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

= May 31 =

Chinese tones
Hi, the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wV8B4bx1lM (see e.g. section at 7:50) explains four Mandarin tones as high flat tone, rising tone, low flat tone, falling tone. Other places, such as Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Tones have a down-up "V-shaped" tone instead of the low flat tone. Why the difference? 86.183.31.9 (talk) 00:33, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * From the Standard Chinese phonology section you linked to above: "Third tone, low or dipping tone (上 shǎng, literal meaning: "rising")...has a mid-low to low descent; if at the end of a sentence or before a pause, it is then followed by a rising pitch. Between other tones it may simply be low." Hope that answers your question.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 00:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, the video does seem anomalous in that the main presentation of the tone is as a flat tone. This seems contrary to all other explanations I have seen, in which the main or initial presentation of the tone is "V-shaped". If you search Google Images for "Chinese tones", for instance, every single picture looks essentially like the one in Wikipedia, and none look like the one in the video. On the other hand the woman in the video appears to be a native speaker, and teacher of some kind, at least she has lots of lessons on YouTube, so it puzzles me a bit. 86.183.31.9 (talk) 02:41, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * One way to think of it is like this. The v shape is correct. Tone 3 is a falling, low, then rising tone. But whenever it appears next to a higher tone the initial falling and final rising gets swamped by the higher tone. And as you never hear two low tones next to each other (the first is always changed to tone 2), and as all other tones are higher, this always happens. You only hear the low part of it, and you think of it as a low tone. The exception is when the low tone is at the start or end; only then can you hear the initial fall or the rise. So there's no contradiction, it's just that in normal speech there's no difference, except at the start and end of speaking.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 03:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * John gives a good explanation. If it helps, you can think of it as a type of tone allophone (I see "allotone" in that article although with Mandarin's neutral tone given as an example). In that case it's not surprising that the native speaker doesn't differentiate between them. As it says in the allophone article, "(n)ative speakers of a given language usually perceive one phoneme in their language as a single distinctive sound in that language and are "both unaware of and even shocked by" the allophone variations used to pronounce single phonemes."--William Thweatt TalkContribs 04:43, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Or, more precisely, Tone sandhi.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 17:06, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Would you say this the same way?
I have here a book published in Great Britain in 1902. The title is "Modern Spiritualism: A History and A Criticism." This phrase bothers me. It does not roll off the tongue. I would prefer it changed into either: "Modern Spiritualism: History and Criticism" (both indefinite articles dropped) or: "Modern Spiritualism: The History and Criticism."

