Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 7

= January 7 =

Japanese grammar
On the Wikipedia page for kawaii, the Japanese characters for kawaii is かわいい. Using the Japanese-English dictionary, I see that the い is used as an emphasis. So, what's with the double いい? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 05:18, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Most Japanese adjectives end in 'i', and if the word already has an 'i', then it becomes a double 'i'. Nothing whatsoever to do with emphasis. It's just an adjectival ending.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  09:20, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. Why does the original root form end in i then? Could it be that the general tendency to make all root words end in i's is causing the original Chinese term (可爱 kě ài) to morph into the ateji Japanese term (可愛い)? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The original Chinese term ends in 'i'. The adjectival ending was added onto that. I must admit, this case is special, because most adjectives borrowed from Chinese are 'na' adjectives, and not 'i' adjectives.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  17:03, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Pinyin is a mid-20th century invention. The pinyin is merely a PRC's representation of the standard Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese characters. The original Chinese character has no Latinized i. Could it be that the Japanese borrowing of the term is a mid-twentieth century event? I can definitely see how the "kawai" part may be derived from the Chinese pinyin, but the extra i part that forms the adjectival may just be the Japanese tendency to add an extra i pronunciation to all adjectives? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the origin of い as an adjectival ending? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know Chinese, but you seem to be saying that kawai is a reasonable approximation of the Chinese pronunciation, and if so then it's very simple: the Chinese word kawai is the stem, and a Japanese grammatical suffix is added to that. The suffix happens to be i for the dictionary form, but for the adverbial form it's ku and for the noun form it's sa and so on. You don't leave off the grammatical i just because the stem ends with the same vowel. The English word "toot" starts with "to" but the infinitive is still "to toot", not "to ot".
 * All I know about the origin of the i suffix is that it used to be two suffixes, ki when modifying a noun and shi in sentence-final position. Kawaii would therefore have derived from kawaiki and kawaishi. -- BenRG (talk) 22:27, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Chinese characters do not work the same way as English words. So, I would not say 可爱 (kě ài) in Chinese is a word in the same sense as English words, as there have been several examples where individual Chinese characters that are used to express whole ideas, as well as being paired up with an additional character for more specificity. I think it may be best described as a term. Kawaii is likely the Latinized pronunciation of the Japanese pronunciation 可愛い. I can't say whether or not Japanese terms work the same way as English words, or closer to Chinese terms. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's an adjective that has 'i' on the end, like many other adjectives. I don't see what the problem is or why you have difficulty grasping this very simple concept, which has been explained to you by myself and by another poster. Can you elaborate on your difficulties? We may be able to help, then. There is no such thing as a Latinized pronunciation of a Japanese pronunciation. Japanese uses hiragana to spell its words, in addition to kanji, and they can be alternatively written in romaji, which also displays the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. In both Japanese and Chinese, the term would be literally translated as 'can be loved'> loveable> endearing> cute. You can class it as a term or class it as anything you want, but it's still an adjective. Also, why do you say that Chinese characters do not work in the same way as English words? 'Love + Able' is exactly what 可爱 means. We add words together, too, you know.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  04:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I already got the concept of the ending i. It's basically the adjectival ending. There is no reason beyond that, just like there is no reason why there is the -ly adverbial ending in English. It just is. But it's still interesting to see that Japanese has adjectival endings, while the original Chinese logograms don't, so you just have to remember that a particular term is an adjective and whatnot.
 * On your second note, I meant to say romaji, when I said "Latinized pronunciation of a Japanese pronunciation". Awkward phrasing on my part, but the central idea of romaji is that the Japanese pronuncation is transcribed by Roman characters instead of by traditional Japanese brushstrokes.
 * On your third note, I am aware that English does merge prefixes and suffixes onto the root word. Of course, in English, sometimes the actual root word must be modified in order to latch a prefix and suffix on it. An example would be "indefatigable". It has the root word "fatig" in there, but "fatig" is not a word by itself. "Fatigue" is. in- meaning "not" or "opposite" is a prefix, not a word by itself. But when you do use in as an individual word, it may be coupled with side to make inside or stand by itself as in meaning inside. Chinese combines individual logograms together, but the individual brushstrokes are not letters and do not compose the logogram like Latin letters. (I have noticed Korean does have brushstrokes that are like letters with vowels and consonants, though, but that's another topic.) 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My impression (like KageTora's) is that cases like kawaii, where a loanword takes a Japanese grammatical suffix, are pretty uncommon. Shinu (死ぬ) may be another example (weirdly, it's also the only Japanese verb than ends in -nu). Daburu means "double" as both a noun and a verb, but when it's a verb the -ru is reinterpreted as a conjugating suffix, so the plain past is dabutta and so forth. It would be harder to do that with a Chinese loanword written in kanji, and I can't think of any examples. In English there's "to kowtow" and "to shanghai" (whose gerund/present participle is "shanghaiing" with a double i, for whatever that's worth). -- BenRG (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think there are a few Chinese-origin verbs, such as 牛耳る, but they have a Japanese verb ending tacked on, which I suppose wasn't present in the original. 109.153.227.154 (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The individual brushtrokes are irrelevant. Do the individual two strokes of your pen for the letter 't' mean anything other than the letter 't'? Also, yes, Korean has brushstrokes for vowels and consonants, because that is what they are.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  06:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Back to the original topic. There a lots of Japanese adjectives that have "ii" in romaji transliteration: OP, it's not about emphasis, it's just how the Japanese language works. See Japanese equivalents of adjectives. ピーマン aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * おいしい - oishii - "tasty"
 * たのしい - tanoshii - "fun, enjoyable"
 * かたつむりい - katatsumurii - "slow-moving"
 * むずかしい - muzukashii - "difficult"

