Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 31

= August 31 =

Good extract from the New Testament to illustrate a language
I know the most wide-spread is the Lord's Prayer as well as the 1st article of the Declaration of Human Rights and Aesop's "The North Wind and the Sun". The latter two are either too short or not every language has a translation of them. While the New Testament is translated in over a thousand languages, it's one of the most translated and available books, but the Lord's Prayer is no less short and unrepresentative than the other two and quite insufficient to illustrate a language. So I want some other part from the New Testament. My first thought is obvious: Matthew 2, but probably there is a better option? It must contain maximum of grammatical features and as well be more or less neutral.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:58, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * If I am not mistaken, the entire Gospel of Luke is the most translated book of the New Testament; that is it already exists in the most languages. That may be too long for you, but perhaps you could choose some section of that.  -- Jayron  32  05:07, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * In the book Indo-European Philology by W.B. Lockwood (ISBN 0-09-095581-1), Luke 2:8-14 is used (but he also provides a Sanskrit translation of the Lord's Prayer!). AnonMoos (talk) 06:22, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The mainly-SF blog 'Making Light' has a traditional posting of Luke 2:1-14 or 20 in multiple languages or historic versions each Christmas Day. | Here's the 2013 version, with English (Anglo-Saxon, Wycliffe 1382, Tyndale 1530, Coverdale 1535, King James 1611), Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Latin Vulgate, Gothic, Lallans Scots, Swedish (2000, 1917, and 1541), Dutch (1637), Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Icelandic, German (Luther 1545), Quenya(!), Jamaican Creole, Amharic (if you have the right fonts), and in the links, Maori, Galego, Gronings Dutch, Limburgs, Old Georgian, Schwäbisch, Tagalog, Hawaiian, Irish, Turkish, Welsh (modern spoken, 1588, and 1988), Arabic, and Armenian. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 11:57, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there any basis for this part? Or was it chosen by accident?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 03:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Does "maximum of grammatical features" include every part of speech, every grammatical gender, every grammatical number, every grammatical case, every grammatical person, every grammatical tense, every grammatical aspect, every grammatical mood, every grammatical voice, every degree of comparison, and every sentence type, to the extent possible and relevant?
 * —Wavelength (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2014 (UTC) and 14:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not expecting much, but the more, the better.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 03:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Please note that the King James Bible renders a part of Luke 2:14 incorrectly as "on earth peace, good will toward men" (and some other versions are similar), whereas "ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας" (Greek: Westcott and Hort 1881) and "in terra pax in hominibus bonae voluntatis" (Latin: Biblia Sacra Vulgata) mean "on earth peace among men of good will".
 * —Wavelength (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * "Of good will" may be more literal, but what does it actually mean? While in English "men of good will" implies that the men have good will towards each other, it also seems reasonable to interpret εὐδοκίας as meaning "of the good will shown by God", an interpretation taken by some recent respected translations, e.g. NRSV: "peace among those whom he favours"; NIV: "peace to those on whom his favor rests.” There also seem to be some differences among the Greek manuscripts. Lesgles (talk) 00:13, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Jehovah’s Witnesses have published similar information at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001744.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 04:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Elders and language
I suspect that elders hold a significantly different vocabulary compared to that of young people; the words that we use have different meanings for them (though I am not absolutely certain). Do you lot already have a topic that discusses how elders use language? --66.190.99.112 (talk) 05:04, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Are you talking about the size of the vocabulary, or about slang? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * And what's an elder? Someone over 30? HiLo48 (talk) 08:11, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * There is a definitive upper limit. Tevildo (talk) 15:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * If anything, there should be an article on how ignorant younger people have destroyed the language. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:14, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Age-graded variation seems to be the appropriate topic in linguistics, though the article doesn't seem very comprehensive. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:37, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the more common difference is that the elderly use different words for the same things. My grandmother, for example, referred to trousers, spigots, and spectacles, rather than pants, faucets, and glasses.  The elderly just naturally continue to use the words which were common when they learned the language. StuRat (talk) 12:21, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * That would be the apparent-time hypothesis. Deor (talk) 12:33, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It's groovy. It's hep. It's the bee's knees. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:40, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Vinyl records were groovy, but CDs are just the pits. StuRat (talk) 13:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * "elders" is probably not the correct word for what you want to say. It does not just mean old people, it has special connotations of place in society, wisdom, etc. The role of "elder" does not exist in most Western societies. 86.128.4.206 (talk) 00:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * See euphemism treadmill. "Elder" is the euphemism after (or possibly before?) "senior". Tevildo (talk) 19:10, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Letter Wood
Apparently, the Demerara River and the province of Guyana named after it got their name from a local word for the "letter wood" that grew nearby. Does any one know what in the world "letter wood" is? Rojomoke (talk) 10:17, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * According to this site, "Letterwood" is Brosimum guianense, "so called from the wood's letterlike markings". Tevildo (talk) 10:23, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Here's a pic of the wood, looking like it has some words written on it in some unknown alphabet: . StuRat (talk) 14:07, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I goggled "letter wood" and got lots of hits about wooden letters.  I didn't think to try "letterwood".  Rojomoke (talk) 16:55, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It might be an idea to remove the space from the "Demerara" article - the native name presumably means "river of the ", rather than the separate English (or Dutch) words "letter" and "wood". But this is probably for the article talk page. Tevildo (talk) 17:18, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * This type of tree nomenclature can also be found in cottonwood, lacewood and buttonwood, but I can't think of an Old World example. Alansplodge (talk) 20:10, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Is "Thy will be done" grammatically correct?
I don't understand this grammar. Even the modern version, "Your will be done", doesn't really conjugate the verb. Why is it correct or acceptable? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 16:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It's an archaic use of the English subjunctive. Nowadays we would add may thy name be hallowed, may thy kingdom come. μηδείς (talk) 17:08, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * In Matthew 6:10, the word "will" is a noun.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 17:17, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed. A clearer version might be "May thy bidding be done". StuRat (talk) 18:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * "Thy will" is the subject of the sentence. "Be done" is the verb. In this case, the "be" is an old subjunctive form indicating a wish or expectation. The more usual way to express this in modern grammar (substituting "your" for "thy") would be "May your will be done" or "Let your will be done", or in simpler English, "May what you want be done" or "Let what you want be done". Marco polo (talk) 00:01, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

