Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 8

= January 8 =

Identifying languages in the Charlie Hebdo "I am Charlie" PDF
http://www.charliehebdo.fr/20150107171028368.pdf

In this PDF you see "I am Charlie" in various languages.
 * Persian - من چارلی هستم
 * German - Ich bin Charlie
 * Spanish: Yo Soy Charlie
 * Unknown: - Som Charlie Hebdo
 * Czech: Jsem Charlie Hebdo
 * Arabic: أنا تشارلي
 * Russian: Я "Charlie Hebdo" (can't type the Russian)

Which one is the "unknown" one? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Could be Slovak, according to wiktionary:Som. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Som means "We are" in Catalan (though that wouldn't be exactly parallel)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The better wiktionary link is som since it is case sensitive. It could be various probably West Slavic dialects. μηδείς (talk) 16:59, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Of the West Slavic literary languages, it could be either Slovak or Lower Sorbian. Or rather, it is both Slovak and Lower Sorbian. I suspect the language intended by the author is Slovak, though. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Fun Fact: "Charlie Hebdo" is an anagram for "I'd reecho 'blah'". Like a hashtag by any name does. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No it isn't. There are no apostrophes. KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 20:05, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. But "Id" still passes for "I'd" on Twitter. In fact, apostrophes are impossible in hashtags. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Could be Catalan "we are Charlie". Several Catalan sites are posting "Tots som Charlie" -"we are all Charlie". Fiddlersmouth (talk) 11:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

IPA for Okinawan
Hello, I can't read IPA but I need to add IPA symbols to two charts on User:Minfremi/sandbox. Help?  ミーラー強斗武   (StG88ぬ会話) 16:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You might be able to copy/paste from this baby. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 15:44, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

German question
In The Book Thief (at about 41:10 or so), the little girl is leaving the house and the foster mother comes to remind her just before stepping out that she must keep the presence of the visitor an absolute secret. When the little girl accepts, the foster mother pats her on the shoulder and says "ah, gut mentsch."

I don't speak any German, but I know that in Yiddish, one would never call a girl a mentsch -- that would be reserved for a male. Is it different in German (or perhaps, 1930s German) or is it perhaps a little oversight.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 20:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I have not seen the film but could it have been Mädchen? That is "girl" in German.  Dismas |(talk) 21:04, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't have much German, but I've always understood Mensch as being gender-neutral in meaning. Wiktionary defines it as "human, human being, person" except when it's used as an interjection, when it's equivalent to "Man!".  By contrast Wiktionary defines the Yiddish mensch as
 * 1. A person (chiefly male) of strength, integrity and honor or compassion.
 * 2. A gentleman.
 * That accords with what you tell us. --Antiquary (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * "sie ist" "ein mensch" gets 613Khits at google. My understanding has always been that the word means (virtuous) person and contrasts with Mann which simply refers to an adult male. Old-English supposedly had this distinction. μηδείς (talk) 21:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * What kind of German is this supposed to be anyway? "gut mentsch" isn't standard German either syntactically, orthographically or phonologically, no matter what the meaning of "Mensch" is. Are you sure this is what the speaker really says, and is she supposed to be a native speaker? If she has some regional accent, she could actually be saying "Gut(es) Mädchen" – the "ch" often comes out as a kind of "sch" ([ʃ]) sound in many dialects, and "Mädchen" would explain why you heard a "t" too. I would consider "Gutes Mädchen" far more likely to be said in this kind of situation than "Guter Mensch". Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:56, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I've looked at the subtitles for this movie. Actually, the line is "Gut, Saumensch", so "gut" is not an adjective here anyway (nor is "Saumensch" meant to indicate anything positive). - Lindert (talk) 22:10, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Given the OP said "I don't speak German" a perfect transcription was not to be expected. μηδείς (talk) 23:49, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much to all the gitte menschen who sought to help out. :)  DRosenbach  ( Talk 05:07, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

There is another word "Mensch" (this one is neuter, not masc.), with the meaning "young woman": https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mensch#Substantiv.2C_n It's mostly fallen out of use today (or is restricted to dialects), and often has a negative connotation, which fits with the "Sau-". --87.182.223.169 (talk) 17:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Jive followup (not a question)
Something was said a couple of weeks ago, about "jive" being connected directly with the film Airplane! That is not quite correct. Please note Glossary of jive talk, and its connection to Cab Calloway. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I standardly post this reference when the subject is brought up. Perhaps you didn't find it reliable? μηδείς (talk) 23:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The issue was that someone said that it started with Airplane!. I don't recall where that comment is, but I think it's been archived. P.S. Great scene. Great writing throughout the film. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:35, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Baseball_Bugs -- What I said was that using "Jive" as an overall name for African-American speech in general (as opposed to a name for a specific historical slang) was basically due to the 1970s "Airplane!" movie. Certainly the so-called "Jive filter" owes more to 70s stereotypes than Cab Calloway... AnonMoos (talk) 01:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I knew what Jive was before I saw Airplane. It would simply be absurd to attribute the term to the movie, when the movie depends on the existence of the term for the joke/skit to make any sense.  There's also Fat Albert and Basketball Jones] μηδείς (talk) 01:46, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you knew what Jive Talkin' was, and possibly also Shuckin' and jivin' and Cab Calloway -- but I doubt whether "Jive" was at all commonly used as a blanket general term for African-American English before the movie (which was filmed in 1979, but only released in 1980, I see)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)