Bring back my Bonnie to me
I want to note that it seems odd that English has two words that seem of equal popularity in usage and that seem to mean the same thing: "ocean" and "sea". I notice that the song My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean plays with this two word duplication in the lyrics: "My Bonnie lies over the ocean, My Bonnie lies over the sea, My Bonnie lies over the ocean". The song does this twice more with variations on the words ocean-sea-ocean. Any insights into this? Bus stop (talk) 13:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Crudely speaking, Oceans (see first paragraph of lede) are bigger and seas are smaller, and often subdivisions of oceans. One traditional though inaccurate saying was "the five oceans and seven seas", or variations thereof. (There arguably are five oceans, but obviously far more than seven seas.)
 * Also, there is some overlap between the related meaning of sea = "seawater" and sea (or ocean ) referring to a particular area of the globe covered by seawater.
 * The near-duplication in the song you refer to is, I suggest, mere poetic licence. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Maybe you need to do the actions, to appreciate the full meaning? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:56, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Although to confuse matters, the Atlantic Ocean used to be called the "Ocean Sea", as a quick search of Google Books shows. Si Trew (talk) 15:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The Salton Sea would never be called the "Salton Ocean"! [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 21:45, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * This is one of many cases where English has two words for a concept with Germanic (sea) and Romance (ocean) roots that have developed subtle differences in meaning. As the second of these links mentions, what we now usually call the North Sea used to be known as the German Ocean. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:56, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * While oceans is the term used to label large bodies of the world ocean (the continuous body of salt water that covers most of our planet's surface), and smaller bodies are labeled seas, the world ocean as a whole or any part of it may be called generically the sea, as the title of our article indicates. Marco polo (talk) 17:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Okeanos is actually Greek, the Romance reflexes are from the Latin mare and are cognate with the English mere, from PIE *mori- . μηδείς (talk) 18:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * As for the song, repetition is quite common in songs, however, using the exact same words each time get monotonous, so they often vary them slightly.


 * The part I found odd about the song is the "lies". To me that implies that she is dead and lying in the ground.  However, the "bring back my Bonnie to me" part would then be about resurrection or at least exhumation, so I've concluded that "lies" is an archaic way to say "is located".  We still use it that way when not talking about people, as in "Las Vegas lies on the dessert", but it would seem quite odd to say "My brother lies on the dessert".


 * The use of "over" to mean "across" also seems archaic. When I first heard "lies over the ocean" I pictured either her telling lies on board a ship, or perhaps levitating in a reclined position above the ocean.   StuRat (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The "lies" part means that she's on the other side of the ocean from where the singer is. Kind of archaic usage now, but not so when it was written. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * We die a little death every night, called sleep. If you're used to drifting off with a Bonnie beside you, it seems a good time to think about how she's not there tonight, and imagine she's lying alone, like you. Of course, that doesn't account for the time zones (or her need for la petite mort), but when you're almost asleep, your brain's sort of dead. Blurry, as another singer preoccupied with the oceans (plural?) in between us put it. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Strange that we orgasm in French, but revert to English when we sleep. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Fear is the little death in English, not coming:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
 * Surrender is typical of the Gauls, not the Saxons. μηδείς (talk) 02:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Napoleon didn't surrender - he was captured (twice) and on the second occasion after he died in exile, two old women cut off his balls. In WW1 they didn't surrender. They did quite well, actually. In WW2 they were defeated, but then became allies of the Germans, so the British were actually fighting them, as well (for a short time). Then their empire collapsed. Like all empires do.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  11:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The armistice of 1940 was effectively a surrender of 3/5 of France, and it the power to defend the remainder. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC).


