Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 May 8

= May 8 =

Translation from German to English
I would be grateful if a user could please translate the following lines, which I require for my research. Thank you. “Lebenslauf: Ich bin am 21. III. 1909 als Sohn des …. jüdischer Konfession, in Breslau geboren. Von 1915-1918 besuchte ich die katholische Realschule, dann trat ich in die Sexta des König Wilhelmgymnasiums ein, wo ich Ostern 1927 die Reifeprüfung ablegte. Ich studierte Englisch, Geschichte und Erdkunde, und zwar 1927/28 in Breslau, 1928/29 in Köln, 1929/30 hörte ich Vorlesungen am University College in London. Seit SS. 1930 studierte ich wieder in Breslau. - Meine Lehrer waren die Professoren: … Mein besonderer Dank gilt den Herren Professoren …., durch deren Arbeiten und Volesungen vorliegende Dissertation angeregt und gefördert worden ist.” Simonschaim (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Glad to point you in the right direction Simonchaim, 2 quick tips, 1st always end your posts with ~ that way your username and talkpage link immediately appears. 2nd depending on how many German speakers check this Refdesk you may get a very quick answer, if not you can always try the German Wikipedia here, übersetzen is what I remember as "Translate?" in German.  Best of Luck!  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   13:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * "Curriculum vitae: I'm 21 III. 1909 as the son of the .... Jewish denomination, born in Wrocław." I attended Catholic school from 1915-1918, then I entered in the Sexta of the King Wilhelm-Gymnasium, where I graduated in the Easter of 1927. I studied English, history and 6geography, and 1927/28 in Wrocław, 1928/29 in Cologne, 1929/30 I attended lectures at University College in London. Since summer, in 1930, I studied again in Wroclaw. -My teachers were the professors:... My Special thanks to men's professors..., this thesis has been stimulated and encouraged by their work and [Volesungen?]." (Microsoft Word) Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:41, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Cleaning up the above, with extra help from Google Translate: "Curriculum vitae: Born 21st March 1909 in Wrocław as the son of ... of the Jewish faith. Attended Catholic secondary school from 1915-18, then entered the Sixth form at King Wilhelm Gymnasium, from where I graduated at Easter 1927. I studied English, history and geography. I attended lectures during 1927/28 in Wrocław, 1928/29 in Cologne, and 1929/30 at University College London. In 1930 I studied again in Wrocław. My teachers were the professors .... My special thanks to Mr Professor ..., by whose work and lectures this thesis has been encouraged and stimulated." (I'm assuming Volesungen to be a typo for Vorlesungen - lectures.) - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Karenjc's interpretation of the passage beginning 'Ich studierte Englisch...' is better than mine (see below), although in English I would word it "I studied English, History, and Geography in 1927/28 in Breslau and 1928/29 in Cologne, and in 1929/30 I attended lectures at University College London." - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My German is limited, but I would translate it thus: Curriculum vitae: I was born in Breslau, into the Jewish faith, on 21 March 1909.  From 1915-18 I attended Catholic secondary school, then entered the sixth form of König Wilhelmgymnasium (King Wilhelm's Secondary School), where I passed my Reifeprüfung (matriculation certificate/A-levels) at Easter 1927.  I studied English, History and Geography, actually in 1927/28 in Breslau, 1928/29 in Cologne and in 1929/30 I attended lectures at University College London.  After [SS.] 1930 I studied once again in Breslau.  My teachers were Professors: (names missing) ... my particular thanks go to Professors (names missing) by whose work and lectures this thesis has been stimulated and encouraged.
 * Not sure about the SS. abbreviation - it could perhaps mean "the beginning of" or "summer" as Plasmic Physics translated it above - and the grammar in the third and fourth sentences feels odd; could they be one sentence in the original, or is something missing? Have assumed that "Volesungen" in the final sentence is actually "Vorlesungen". -  Ka renjc 13:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * "SS" is most likely "Sommersemester" (summer term). German university lecture times are roughly late October-February ("Wintersemester") and late April-Juli ("Sommersemester"). There is no single summer break, but two shorter ones in late summer/early spring. The translation by Karenjc looks mostly fine to me. I think the first sentence should be "I was born in Breslau on 21 March 1909 as the son of (...) of Jewish faith, ...", where the name of the parents is elided in the original. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't use "A Levels", as that would be anachronistic (they weren't introduced in England until the 1950s) as well as too UK oriented. Matriculation certificate would make sense in to UK readers. The US equivalent is graduating from high school. I might be tempted to leave Realschule untranslated as some people are familiar with it as a type of school in German-speaking countries, or might wish to look it up to find the exact type of school. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * One problem is that in 1920, the split "Realschule" vs. "Gymnasium" was different. Nowadays, there is a clear hierarchy (Gymnasium education subsumes Realschule, which subsumes Hauptschule). Back in the 20s/30s, "Gymnasium" was oriented more towards languages and humanities, while "Realschule" was oriented towards trade and, in particular, engineering (hence things useful in the "real" world ;-). Modern Realschulen were created after 1945 from previous "Mittelschulen" ("middle schools"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, whether you bother to distinguish the two types of school depends on the purpose of the translation and what knowledge and interests you can assume on the part of the readers. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * While sexta means "sixth (form)" note that the traditional latin form designations were counted backwards and for historical reasons half of the forms were two years long. All in all that means that the sexta was the first year of secondary school and the fifth of 13 years total. KarlLohmann (talk) 23:01, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sexta and sixth form are false friends. Nevertheless he spent only 12 years (Easter 1915 thru Easter 1927) in school. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:27, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Your answers have been very helpful, and I am grateful. Simonschaim (talk) 04:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Latin case order anomaly
When I studied Latin in school, the order of grammatical cases was:
 * Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative
 * Locative was mentioned, but was sort of ignored when declining "mensa" etc.

