Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 February 17

= February 17 =

Gars and Sharks?
The accepted etymology of the very sharp-toothed predatory fresh water gar is the PIE root *ghaiso-, meaning "spear". But the word carchar- is accepted as meaning "sharp (toothed)/maneating shark" in Greek. Is it possible there is a root *ghar- (PIE or not) connecting the two terms? See Reference desk/Science. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I took the liberty of fixing your link. An offshoot - you mention the root "ghaiso". In German, the word for fish is Fisch and the word for shark is Hai or Haifisch. Might that root be the source of the German word? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I cannot answer your question, but according to Wiktionary's entry on χάρτης the Ancient Greek χαράσσω (to scratch, to inscribe) is connected to PIE *ǵʰer- which it translates as "to scratch". The entry in Wiktionary's PIE-appendix I linked to gives "to enclose" for *ǵʰer-. So, ...  (Also, I'm not even sure κάρχαρος is related to χαράσσω, I only found something in Wilhelm Pape's Griechisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch which is obviously not the latest in linguistics. — Bugs, Wiktionary has something on the etymology of "Hai"). ---Sluzzelin  talk  19:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm royally pissed off now. Whenever I tried to use "gar" as a word in Scrabble, my dictionary told me there was no such word, the marine creature actually being a "garfish".  So I got the message and stopped going down that path.  Time for a new dictionary, methinks.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Bugs, the usual development of *ghar- in Greek would be *khar-, and, according to Grassman's Law a reduplicated form would lose the aspiration (the h) in the first syllable. So *ghar-ghar- would become καρχαρ- ("carchar-" when latinised).  In Germanic, the normal development would be PIE *ghar- > PG *gar-.  And PIE *ghaisos would become proto-Germanic *gaizaz with intervovallic z > r and final z lost in Western Germanic, giving the *ger- root for spear which shows up in the name of Germany itself. EO.  PIE *gh- does change to h- in Latin, and there are other exceptions, but they are usually explained as dialect borrowings.


 * Sluzzelin, that just makes me think all the more that carcharos is a reduplictaed form meaning bite-bite.