 * Fear, death, drugs, sex, sleep, transatlantic flight...same shit, different pile. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:04, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The phrase 'over the seas' only sounds archaic because in modern speech it is almost always contracted to 'overseas', a word in perfectly current usage, although of course here it wouldn't scan. Using 'lie' to describe where someone is might be more unusual, but compare it to the lie of a golf ball, which is the same usage applied to an inanimate.  GoldenRing (talk) 03:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Or the famous (though maybe apocryphal) statement by one of Tony Curtis' characters: "Yonduh lies duh castle of my fadduh, duh caliph." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not so very apocryphal, Bugs. He actually said "This is the palace of my father, and yonder lies the Valley of the Sun" in excellent Bronx. --Antiquary (talk) 11:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Dat's Medieval Bronx to youse. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to sea tomorrow. I'm totally at sea as to what to take with me. Now substitute sea with ocean and sea (sic) how that works out. 196.213.35.146 (talk) 07:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, though that is more about what is idiomatic rather than what is correct. GoldenRing (talk) 07:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Idiomatic and rhyming. It wouldn't be proper to mention the lotion or motion aspects of yearning. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:04, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * To my (British) ears, ocean is a geographic term only. The expanse of water I can see in front of me, and paddle in if I wish, is the sea, not the ocean, even if I am in Cornwall and it is part of the Atlantic Ocean. But (old) poetic usage is something else entirely. --ColinFine (talk) 08:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, in British English we have "the seaside", we swim "in the sea" and go "sea fishing" regardless of whether it's in the English Channel, the North Sea or the Atlantic. It's all sea water to us. Alansplodge (talk) 09:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The seabed is "the bottom of the ocean". InedibleHulk (talk) 09:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, in UK English, "ocean" and "sea" are not mutually exclusive words. They're basically synonyms with some difference in nuance. And using the verb "lie" to refer to location is completely unremarkable. --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sailors like to call themselves "seamen", including the ones who sail the ocean blue. I've never heard the term "oceanman", although "oceanographer" fits the style. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Can't call a sea cow an "ocean cow" without sounding stupid. And "ocean weed" seems to be all about the ganja (except for this "drinkable" beer). InedibleHulk (talk) 12:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Anyone see Billy? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Ocean weed" search results were extremely frank. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This American has the same overlapping set of meanings for ocean and sea as his British colleagues. Note that I've lived near seacoasts most of my life.  It may be that Americans who live inland perceive a sharp distinction between the two based on names they've seen on maps, but I don't think that this is strictly a difference between American and British English.  Marco polo (talk) 16:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was tempted to ask one of our editors who lives by Detroit if his infamiliarity with the sea colored his views on the ocean. μηδείς (talk) 21:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Not sure about Brits, but the Dominicans call their SeaWorld Ocean World. Both are generically oceanariums, as is the confusingly titled MarineLand. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Marineland"?! Isn't that where you get to "see life" through a special glass-bottomed boat? Or am I just taking everything too literally? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Even more confusingly, Marines get from the water to the land using air. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:06, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Consider the various seamen/mariners who sail from the various Maritime Provinces, which border the Atlantic Sea Ocean. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In the Great Big Sea shanty, "Fishermen's Lament", the first verse ends in "I've known only the ocean, since I was a boy." Then it shamelessly goes into the chorus, "And I spent my whole life, out there on the sea." Then it's on to these guys "raping our beautiful ocean", encouraging Newfoundlanders to "shove the package to Hell and go back to the sea". InedibleHulk (talk) 01:47, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Parallelism is a major feature of Biblical poetry, which was a (the?) major literary influence on the culture in which the song was composed. Matt's talk 03:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * A quick look at Seven Seas reinforces what we were taught - that the modern "seven seas" are the North and South Atlantic, the North and South Pacific, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the Indian. Also, it's clear that just "the ocean" and "the sea", without qualifiers, are synonyms. It's only when you get into names that seas and oceans have separation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:48, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You want real separation, call a lake a loch, or vice versa. Especially here (Loch Ness Inn website blacklisted). Then, after a few drinks, call their lake cryptid a "sea monster". InedibleHulk (talk) 04:19, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Having been born in the UK, but having later lived in the USA, I noticed that US English uses the word "ocean" much as UK English would use the word "sea". (For example "ocean view" vs "sea view") Bluap (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The thoroughly American film and TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea centered on a super-submarine called the Seaview. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think both versions of English use both words, but there might be a slight difference simply because the shores of Great Britain are largely sheltered from the Atlantic ocean, with coasts mainly bordering the Irish Sea and North Sea etc. America also has coasts bordering seas, of course, but much more exposure to two big oceans.    D b f i r s   21:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)