What does it mean "I was born at a very young age" ?
What does it mean "I was born at a very young age" ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goforit138 (talk • contribs) 17:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It is a joke. Consider the alternative. μηδείς (talk) 17:10, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Here is the alternative. StuRat (talk) 18:39, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * And an old joke at that. Bill Cosby's 1960s album titled "I Started Out As a Child". Or Chico Marx, in Duck Soup, asked when he was born: "I don't remember. I was just a little-a baby." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Which is actually a very pertinent point when debating a subject's date of birth, for which refer to innumerable debates on WP talk pages. People often say things such as: "The guy has his birth date on his website, for *** sake, how much more official can you get than that?".  To which others, such as me, retort: "People are not reliable sources about their own birth dates. Whatever he says about this is what he's been told by his parents and/or read on his birth certificate, but NOT what he can personally testify to.  He was certainly present at his own birth, but only by definition, because he was not exactly in a position to note the date and time or provide any other details of the circumstances of the delivery. Plus, who can say he hasn't fudged the date for reasons of vanity or whatever?".  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of the major league pitcher Dizzy Dean, who gave three different versions of his birth information to three different reporters. His defense was, "I wanted to give each o' them fellas an exclusive story!" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:14, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * And I'm sure that Wikipedia would gladly accept any one of those three reporters' articles as a reliable source. —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 23:44, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Which is why in 2008 I initiated a discussion on Talk:Dizzy Dean about the conflicting sources, not just for his date of birth but also his place of birth and his birth name; there's no final resolution yet. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  01:53, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I knew this sounded familiar. I've looked at the census records for his early years, but all they call him is "Jay", and of course with only approximate birth year. Which is probably what I did the last time this came up. The only way to know for sure would be to track down his birth certificate, which might or might not be publicly available, depending on Arkansas law. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That's assuming he was born in Arkansas, and not Mississippi or Oklahoma. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:29, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the censuses said Arkansas, but I know from experience that census data is not gospel, it's merely a guideline. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

A side note: Throughout the ages, an urban legend has persisted that the Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu was born an old man. (Most likely, a homograph gave rise to this misconception.)

The glyphs constituting his name, 老子, literally mean "old master," but can also mean "old child."

Pine (talk) 05:38, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't forget his cousin Lhotse, an old mountain man. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * 老 is actually a term of endearment, very similar to how we say 'old friend' in English. It is also a term of respect, so 老外 does not mean 'old outsider' (the term Chinese use for foreigners), as many people believe - I lived in China when I was a kid, and I was still called 老外, even by people older than me. Similarly, 子 is also a term of endearment. Of course, literally it means 'child', but it also means 'someone who is learning', and hence 'a person of learning'. It's also the same, however, as calling him Bart instead of Bartholemew.

Difference between [i̯] and [j]
What is the different between [i̯] and [j] when used as a glide? --2.245.67.97 (talk) 17:33, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * If intended to represent a real consonantal sound, then [i̯] would be just an unnecessarily elaborate way of writing [j]. When writing the second half of a falling-sonority diphthong, using [j] is not really standard IPA practice (though in some languages such a diphthong could be analyzed as containing a phonemic consonant)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:52, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * So if the sound is not the nucleus of the syllable, [i̯] is more appropriate? You mentioned that some languages still use [j], I found that on Wiktionary for the Spanish ending -cia. I don't see the difference between Spanish and German, the latter uses [i̯] more. Or is it just a habit in the respective languages? --2.245.201.243 (talk) 00:08, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

How do I tranlsate JSTOR pdf files?
Uploading the pdf to Google Translate results in gobbledygook because words like "l'ingéniosité" are rendered as "L'ing?niosit?". It seems obvious the problem is converting to plain text first, before translation, but that doesn't work either. At least one website recommends using something called the "Paper Capture Plugin" in the paid version of Acrobat, but it isn't clear if this will work. Does anyone know how to proceed? I'm surprised this is a problem. Surely, someone knows how to translate JSTOR documents? Viriditas (talk) 22:42, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I downloaded a JSTOR PDF document containing the word "ingéniosité" and uploaded it to Google Translate and it worked (or the translation contained the word "ingenuity", at least).
 * PDFs of scanned documents usually contain both the scanned bitmap and an OCR text "underlay". If there's a mistake in the OCR text, it won't be visible when reading the document in a PDF viewer but will be visible when converting to plain text. The only solutions are to correct the mistakes manually or redo the OCR. It looks like the Paper Capture Plugin will redo the OCR. There are free alternatives, but someone else will have to recommend one because I have no experience with this. -- BenRG (talk) 03:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * please try this article and tell me what happens. It's from 1953; was the pdf you tried to translate more recent? Viriditas (talk) 03:30, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you would be more likely to find a solution on a computer help forum which covers software incompatibility issues involving character set encodings. AnonMoos (talk) 07:32, 1 September 2014 (UTC)