I am no language expert and don't know rules. My perception is intuitive. I read and the usage sticks in my mind. Reading something that essentially reflects English usage at the end of the 19th century I often notice that they used articles differently. It seems there were other standards. Is it correct or I am confused? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:53, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The title is fine as written. Both your suggestions would work too. It's just a matter of preference.  Calidum  Talk To Me 03:07, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I would guess that the author was just being modest in not claiming to write the definitive history or the final criticism. Use of definite articles in the title sounds slightly pompous to me (it might be appropriate for use by a highly respected authority on the subject), but either indefinite or no articles sound fine.  Titles of a hundred years ago tended (on average) to be slightly longer and less "snappy", though there are many notable exceptions.    D b f i r s   06:27, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The second "A" seems redundant, so I'd drop that. If anything should be concise, a title should. StuRat (talk) 06:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Harlan Ellison once wrote a story called Out Near the Funicular Center of the Universe the Wine has been Left Open Too Long and the Memory has Gone Flat. --Trovatore (talk) 07:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Was it a short story? If so, he used half his quota of words in the title.  (I exaggerate, of course.  Interesting people often do.) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't agree that the second a is redundant, but it does suggest that the book is in two distinct parts. —Tamfang (talk) 05:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Non-verbal languages
Are there any natural languages that are non-speaking, as in, writing-only languages? YeastyTrains (talk) 15:59, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The simple answer to your question is Yes, there are plenty of sign languages, such as ASL, BSL etc. Tne question about writing-only languages is more complicated, and depends on what you mean by a language. There are languages such as Latin and Sanskrit which were never the native idiom of anybody (they were very similar to vernacular languages of their time, but they were codified into something a bit different); but they have nevertheless been spoken at various times, so they probably don't meet your criterion. Note that spoken or gestural languages seem to be something that people spontaneously develop (or at least, have an innate capacity to learn) which is not true, as far as we know, of written languages. --ColinFine (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * What do you mean about Latin? By the end of the Republic, the spoken form (Vulgar Latin) and the conservative written form (Classical Latin) apparently had deeply diverged, but are you saying the latter never was spoken natively?  (Disregarding differences analogous to those between spoken and written varieties of English, or any other language.) —Tamfang (talk) 05:46, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am. From what I've read, the difference between the literary language and the vernacular was quite a bit greater than the corresponding varieties of written English. Terence and Petronius use bits of Vulgar Latin in their plays, and both the syntax and the accidence are somewhat different. (This is about the limit of my knowledge of this - and I've lent my copy of Baldi's The History of Latin to somebody, so I can't check up). --ColinFine (talk) 08:54, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * All that shows is that the two had diverged a bit earlier than I thought. —Tamfang (talk) 21:51, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * There are also Whistled languages and Talking drums. The are usually based on tones of a spoken language, though, so may not technically qualify as "non-speaking".--William Thweatt TalkContribs 17:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * or "natural". —Tamfang (talk) 05:46, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

The issue with a written only language is that, to my knowledge, all communities on earth have verbal language of some sort. It would shock me if there were races of people who only wrote to communicate. So, any written only language is likely to be considered to be a written form of the spoken language of the people using it. I suppose you could say that Braille is a written only language in that is used by people who speak multiple languages and is therefore isn't just a written form of English or any specific language. If you count raised bumps as "writing" that is. Bali88 (talk) 22:28, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Braille, however, isn't a language, but a code/vehicle of a language, much in the same way Morse code, Cued speech, and Signing Exact English aren't languages (the most former being a visual, auditory, or tactile way of communicating, the two latter being two vastly different methods of coding primarily spoken languages to be understood visually). Braille, like speech or writing, is not itself a language but simply a way to deliver one. - Purplewowies (talk) 07:24, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * What's the difference? All language, spoken or otherwise, is a set of symbols used to communicate abstract ideas to another person. I'm not sure what the difference is between that set of codes and a formal "language". Bali88 (talk) 16:16, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * If you're arguing that Braille is a written-only language because it's used by people who speak multiple languages then you may as well argue the Latin alphabet is a written-only language. It may be used by people in different languages but it's merely a way to present letters (and sometimes digraphs, frequently occurring words and other symbols) in a tangible as opposed to a visual form. An English-speaker who reads Braille can only read Braille written in English unless he learns both another language and the Braille conventions for that language - see French Braille, English Braille, German Braille etc. Valiantis (talk) 21:54, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh okay, I see what you're saying. Bali88 (talk) 22:55, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Chinese is, sensu stricto, a written-only language. Unfortunately, the entire question of the nature of the Chinese languages is so politicised (and has been for centuries) that you won't get any sense out of a Chinese-speaker on this. RomanSpa (talk) 06:10, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Possessive grammar issue
At Przevalski's nuthatch, a user has changed the opening sentence from
 * "Przevalski's nuthatch (Sitta przewalskii)..." to
 * "The Przevalski's nuthatch (Sitta przewalskii)..."

