Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 March 7

= March 7 =

Iranic
Is there a website that shows a sentence in English and its translation in different languages of Iranian languages family: Persian, Tajik, Pashto, Lur, Kurdish, Dari Persian, Gilaki, Mazandarani, and Baloch for example "I am black", "I am twenty-four years old" and it comes with an audio sample to understand? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.80 (talk) 01:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * See http://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm#ie and follow the links to the pages for the specific languages, where each language has a passage from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). See the full text of the UDHR in English at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/, and versions in other languages by following the links from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Slavic
Is there a website that shows a sentence in English and its translation in different languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Polish for example "I am old", "I am twenty-four years old" and etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.80 (talk) 01:07, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * See http://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm#ie and follow the links to the pages for the specific languages, where each language has a passage from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). See the full text of the UDHR in English at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/, and versions in other languages by following the links from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You left out Rusyn as well as Kashubian and Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian, and there's no such thing as the Bosnian language. μηδείς (talk) 02:35, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Funny that, 'cos that article you linked to says "Bosnian is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina,[6] along with Croatian and Serbian." Are you taking issue with that statement? --Viennese Waltz 08:12, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You quote the second sentence after skipping the first; it's simply a variety of Serbo-Croatian. Nyttend (talk) 12:00, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Except that Bosnia has an army and a navy, which means that Bosnian must be a different language. -- Jayron  32  12:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Tell a Bosniak that he's speaking Serbo-Croatian and he will rightly take offence. As far as he's concerned, he's speaking Bosnian. --Viennese Waltz 08:05, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * See for a take on language in Bosnia... AnonMoos (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * P.S. Bosnia barely touches the coast, so I doubt there's much of a navy... AnonMoos (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Too shay. -- Jayron  32  18:50, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Rusinski gets 1,480k ghits. Bozanski get 43k ghits.  See buffer state and European Union.  The sad shame is that Bosnia is basically the land between Serbia and Croatia which neither could annex with impunity.  Except for the exclave of Serbs around Banja Luka, the land would probably have been entirely split between the two as a settlement of the war.  Even now it is split in two, between a nominal Bosnia and Herzegovina and a telling "Republika Srpska".  There's no linguistic or cultural unity that corresponds to this product of the Dayton Agreement. μηδείς (talk) 22:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Arabic dialects comparison website with audio sample
Is there a website where there is a sentence in English and its translation in Standard Arabic and its different dialects: Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Saudi, Omani, Yemeni, Emirati, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan, Libyan, Sudanese, Comorian, and Mauritanian for example give me 90 grams of almond nuts, I am twenty-four years old and its come with an audio sample? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.80 (talk) 01:19, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You've been given answers above for other languages. The websites you were told about above would work for these (and any other random languages you intend to ask us about next).  -- Jayron  32  02:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note that this question was asked 18 minutes before anyone responded up above. Nyttend (talk) 12:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Although editors may find these repetitive questions problematic, we have not, in fact, offered a suitable answer for this question. The Omniglot site linked above does not offer texts in different Arabic dialects, only in standard Arabic. Our own Varieties of Arabic lists several phrases side-by-side in several Arabic dialects.  Marco polo (talk) 14:05, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is a video showing different Arabic dialects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEjGATxtjhE --Soman (talk) 00:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I counted 31 varieties of Arabic at http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/, but that website apparently presents mostly words and phrases, and pronunciation is not available at this time (http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/faq.htm#pronounce).
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There is Global Recordings Network.—Wavelength (talk) 03:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The Lonely Planet has its phrase-books in some Arabic dialects: Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf. The good side of these they all have the identical list of phrases in all languages (no advertisement). The bad side they all have very bad transcription "for absolute dummies". It would be much better if they use at least ISO or ALA-LC, not to mention the IPA.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:54, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * However, I would assume that ISO and ALA-LC would be geared towards Classical Arabic... AnonMoos (talk) 14:22, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

