Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 April 28

= April 28 =

V:C: structure in Proto-Germanic
I have a question concerning the possible syllable structures in Proto-Germanic. In Old Norse, there are four types: VC, V:C, VC:, and V:C: (f.e. heri, hár, marr, sétt). I know that there is also VC, V:C, and VC: in Proto-Germanic (f.e. abô, līką, blukką). I can't find any V:C: syllables, however. Do they exist and are they just very rare or are they entirely absent? Berdsilo (talk) 08:57, 28 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Your question is a little confusing,, since you don't mention consonant initials. Do you include CV:C?  Opening Vladimir Orel's Handbook of Germanic Etymology at random I find *blĩþjanan "to show mercy" and a host of other such roots where *blīþ- or another such form is the obvious stem.  There are, for the obvious reasons, no stems with initial long a, but there are a dozen or so in long o, including *õbjanan "work, religious celebration" and *ōxstaz "armpit, throat".  (Note, Orel uses a barred b, presumably meaning a form like /β/, although I can't find a barred b to use here.) μηδείς (talk) 19:06, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * My question is whether there exist syllable structures with a long vowel directly followed by a geminate consonant in Proto-Germanic, regardless of the initial consonant of the word. So, would words like "*ōssaz", "*lēttą", or "*sēttiz" be possible words in Proto-Germanic? Berdsilo (talk) 20:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, I didn't see your second colon, you really should use slashes. Does it have to be perfect geminates?  I'll check tomorrow. μηδείς (talk) 02:55, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * , see Lehmann's free Grammar of Proto-Germanic. μηδείς (talk) 04:05, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there a full downloadable version of this? KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 19:14, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I downloaded it section by section from Austin at the link I gave (didn't take that long) and pasted it together in word. Try this search. The hint is always search for name, title in quotes, and +pdf: Lehmann "Grammar of Proto-Germanic" +pdf to specifically find a pdf form.  Scribd allows a one month trial membership, just make sure you cancel on the 29th day, or they'll charge your credit card.  Or just email me (I have a lot of comparative stuff on say Sino-Tibetan and the Australian languages that people have made publicly available) but if kagetora is not in your email mention who you are. μηδείς (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * having checked Lehmann, he doesn't address possible syllable forms of PG. He does mention the phenomenon of sharpening which occured in ON and Gothic, ON bryggia "bridge", but that would seem to split the geminates down the middle, bryg-gia. μηδείς (talk) 17:41, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Does Upper Right Hand Page Bias Apply to Non-Western Scripts
There is a truism in advertising, which I assume is intuitively obvious to those who use top-to-bottom left-to-right scripts; the upper right hand corner of illustrated pages draws the reader's attention first. This is why we have infoboxes on the top right of our articles.

I am curious, does the same bias apply in languages that use right-to-left scripts, like Arabic and Hebrew? Or in other scripts that don't follow the Latin/Greek/Cyrillic type layout? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Judging by Google, the answer's "no".  Somebody, or more than one person, has been round changing the Google Chrome browser on computers to Hebrew.   Nobody can change them back to English.   Any advice here?   Everything is mirror image, but you get used to it like driving on the right when you're abroad.   The language doesn't stump me because I can still see that CTRL+C is the copy tab for example, even though the language is incomprehensible.   One good thing, the URLS still run in the right direction. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 17:41, 29 April 2015 (UTC)