The addition of "the" is painful to my ear because in normal grammar we would never put an article before a possessive like this. In short, it sounds as strange to me as "The Einstein's theory of relativity is..." On the other hand, I recognize that the possessive here is actually part and parcel of the name phrase itself, and so could be viewed as really no different than "The bald eagle is..." Is there any formal guidance on this grammatical foible?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The change looks correct to me. You wouldn't write "Bald eagle is a bird of prey", would you? It's no different here. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The species is referred to as though it belongs to its eponym; no article is required. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * That seems to beg the question. Yes, of course we wouldn't write "Bald eagle is a bird of prey", but that construction lacks the possessive that normally would bar prefixing an article if it wasn't part of a noun phrase. We also wouldn't write "Theory of Everything is" but we would write "Moore's law is" (and never "The Moore's law is"). Why is it different here?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that both are allowable (with and without article) in this case, so there's no particular need to change one to the other... AnonMoos (talk) 01:14, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I suppose the editor who added the "The" was wanting to avoid random readers thinking the article was about a specific nuthatch owned by a certain Przevalski. IMO, that was an unnecessarily pedantic change; if there really were a notable single specimen of nuthatch, it most likely would have its own name (e.g. Freddy (nuthatch)) and not be referred to as the property of its owner, regardless of its owner's name.  Alternatively, if their logic was that all animal names should start with "The", then their tin ear to the nuances of English is evident. I agree that "The Przevalski's nuthatch" sounds as foreign as "the Blanford's fruit bat","the Jackson's hornbill", "the Hose's frog", "the Donaldson Smith's Nightjar", "the Gillett's lark" or probably hundreds of other creatures eponymically and possessively named after their discoverer or describer. (I note that "The" has been removed from Przevalski's nuthatch, but not from Gillett's lark.)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I will take the lack of any of you learned people digging up a formal rule here as confirmation that it's at least not obvious the "correction" was proper and would have taken this as a platform to revert (even though it's already been done by another).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:41, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Word most liable to cause offense
What is the most offensive word in the English language? Nerdy Pop 3 (talk) 22:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I would tend to doubt whether degree of offensiveness can be independent of context, which would mean that one word can't always be most offensive in all situations... AnonMoos (talk) 01:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * That correlates with something an English teacher once told a class I was in: "Meanings are not in words; meanings are in people." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:40, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * According to both surveys cited in, cunt was the most offensive in Britain in 2000 and New Zealand in 2009. includes http://onlineslangdictionary.com/lists/most-vulgar-words/ (American, English, and Urban slang) which has cunt a close third behind felch and skullfuck. This UK article suggests that ethnic slurs such as nigger are now deemed more offensive. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:19, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I am sorry, but that result is quite silly. Skullfuck is certainly no more offensive than just fuck.  Felch will be meaningless to more than 99% of the population, and more disgusting than insulting in such cases.  Cunt is by far the worst word you can use in American English.  You wouldn't use queef in mixed company either, but it is not understood in all dialects, and again is more icky than insulting. μηδείς (talk) 21:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Explanation - new one to me. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Certain queef and cunt are terribly vulgar and I wouldn't use them except in the very limited of company, but I don't necessarily view them as offensive. Bali88 (talk) 22:06, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * The http://onlineslangdictionary.com/lists/most-vulgar-words/ allows visitors to vote for the words; I doubt it would be acceptable as reliable source for an article. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I'd say the "N" word easily wins the race in America. Bali88 (talk) 22:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Here's a specific example of racial insults being deemed worse than other terms. (I've added the emphasis):
 * I suspect that the Profanity article needs updating to reflect the current tendency to treat racial terms as more offensive. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)


 * According to Wayne's World, "mung" is the worst thing there is, and you really don't want to get it at Halloween. Since that (apparently) only exists as a word, it has my vote for the worst word there is. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:31, 2 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Calling someone "a silly old cunt" in Australian English, while hardly a compliment, is not generally seen as obscene. "Smart cunt" is ambiguous. It could be either a compliment or an insult. HiLo48 (talk) 02:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It depends on the tone, context and relationship of the two people. Hack (talk) 10:09, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Not in the US. cunt and queef are words boys learn on the street from other boys, they never use unless their girlfriends are of the talk dirty type (I have never understood that) and which would never be used in the household or between family of different generations.  Nigg#r and all the rest come nowhere near this taboo. μηδείς (talk) 19:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)