does anyone really say pot-ah-to
There's a famous song that goes "I say to-may-to, you say to-mah-to." I have actually met people that say to-mah-to. But what about the second line? Does anyone really say pot-ah-to in an unselfconscious, non-joking way? Evidence, Youtube links, etc. would be welcome.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 01:20, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Just for the sake of links: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" is the song, and that article does have something on pronunciation at the time (2nd paragraph), though nothing on potato. ---Sluzzelin talk  01:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The word "potato" comes from "patata", so it's possible that it was pronounced "po-tah-to" at some point, but like the OP, I've never heard it said that way apart from that song. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The source is a Carib word, batata, "sweet potato". Whether it ever rhymed with mulatto is up to the lyricist. μηδείς (talk) 02:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * "To-mah-to" (/təˈmɑːtəʊ/) is the standard pronunciation in the UK, and I've never heard "to-may-to" (/təˈmeɪtoʊ/) except in American films. [The ʊ is often omitted in both versions.] The pronunciation "po-tah-to" is not used anywhere that I know about, and is just a joke based on the pondian difference for tomato. Potato rhymes with "Plato" and NATO everywhere [except for the omission of the final ʊ] doesn't it?    D b f i r s   09:08, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * There's the Scottish 'tattie' -- Q Chris (talk) 09:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh yes, we also have that dialect word too, but we pronounce it with a long vowel: "tatie" (/teɪtɪ/ or /teɪtə/).   D b f i r s   10:05, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The Scots go with /tætɪ/. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Or "tater" in a number of English dialects. Alansplodge (talk) 13:09, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not convinced that the Scots use the æ vowel (despite Collins). Wiktionary says ['tate]|['tɔ:te] for the Scots pronunciation.  Perhaps we have some speakers of Scottish English who can clarify?    D b f i r s   16:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd transcribe the second unstressed vowel as /ɘ/ to distinguish from the /e(ː)/ (RP /eɪ/), though traditionally they're transcribed similarly. And /ɔ/ is rather short. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The Scottish "tattie" is a homophone of "tatty". A quick look at Help:IPA for English shows that æ is correct but International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects suggests ɐ̟ for the Scottish vowel (I'm not Scottish but I had a Glaswegian grandmother). The southern English "tater" uses eɪ (rhymes with "waiter"). Alansplodge (talk) 19:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I knew and I agree (though such a precision [ɐ̟ ] is not so necessary as the vowel can have many allophones). I've just raised an objection to tatt[e] which sounds a little exaggerated Scottish pronunciation for me.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Alansplodge (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * As far as U.S. sources go, Webster's Third and Kenyon and Knott only have variations on po-tay-toh, nothing like po-tah-toh. However both have "tomato" with ah as well as ay.--Cam (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Given the original Nahuatl language for tomato is tomatl, it seems evident this has been converging with potato < batata. Tobacco is derived either from Arabic tabbaq "herb" or Haitian Taino tambaku to smoke a pipe. μηδείς (talk) 20:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Writing correct English. Just some minor help.
As seen in the last sentence below, can one write that all those attributes "goes in favour" of Henry? Is that correct or wrong English? As you can no doubt see, what I am trying to tell here is simply that father considers Henry as better than William at all those things mentioned. I did not find a way of saying it that I liked, and I'm not even sure if I can use that phrase "goes in favour" in this case. - "In response to William’s persisting attempts to be made heir their father had, a short time before he passed away, made a list where he set the two brothers up against each other to tell their strengths and weaknesses. Fighting-skills, courage, leadership, determination, moral, fairness and loyalty were among the many attributes that he considered going in Henry's favour." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.247.62.59 (talk) 19:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The part you are worried about is fine - but the first sentence needs a bit of tweaking: the word is "persistent" not "persisting. I think you need a comma after "heir". The word "tell" is OK but would be better as "discern" or "determine" or "outline". Hope this helps. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Persistent/persisting, silly mistake easy to make.. But thnx for pointing it out. Your answer was very helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.247.62.59 (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * (In addition to TammyMoet's suggestions), in the second sentence, moral is an adjective among a list of nouns and should be changed to morality (or deleted since it's covered by concepts already listed); also remove the hyphen from fighting-skills. Apart from that, going in Henry's favour does seem a little awkward, and would be better rendered as, to be in Henry's favour.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 02:18, 9 March 2014 (UTC)