resulted in the various different divergences and deduce what the original form was likely to have been.  The same process cannot work in the opposite direction, because, given only the parent language, you cannot know which processes of language change would operate in the evolution of the descendant language.  Marco polo (talk) 20:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't disagree with any of that, but for the sake of clarity, that's not quite what the OP was asking. If you knew Latin and the other extant Romance languages, could you reconstruct Spanish? The answer is "No, not very well at all" but it is somewhat more accurate than only going forward in time because you'd have surrounding (-ish) languages to help. Let's say everything related to the Spanish language instantly disappeared and we wanted to figure out what it was like, we would have a base (Medieval Latin, I guess) and modern French and Portuguese to provide contrasts. Yes, it would still be a mess, but not as bad as, say, trying to reconstruct a more singular language like English. Matt Deres (talk) 18:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No, that just doesn't work at all. From French and Portuguese you'd get a pseudo-Spanish with reduced and nasal vowels, zh and sh, elision and reduction and 'softening' all over the place that simply doesn't exist in Spanish.  You might as well try reconstructing a Triceratops from a turkey and a crocodile. μηδείς (talk) 21:15, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Short translation into Polish
Knowing the extreme unreliability of Google Translate and its kin, I come here to trespass on your time slightly and ask - could any Polish-speaking RefDeskers translate the following sentence into Polish, please?


 * "So why don't we teach Polish in our schools?"

For clarity, the 'so' is intended to mean 'in that case', 'thus', and 'we'/'our' refers to 'the people/government of a nation'. Many thanks. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been advised it's "więc dlaczego nie uczymy języka polskiego w naszych szkołach?" - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   16:31, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you! AlexTiefling (talk) 16:37, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Filelakeshoe's translation is perfect for everyday speech, but language purists frown at beginning a sentence with więc. Substitute it with zatem, if you want to sound more formal. In less formal speech, języka ("language") can be omitted as it would be easily implied from context. — Kpalion(talk) 22:15, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

