Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 June 4

= June 4 =

English pronunciation of the Hungarian name Gyula Décsy
I am going to be interacting with a relative of the Hungarian linguist GyulaDécsy. (Not the same as the Gyula Décsi for whom we have an article.) I am assuming "Jula Daitschy" (i.e., /'dʒula 'dejtʃi/ in broad transcription) is a reasonable English approximation. Can any native or educated Hungarian speakers comment? (PS, I have obviously looked on google and English and Hungarian wikipedias.) Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:03, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have no standing as a magyarophone in any formal sense, but one learns many things about languages in one's travails, and I would say your suggested pronunciation is more than reasonable. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  08:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It sounds like they say something like in all of these. Closest en approximation would probably be  or ( if you come from a place where  is long and central). — Lfdder (talk) 09:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * "Jula" ('dʒula) is not awful, but I think you will get a little closer on the first syllable by thinking of the second syllable in the word schedule and starting it with the consonant cluster in adze, then adding a glide for the long 'u' (dzʲul), then slur it slightly. The Hungarian consonant is an affricate much like English 'j' (dʒ), except that instead of the front of the upper tongue touching the front or center of the alveolar ridge, the middle of the tongue touches the back of the alveolar ridge. Marco polo (talk) 19:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I am actually more concerned with the vowels. Especially, should the last name be Debt-she or Date-she or something else in an English approximation? μηδείς (talk) 19:55, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The first syllable of Décsy is long (unlike in "debt-she") but a monophtong (unlike "date-she" in the majority of English speaking dialects). I don't know how do approximate this in English without referring to certain dialects that might pronounce "date" as a monophtong (and as a mid front unrounded vowel). It's a similiar problem to approximating the second syllable of the French verb coupé for English speakers. Help:IPA for Hungarian uses "pay" for approximation, a diphtong in most English dialects, and Help:IPA for French does the same for approximating "é", hence "Chevrolay Coupay" ---Sluzzelin talk  21:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I wanted the length and character. Is it tense or lax?  (I do understand all about the difference between diphthongs and long monophthongs and between palatal stops and alveolar fricatives.  I can properly pronounce German, Russian, (and French with some effort). My fault for not making this clear.) μηδείς (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, at 2:42 in this "KultúRandevú" program, the moderator pronounces the name Décsy-Paál Enikővel. ---Sluzzelin talk  23:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent, definitely tense as opposed to lax. I did speak to Mrs. Décsy this afternoon. μηδείς (talk) 01:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Indians call indians
What do people from India call indians in the americas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.221.207.235 (talk) 08:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * They might also say "Indians", although nobody really calls them Indians anymore, at least not in Canada. I'm not sure about the US, but here everyone usually says "natives". "Native Americans, like us." "No, I mean American Indians." "Like me!" Adam Bishop (talk) 09:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * A white friend of mine who has spent many years working with Athabaskan-speaking people in Alaska told me that while white people avoid the term "Indian" and usually say "Native American", the Indians themselves still call themselves Indians. (And people who don't care about cultural sensitivity at all may distinguish between "woo woo Indians" and "red dot Indians".) To get back to the original question, Hindi Wikipedia's article corresponding to Indigenous peoples of the Americas uses the word इंडियन (iṇḍiyan). Angr (talk) 11:09, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * If there needs to be a distinction, people will use the term "American Indian" sometimes, which always refers to "Native Americans" The similar term "Indian-American" would usually refer to South Asian Indians who immigrated to the U.S.  -- Jayron  32  12:37, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, but what do you call an Indian citizen of American descent? An American-Indian I suppose, rather than an American Indian, but you can't always count on people hearing the hyphens. --Trovatore (talk) 21:23, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Is the OP asking "what do people from India call people from India who are settled in the Americas"? In the UK, such people tend to call themselves Desi, especially the younger people who are descended from those who immigrated here in the 50s and 60s. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We would call them Indian-Americans or sometimes when making a distinction "India Indians". Rmhermen (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Since the question is about "the Americas" as a whole, it might be worth noting that in the Caribbean people of Indian heritage are usually referred to as East Indians. In relation to Latin America, Salman Rushdie said in The Jaguar Smile that the Nicaraguans referred to him as "el escritor Hindú". Hindú meaning "from India" but given his cultural background, and what was to occur to him later, it was quite ironic. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:14, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Many places in the Caribbean have a large number of people with ancestral connections to India. Demographics of Guyana for example draws a distinction by using the phrases "East Indian" for such people, with "Amerindian" for Native American peoples.  Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago calls people with ancestry from India "Indo-Trinidadians", while people of Native decent are identified by the specific Native American ethnicity, basically Caribs.  Demographics of Belize calls people with ancestry from India "Indians", while referring to people with Native American ancestry as either "Mestizo" (mixed) or by the specific Native American group (Maya, mostly).  -- Jayron  32  17:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * While people of African-Caribbean origin are widely known in the UK as West Indians. Alansplodge (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Supposing that the OP wants to know how people from India call Native Americans: In Indian English, "Red Indians" seems to be fairly common. I guess that would be considered derogatory in North America, though. --147.142.246.226 (talk) 12:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