That’s also the order we use in our Wikipedia articles: Latin, Latin declension, etc. I know it has a long history, since my mother confirmed that was the same order she was taught at school.

However, Wiktionary seems to use a different order. See "mensa" (under Latin: Inflection):
 * Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, Vocative.

Now, I appreciate these things are entirely arbitrary, but it'd be helpful if everyone uses the same order, as we do with the alphabet etc.

Does the Wiktionary Latin case order have a wide currency? Why would different case orders exist for the same language? I know that there are many other cases that Latin doesn't use, and maybe there's some "Grand International Case Order Framework Structure Paradigm" that these 6 have to be made to fit into. Or something.

I'd appreciate some lumen or lux being shed about this. Thanks. --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  22:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The Wiktionary order is what I learned when I was taking Latin in a U.S. high school in the 1960s. Gildersleeve and Lodge's Latin Grammar, on the other hand, uses still a third order: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative, Ablative. Deor (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * See Instruction in Latin. It's essentially a Commonweath/US difference. Lesgles (talk) 22:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That is the perfect answer. Thanks, Lesgles.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:06, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * When I studied German and Greek they used the NAGD order. Latin uses NG...first because one can deduce all the other forms if one knows just the Nominative and Genitive forms.  See also, principal parts. μηδείς (talk) 23:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't remember what we did in German, but in Greek we did NG...first, for a similar reason: genitive preserves the stem. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * When I learned German it was also NAGD. I learned Latin from Wheelock's Latin, which is Nominative-genitive-dative etc, and that's still how I remember the endings, by inventing a word in that order ("isieme" for the third declension for example). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Funny, except for Zulu, Latin is the most recent language I have attempted to study, and it never occurred to me to invent a form like the brilliant "isieme". For some reason the third eclension seeems so perfect as to be obvious--but it's not.  What a great idea, Adam. μηδείς (talk) 04:46, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

When I learnt German it was NAGD, and I was always annoyed by (older?) texts which put A at the end - it seemed natural to me that A should come after N, since those two cases don't differ that much. (For example, in the first adjective endings table, you get a nice compact region of -e amongst the -en.) Victor Yus (talk) 07:39, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * When I learned German (in Austria), it was NGDA, and I think that's pretty standard for German. They are even numbered from 1. Fall to 4. Fall in the same way. 109.99.71.97 (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In short, it's a ientaculum caninum. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  20:06, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

NGDA was the order originally used in old Greek grammars (as explained on the linked article), while NAGD is an alteration to it, motivated by the fact that in both Greek and Latin nominative and accusative case forms often coincide (in all neuter forms, to start with). Also, in the ancient Greek dual, there are only two distinct forms, nominative-accusative and genitive-dative, and this looks better in NAGD format than NGDA. In William Dwight Whitney's classic grammar of Sanskrit, the order is Nominative, Accusative, Instrumental, Dative, Ablative, Genitive, Locative, Vocative, with some collapsing due to the fact that genitive singular and ablative singular are the same in most declensions, and not all cases have distinct forms in dual and plural... AnonMoos (talk) 22:15, 9 May 2013 (UTC)