As for "why don't we teach Polish in our schools", perhaps English and Welsh schools should. The 2011 Census has revealed that Polish is the second most spoken language in those countries. Hordes of Polish-speaking Welsh people - who would have guessed? --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  20:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Is this really a rule in English?
In the English language, the present subjunctive form of 'to be' used in a sentence accurately makes sense grammatically, but it often gives me the impression that the phrasing sounds awkward, and I would normally not use it in everyday speech or writing. The sentence is subjunctive, because my knowledge of Spanish tells me to treat the word 'am' as subjunctive, because it is subjunctive. Assuming that is how subjunctive forms are used, I think I have used the term 'be' correctly in the sentence. Is there really such a rule in English, or am I over-applying grammatical rules to excess? Similarly, when I read and hear certain dialects of English, I can pick up certain things that I normally do not use: double or triple negatives instead of affirmative, the usage of the word "ain't", and various unfamiliar idioms. 140.254.226.248 (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I am a good student.
 * I think I be a good student.
 * I ain't got no money.
 * Meaning: I do not have any money.
 * Erroneous Meaning: I am not got no money.
 * Erroneous Meaning: I do not have no money. (Implication: I do have some money.)
 * The few separate subjunctive forms that English still has aren't really used in sentences like 'I think I be a good student' these days, although it's useful to recognise them, as they occur in earlier works. 'I think I be a good student' has nothing essentially wrong with it, but is now so old-fashioned that many readers would regard it as an error.
 * Double negatives are complicated. Although we are often told that two negatives make a positive, this is highly contextually dependent. With a colloquialism like 'ain't', my default assumption would be that the double negative was an intensifier. But even if someone said 'I haven't got no money', or 'I don't have no money', I'd think it likely they meant 'I have no money' unless they emphasised the 'no' to indicate that they were applying one negative to the other, to imply 'I have at least a little money'.
 * It's always important to note that English has no governing academy: what counts as a 'rule' is largely descriptive. If a particular construction clearly conveys the meaning you're after, then it's about as 'correct' as it can be. That said, many (but not all) traditional rules of grammar do, in fact, yield clearer English than ignoring them would.
 * One last note: your first 'Erroneous meaning' suggestion, 'I am not got no money', doesn't make much sense, because 'to be' can only take a complement, and not a direct object. Even though many people who regularly use 'ain't' might not be able to articulate that in those terms, it nevertheless guides their usage of 'ain't' to mean 'am/is/are not' or 'have/has not'. 'I ain't...' followed by a noun would suggest 'I am not...', whereas 'I ain't...' followed by a participle suggests a verb; if the participle is a present participle, then 'I am not...' is still implied (eg 'I ain't joking'), whereas if it's a past participle, then it would imply 'I have not..." (eg 'I ain't got it'). AlexTiefling (talk) 16:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * (after ec) :Would you normally say "I be a good student" or "I am a good student"? The first example (I be) is not good English but the second is. The various forms of "to be" are "I am, you are, he is: we are, you are, they are". The word "ain't" is non-standard English (at least for British English anyway) but is in very common use. --TammyMoet (talk) 16:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You haven't used the subjunctive correctly there. While the subjunctive in Spanish is used for a wide number of functions, in English and also in other Romance languages, it has a narrower scope (e.g. French: je pense que je suis un bon élève not que je sois). The present subjunctive in English is generally reserved for requests, pleas and similar modal functions (we require that he vacate the premises by 10am), there are a few other verbs which it can be followed with ("I suggest that...") but just because a verb in Spanish or Latin uses it doesn't mean English does. - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   16:20, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In French je pense que je suis un bon élève but je ne pense pas que je sois un bon élève. — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * In Spanish the subjunctive is not used there either; the correct translation is actually me considero buen estudiante because pienso ser buen estudiante means I plan to be a good student. However, generally pensar and creer do not govern the subjunctive. You can say Yo creo que Alfonso es un buen estudiante, not *yo creo que Alfonso sea. In their negative forms they might: No creo que seas buen estudiante works. 72.128.82.131 (talk) 03:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem here is not the subjunctive be but the choice of governing verb. Verbs like demand or insist will take the subjunctive:
 * "I insist he is here now." (It's a fact and you should believe me.)
 * "I insist he be here now." (If he's not here immediately there will be consequences.)
 * But "I think he be here now" would have no contrasting meaning from "I think he is here now"--the uncertainty is inherent in the verb think. μηδείς (talk) 18:54, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * (ec) "I think I be..." sounds archaic to me, but I wouldn't know for sure if it was ever in regular use. Google Book data does not show a very consistent trend: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+think+I+be&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3. However, other examples like "He insisted I be the one to try it" or "I asked that they be quiet" sound correct to me. 86.179.1.93 (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it's not archaic. The subjunctive has never been used in positive factual dependent clauses after mental verbs such as think, at least not since Middle English (here is an overview). If you do find the surface string "I think I be", it's invariably in imitations of non-standard dialects, such as African American Vernacular English, but that's a different kettle of fish; most of those aren't subjunctive forms but non-standard inflection paradigms in the indicative. (also a few Scots examples that I've found, like, might be intended as subjunctives; not quite sure about that.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Re the second point (ain't), at least in my dialect, this word can replace haven't and hasn't as well as aren't/am not/isn't. So your first "erroneous meaning" would rather be "I have not got no money" rather than "I am not". - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   20:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * to the OP: "Ain't" is a contraction of "am not". It fell out of accepted use a long time ago in usages like "I ain't the person you're looking for", but it was always, till relatively recently, used in tag questions such as "I'm your wife, ain't I?".  But now, people come up with absurdities like "aren't I" (as if "I are" is something anyone ever says), or "am'n't I" (eeurrgghh!).  People defend words like "gotten" and saying "herb" like "erb", on the basis that the English used to have these usages and the Americans are just continuing those traditions.  Well, what's wrong with the "ain't I" tradition?  The alternatives are worthless, imo.  I'm right about this, ain't I.  You know it, don't you.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  21:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought "aren't I" stood for "are I not" Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but in which language is "are I not" a legitimate expression? Certainly not English.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I understood "aren't I?" to also be a corruption of "amn't I?" (or similar). It's probably fairly arbitrary which variations have ended up being "standard"... 86.176.210.160 (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

"I think I be a good student" is typical of the dialects of the West Country of England, now in serious decline. A well known anecdote is about someone who moved from London to Devon, and was expecting some important photographic material in the post. When it arrived. it had been folded in half so that it could be squeezed through the letterbox, ruining the contents. On the envelope was printed "Do Not Bend", to which the postman had scribbled a message "Yes it do". Alansplodge (talk) 15:38, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Here are a couple subjunctive uses of "be" that are familiar (at least to Americans) and thus don't sound odd, though they are old examples and people don't use "be" this way now. (1) "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home": famous line from an 1823 song. (2) "If this be treason, let us make the most of it": famous quote (perhaps misquoted slightly -- working from memory here) from Patrick Henry, American revolutionary. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * "If this be treason, make the most of it.” but, according to our article, he may not have said it. Rmhermen (talk) 17:04, 1 February 2013 (UTC)