latin
What is the name when qui, quae, quod open a sentence and functioning as a conjunction and personal pronoun? example here: Quae pueros basiant. = Et haec pueros basiant. thanks82.81.78.228 (talk) 13:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The page you linked to calls it the "connective relative". Angr (talk) 14:09, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * And Gildersleeve and Lodge's Latin Grammar calls such sentences "relative sentences". Deor (talk) 15:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It helps to remember that relative pronouns are found at the beginning of what we would think of as a new sentence because Latin did not have modern punctuation. This is sort of obscured by editions which punctuate Latin according to the rules of English or another modern language, but Latin used to use words as punctuation instead. And sometimes the grammar just doesn't fit into English - a sentence like is actually just a relative clause from the previous sentence, but we don't like that sort of construction in modern languages. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:12, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Trying to find the right word for "support"
I am trying to find the right word to mean the same thing and the opposite thing as "support". Although I am more familiar with "fail to..." instead of "do not...", I am wondering if "do not..." is also acceptable. Typically, people use "reject and fail to reject" because it's easier to deny something than it is to accept something fully and universally. However, people sometimes use "support" and "reject" as if they are opposites of each other.


 * The results support the hypothesis.
 * The results do not support the hypothesis.
 * The results fail to support the hypothesis.
 * The results confirm the hypothesis.
 * The results fail to confirm the hypothesis.
 * The results reject the hypothesis.
 * The results fail to reject the hypothesis.

Now, in a different situation with people:


 * Some people support the new law that, while in effect, would provide a practical solution to the societal problem. Other people reject the new law.

My question is: why do they sound like reiterations of the same thing? Also, in a situation where a person wants a new law to be realized but somehow fails to support it publicly, maybe that scenario can be described as "fail to support" and not "reject"? I mean, such a person does not really reject the new law; he just fails to support it. Could there be a difference between failing to do something and not really doing it? Sneazy (talk) 15:42, 4 June 2013 (UTC) Shades of gray. How is that connected to the sexually explicit novel of the same name? In other words, why is the novel called that? Sneazy (talk) 16:14, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * See Fallacy of the excluded middle. If there were a binary possibility, then you could have two perfect antonyms: Either the hypothesis is supported or refuted.  However, there is a third possibility which is that the hypothesis is neither definitively supported or refuted, and language like "Fails to support" or "fails to reject" captures this middle proposition.  There are also "shades of gray" which one can consider; that the acceptability of a hypothesis could be considered a continuum of possibilities between "Absolutely and total confirmed beyond the slightest doubt" and "ain't no possible way".  -- Jayron  32  15:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Shades of gray was a known idiom for decades before the novel came out. It means, roughly, the idea that when an issue is presented as two alternatives (commonly called "Black or White"), there exists also a continuum of other possibilities between black and white, those being the various shades of gray.  It's exactly the fallacy of the excluded middle.  The title of the novel comes from the name of one of its characters (Christian Grey), and is catchy because it recalls the well-known idiom, but does so in a double-entendre in the sense that something which is "shady" is dark and dangerous.  -- Jayron  32  16:33, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