 * Jack, I am surprised your dictionary has this lack, in America I have seen these fish on occasion; they frequesnt the banks of slow streams and freshwater lakes, near the edge where they can see you through the refraction of the water's surface, and they are always called gars, never garfish. (See German Walfisch.) μηδείς (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I must be losing my mind. I've just consulted my dictionary, the same trusty one I've been using since 1975, and there it is, "gar", large as life, as a noun with 3 meanings, and also a transitive verb.  "Garfish" is a separate entry. I swear I've checked this multiple times previously and "gar" was never there.  Thanks for the enlightenment.  (I've recently entered the hallowed halls of grandparenthood; I blame everything on that now.)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Don't worry, it is simply due to the fact that garfish comes before gar alphabetically. μηδείς (talk) 00:17, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Not usually. I actually prefer to go from the back of the dictionary forward, though, so for me it would. StuRat (talk) 17:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll have to check to see if there's a cognate in any of the other Eurasiatic languages for gar. The words squalus and whale have cognates meaning large fish, (Finnish kala, Turkish ''balıq') clear across siberia to Eskimo, where iqaluk means "salmon" μηδείς (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Gar meaning spear is in garlic -gar-leek and in Roger -hrothgar. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:50, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Iqaluk can mean a fish in the salmonid family such as the Arctic char, also known as an iqalukpik (same external as before) or lake trout also known as ihuuqiq (same external as before). But it can also be a generic name for any fish. And of course a salmon can be called an iqalukpik. But there are other names as well for the trout and char never mind the Arctic grayling. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 04:35, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks Itsmejudith and CBW. What I am wondering is, is there a KAR like word in any language of northern Eurasia besides "gar" which means something like predatory fish.  By capitalizing the consonants, I mean to indicate phonetically similar sound sequences, like /qor/ /har/ or /ger/.  It's entirely possible that, as conventionally assumed, gar(fish) and Ger(many) are cognates with the word for spear as part of their base.  That would be the null hypothesis.  But it is also possible the connection is a coincidence and a folk etymology.  PIE has plenty of homophones.  Maybe there were two roots, one meaning garfish and one meaning spear that were conflated because the garfish is spearshaped.  See folk etymology and false etymology for cases where this has happened.  Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 02:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably a coincidence, but 'ika' means 'squid' in Japanese. KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 08:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . Having looked it up, the suggested Altaic cognate in Japanese is kara "plaice". μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's actually 'akagarei' (with the 'aka' meaning 'red') KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 20:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes? That still works as a possible cognate, given many g's in Japanese originate from a k that is in intervocalic position, and what you are suggesting is a compound of two roots.  proto-Macro-Altaic (Turkic, Mongol, Tungusic, Korean, Japonic) is supposed to be as old as or older then PIE.  If PIE can give
 * Avestan: kara- `a mythical fish'
 * Old Greek: áspalos = ikhtǘs (Athaman.) Hsch.; aspaliéu̯-s 'angler'
 * Baltic: *kal-[a]- m.
 * Germanic: *xwal-a-
 * Latin: squalus
 * Then Altaic's turkic bal I k, Mongolian xol and (aka)-garei seem unproblematic.  But I am still interested in the English "gar", which would imply a root like *ghar- if it were not related to the word "spear" found in Al Gore or Germany. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure if this is relevant, but bulls can 'gore' people. This, however, may be a loanword from French. KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 07:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Etymonline says c.1400, from Scottish gorren "to pierce, stab," origin unknown, perhaps related to Old English gar "spear" (see gar, also gore (n.2) "triangular piece of ground"). KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 07:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the roots dealing with stabbing and spears, gore v., German, etc., are derived from a PIE root *ghaisos where an intervocalic /s/ often becomes an /r/ in Germanic. The word gear is also related.  The normal assumption is that gar as in fish comes from it's spearlike shape: "spearfish".  But it is also possible gar comes from a separate root, and that the association with a spear is just a folk etymology based on the name. μηδείς (talk) 19:33, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Human languages
I once asked the BBC- Post Mark Africa- this question, and I am going to ask again. Suppose two dumb People are isolated lets say an island where there are less contact with normal people, but are provided with all human needs and are left to bear children. can their children also be dumb, gesticulate like their parents? If they can be normal and can speak, can they develop their own speech or languages?12:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)12:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Momoh G. Musa (talk • contribs)
 * Nicaraguan Sign Language answers the second part of your question. As for whether the children of these two hypothetical non-speaking people would also be unable to speak would be depend on a number of factors, one of which would be a genetic link to their parents' deafness. It's likely that the children would start off in life using their parents' sign language, and then gradually develop their own 'ideolects'. If they can hear and speak, it's possible that a spoken language would arise, but I guess it would take at least a few generations for that to happen, as the original children would not have used spoken language - not having been taught to - and therefore would not regard it as a normal method of communication, as they already have sign language. KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 13:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It's hard to find a direct answer to the question, because it almost never happens that a group of children are exposed to no spoken language at all. However, there is a related phenomenon that might be of interest.  When a group of adults who share no common language are put together and forced to communicate as best they can, they tend to develop a pidgin, which is a very simplified form of language, with a small vocablulary and very crude grammar.  In the next generation after a pidgin is formed, it develops into a creole language, a fully complex language with a sophisticated grammar.  This "creolization" is done spontaneously by the children who grow up learning the pidgin form -- the adults who formed the pidgin never do learn to speak the creole properly.  So the inference is that whether or not children have a capability of inventing a spoken language from scratch, they do have an innate capability for elaborating a grammar.  (Derek Bickerton has written extensively about this process.) Looie496 (talk) 14:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Some content at feral child may be relevant. --70.49.169.244 (talk) 19:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Poto and Cabengo might also be of interest. KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 07:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The phenomena of idioglossia and home sign also show that constructed languages can arise spontaneously, although I have no idea what twin languages are actually like and how much they differ from the surrounding language(s), especially structurally (maybe they're only created via some form of relexification, much like some secret languages). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Ancient script
What can anyone tell me about the script on the image half way down the page here? (The image I refer to is the one with the person carved in relief, with an amazing hairstyle). What language is it and what does it say? I thought it could be Aramaic in Hebrew script, but if so I can't decipher it. The penultimate word looks like "tomato"! Cheers --Dweller (talk) 13:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Far from being able to read it myself, but the statue is described elsewhere on the web as being from Palmyra (this would match the filename chosen by the BBC article, "_81049540_palm-stat-1_464.jpg"), and the overall character of the letters would seem to match the Palmyrene alphabet, which was presumably used to write Aramaic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh good call. I'd love to know what it says (both transliteration and translation). --Dweller (talk) 14:33, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The last word appears also in File:PalmyraWoman.JPG. --84.58.246.235 (talk) 15:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks a bit like (right to left) aleph vet lamed, which is Hebrew for mourning, but that's too neat to possibly be right. --Dweller (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The first letter is definitely not Aleph, but probably Ḥet. - Lindert (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You could be right. Or even taf. The first word in our BBC image looks like "v'aveylat" or possibly "v'achalta". But I wish someone with some expertise would show up! --Dweller (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Looking at this article, it seems likely that the image contains a funerary inscription, the final word חבל, translated "alas!" is found in other such inscriptions as well. Additionally, the ligations found on the second and third line appear to form בר, or "bar", the Aramaic for "son". So, although I cannot make out all the letters, it seems to me that the gist of the inscription is this:
 * "[name]
 * son of [name]
 * son of [name]
 * alas!" -
 * My best guess at a transcription would be "והבלת/ברשמכוד/בראמתא/חבל". Lindert (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)