Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 March 22

= March 22 =

Whatquam ex ungue leonem?
Johann Bernoulli, after reading an anonymous paper in 1697, said that its author was obviously Isaac Newton. And he commented in Latin: "Tanquam ex ungue leonem", which is often translated as "I recognize the lion by his claw".

But in my Cassell's Latin Dictionary, there's no verb that tanquam could be an inflection of. (The nearest thing is tango, tangere, meaning "touch", which would produce "tangeam" in the present subjunctive.) However, there is an adverb tamquam, for which an alternate spelling tanquam is shown in parentheses. The direct translations are given as "so as", "just as", or "like as".

Now Cassell's shows classical Latin, but Bernoulli would have been using the Latin of a Renaissance-era scientist, which might therefore include words or senses not in that dictionary. So is his tanquam actually a verb as the common translation implies, and if so, what are its principal parts? Or was he using the adverb? Oh, I just realized: I bet he meant "just as a lion from its claw", meaning simply that that he recognized Newton "just as" he would recognize "a lion from its claw". Have I answered myself correctly, then? Or was my first thought, that this was a non-classical Latin word, right after all? --65.94.50.15 (talk) 04:32, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * An implied verb makes more sense to me. —Tamfang (talk) 05:04, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Tamquam is a conjunction. The verb is implied by the context.  “As if from the lion´s claw”.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Cassell's says adverb, but anyway, thanks for the responses. --65.94.50.15 (talk) 18:01, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * It seems that Bernoulli didn't invent the expression, though. See this letter by Laevinus Torrentius in 1587: "...ingenii tui, quod ex disputatione Parisiis abs te instituta, tanquam ex ungue leonem, agnovi": "...your genius, which I recognized from the debate undertaken by you in Paris, just as (one would recognize) a lion from its claw." Lesgles (talk) 02:56, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah, agnovi, "I have recognized". Yes indeed.  That settles it.  And if this passage was familiar to Bernoulli, it makes sense that he'd just quote the key phrase.  Thanks for finding that! --65.94.50.15 (talk) 03:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Official status missing on language infobox
It has come to the attention of many users such as myself that the official status section on the infobox language template is now blank, not showing a list of countries where a certain language is official. However, on an article's edit page, the list of countries is still visible and editable. This problem is found both on articles with collapsable country lists such as English language and French language, as well as on articles that list one to a few countries with no collapsable list such as Japanese language and Norwegian language. Is this a system error or is there a new policy to not show where languages are official on their respective article page? — Moalli (talk) 05:56, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This might be a better question for the Help Desk (WP:HD) - the question has also been asked (with no answer so far) at Template talk:Infobox language.  seems to be primarily responsible for this infobox, so is probably the best person to give an answer.  Tevildo (talk) 10:36, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I recently added some new fields to the info box, so I might have messed it up. I'll take a look.  — kwami (talk) 05:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yup. I'd failed to renumber all the fields.  Fixed.  — kwami (talk) 05:57, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Persian help and Arabic help? (transcription needed)
This is for German Embassy School Tehran. What is the transcription of the Persian in this image?

Also what is the Arabic in this image? For École Française Internationale Djeddah and in this image? For German International School Jeddah

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 17:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "Friends Council of German Schools in Tehran" (انجمن دوستان مدارس آلمانی تهران). Omidinist (talk) 18:20, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I look forward to the Arabic as I'm starting the stubs about the French and German schools in Jeddah soon! WhisperToMe (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) المدرسة الفرنسیة العالمیة في جدة
 * 2) المدرسة الالمانیة العالمیة في جدة. Omidinist (talk) 18:32, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you so much! If you don't mind one more, http://www.thesumrows.com/images/top_header_backgrd.png should have the Arabic name of the American school. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. (المدرسة الأمریکیة العالمیة بجدة) Omidinist (talk) 19:11, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * With the Arabic names I will post requests for these schools at the Arabic Wikipedia, to see if anybody is interested in starting Arabic language articles about them WhisperToMe (talk) 19:20, 22 March 2015 (UTC)