French meaning of "campement"
A website said that the La Tapoa, Niger airport was " distance 3 km du Campement" - What does that mean in French? WhisperToMe (talk) 16:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, it just means "encampment", unless it's a proper name for a settlement or location in Niger, that is perhaps there is a city or village or other locale named "Campement" there. -- Jayron  32  16:56, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing it on Niger tourism websites with the meaning "campsite", which is "un camping" in standard French. So I think the website is telling you about a campsite that is only 3 km from the airport. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:03, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems that a "campement" is the usual word for the safari-type encampment/campsite/campground found in this part of the world. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:08, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you!WhisperToMe (talk) 17:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Are we not actually discussing the English meaning of the French word "Campement"? (I'm not being picky or pedantic here; but for my sins my unique mind really does go into a tailspin of confusion in cases like this.) --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:14, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Campement veut dire planter une tente dans la nature et essayer de ne pas être mangé par un lion. -- Jayron  32  01:31, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I also found a place called "Doutchi" - Is this short for "Dogondoutchi"? WhisperToMe (talk) 17:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I found a source saying it is WhisperToMe (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Latin translation please
Hi, all - I'm writing a chapter about a palimpsest - in the course of the story, we learn the original, semi-erased text is actually a message or letter. The original text is termed the scriptio inferior, and I'd like to say something like 'the scriptio inferior is actually a scriptio epistolaris' - or some such - what I need is the second term - 'scriptio epistolaris' is obviously my crap faux Latin. Can someone provide something like that please? - pref. something with 'scriptio' as the first word?

Thanks in advance.

Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not sure why you want to call the "writing beneath" something else, but, if so, why not simply call it the epistola?


 * I think you need epistolae if you mean "the writing of the letter", since epistolaris looks like the wrong declension (3rd rather than the correct choice of 1st). I think you would need the genitive, so not epistola. You might also like scriptio vera, or "true script". Then the average reader has more to go on, since it is a simple and pithy thing to read. I'm la-1 by the way. IBE (talk) 23:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I took epistolaris to mean epistolary, in which case -aris is correct, if a bit clunky. μηδείς (talk) 23:44, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * just to clarify, for dramatic reasons, I'd like the dialogue to be something along the lines of 'it's not scriptio inferior, it's scriptio xxxx!' - where xxxxx is a word meaning letter or message. Does scriptio epistolae work? Scriptio epistolaris? Thanks for the replies so far Adambrowne666 (talk) 00:33, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "scriptio epistolaris" (or "epistularis") is actually fine, grammatically. It would mean something like "the sort of writing found in a letter", which is a bit odd (in the sense that there are other ways of expressing that in "proper" Latin), but it fits what you're looking for. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:06, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I want to make sure you understand that inferior means underneath, and not second-rate. (It seems an odd contrast to say "It's not the script underneath, it's the script of the letter.")  That being said, scriptio or scriptum or even corpus with either litterarum (gen pl.) or epistolae works. μηδείς (talk) 01:06, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Medeis, yeah, got that - wouldn't make sense otherwise in the palimpsest context. And thanks too for scriptio epistolae - we have a winner! (I suffer from my Australian state school education, in that there was no hint of Latin or Greek - I was probably glad of it at the time, but now, as a writer, it can be a real handicap). Adambrowne666 (talk) 01:24, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I hate the word 'palimpsest'. Hate it. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it.  I hate it.  I really hate it.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  20:15, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * But, Jack, what do you really feel? μηδείς (talk) 20:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I have a whole list of spleen-ventworthy words. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  00:01, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, some of those might be words I Just Like Saying. Some of the words I Just Like Saying are chupacabra, Tucumcari, synecdoche (the last one only after I found out how it was pronounced). --Trovatore (talk) 21:25, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Appendectomy is obviously from appendicectomy by haplogy. μηδείς (talk) 00:10, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You're probly right. But why not "appenditis"?  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  00:17, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, that would just be silly. μηδείς (talk) 02:33, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Hindi
I started to watch Commando with subs and became surprised as nearly every second word they speak is English (like "Chinese", "charges", "proof" etc). The article on that film says it's in Hindi, but maybe it's some pig Hindi or other variation?--93.174.25.12 (talk) 23:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Code-switching, Hinglish. — Lfdder (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been told that the use of English words and phrases is very common in Hindi movies. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:34, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * English is hip. :-) — Lfdder (talk) 13:31, 5 June 2013 (UTC)