Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 October 6

= October 6 =

March
Most languages use Latin-derived names for the month of March (see https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110), just like with the other eleven months of the Gregorian calendar, since the names were introduced to the speakers of that language along with the calendar itself. Exceptions exist, but most of them are small languages or languages of countries in which some other calendar has predominated until recent history. However, I noticed two European national languages with other names: Croatian, hr:Ožujak, and Lithuanian, lt:Kovas. Any idea how either of these languages ended up with different names for the month? Similar languages, whether fundamentally identical like Serbian sr:Март or related like Latvian lv:Marts, use Latin-derived names. Nyttend (talk) 12:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The articles on Croatian months and Slavic calendar might interest you. Apparently Croatian, unlike Serbian or Bulgarian, still uses several archaic names, though I found no explanation why. Lithuanian calendar might interest you as well. ---Sluzzelin talk  12:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I've entered the month names in this dictionary of Old Prussian and it turns out Old Prussian also had its own Baltic month names. Some do correspond to the Lithuanian ones, some do not. Btw, there are other Old Prussian resources you may have fun checking but this is the first one I've bumped into. Also, just because Bulgarian nowadays uses the Latin names does not mean that older documents may not show a different situation (check also the Macedonian language and OCS which is basically an ancestral form to both Bulgarian and Macedonian). In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the Bulgarians kept Turkic month names (from when the Bulgarians spoke a Turkic language) for a while, as WP's Chinese Zodiac article states (w/o source unfortunately) that the Central Asian Zodiac (somewhat similar to the Chinese Zodiac) still in use among Kazakhs, etc. was still in use in Bulgaria long after conversion to Christianity and the switch to a Slavic language. Yes the Zodiac names have nothing to do with the month names, but my point is that it seems that some calendar terminology was kept for a while, so you may wanna check if that didn't also happen with the month names. Basemetal  14:03, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Our Christianization of Lithuania gives a date of 1387, which is considerably later than much of the rest of Europe. Latin influence either came with the Roman Empire or with the Western Church, Alansplodge (talk) 15:37, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * So maybe paganism has something to do with it?  The names of the days of the week in Britain and other countries of north - west Europe are pagan, rather than Latin.   Easter also has a pagan, rather than Christian name. 86.147.210.0 (talk) 19:53, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * We have an article (of course) on the Lithuanian calendar which: "is unusual among Western countries in that neither the names of the months nor the names of the weekdays are derived from Greek or Norse mythology.[citation needed] ... [They are] based on historic names, and celebrate natural phenomena; three months are named for birds, two for trees, and the remainder for seasonal activities and features.
 * "Kovas (March) may derive from either the noun kovas, the rook, or the noun kova, meaning struggle. Rooks increase their activity at this time, building their nests and mating". Alansplodge (talk) 23:30, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * ožujak < Proto-Slavic *lъžujьkъ, a derivative of *lъžь ‎(“lie”) (Serbo-Croatian: lȃž). The Croatian month name means "deceitful, deceptive month". —Stephen (talk) 09:33, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Alansplodge: Claus Tøndering's calendar FAQ says “A lot of languages, including English, use month names based on Latin. […] However, some languages (Czech and Polish, for example) use quite different names”. I'm not sure I buy this generalization though, since we know at least five counterexamples now: Czech, Polish, Croatian, Lithuanian, Ukranian.  &#x2013; b_jonas 15:19, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Albanian has a mixture of Roman and native names.  Finnish names are all native. 2A02:C7F:BE2B:5600:8133:3A40:7144:75C5 (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Polish, too, has a mix of native and Latin-derived month names. Marzec (March) and maj (May) are the two that are of Latin origin. — Kpalion(talk) 14:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Turkish too. The Turkish example also shows that when native names are used they do not necessarily keep their traditional values. For example the Aramaic months which supplied the names of the Turkish months of şubat (Aramaic שבט), nisan (Aramaic ניסן), temmuz (Aramaic תמוז) and eylül (Aramaic אלול) used for the months of (respectively) February, April, July and September, did not in fact correspond to those Gregorian months (as can be seen from their value in the Jewish calendar). Incidentally the article is incorrect in saying the origin of those names in Turkish is Hebrew. Hebrew borrowed them from Aramaic (they are Babylonan months) and there's no reason at all Turkish should have borrowed them from the Jewish calendar. In fact Christian Aramaic and Arabic speakers still use them and that's a much more likely source for their use in Turkish. Basemetal  14:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * PS: The article was correct (giving for those month names an Aramaic origin thru Arabic) until 19/07/2016 when a user who had obviously registered only in order to make that change (the account was created three minutes before that edit and that's their only edit to WP ever) changed it to a Hebrew origin without any source whatsoever. Ironically when someone tried to correct that they were reverted for making an unsourced change, even though the edit that introduced the errors was just as unsourced. Funny story. Basemetal  15:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

John C Blackburn, The Popular Biblical Educator volume 1, (John Cassell, London, 1852, pp 203 - 204).

As this is out of copyright I can quote it verbatim:

In the SECOND PERIOD the same fluctuating method of determining the months and years continued in use; only the names of the months, the epoch of the year, and the celebration of the festivals acquired their present shape.

The names of the months are 1. Nisan. 7. Tisri 2. Jar. 8. Marchesvan. 3. Sivan. 9. Casleu. 4. Tammuz. 10. Tebeth. 5. Ab. 11. Sebat. 6. Elul. 12. Adar.

According to Aben Ezra, the Jews brought these names with them from Babylon, upon their return from the captivity. That this is really the fact is the more probable, inasmuch as many of the names are remarkably similar to those of the Syrian national months, which are as follow:-

1. First Tisri, answering to October. 2. Second Tisri    ...  ... November. 3. First Kanun     ...  ... December. 4. Second Kanun    ...  ... January. 5. Sebat    ...    ...  ... February. 6. Adar     ...    ...  ... March. 7. Nisan    ...    ...  ... April. 8. Jar ...  ...    ...  ... May. 9. Hasiran  ...    ...  ... June. 10.Tammuz   ...    ...  ... July. 11.Ab  ...  ...    ...  ... August. 12.Elul     ...    ...  ... September.

These Syrian names are still in use in the East, and have been so from very ancient times, as is proved by the Palmyrene inscriptions in which they occur, some of which reach back to the Christian era, as well as by other evidence. Syria, as is well known, became the heir of the Chaldean or Babylonian civilisation, from the times of the Seleucidae. Hence these later names of the Jewish months are probably, as Aben Ezra says, of Chaldean origin. They are first met with in those books of the Old Testament which were composed during or after the captivity. They also occur in the writings of Josephus. They are always counted from Nisan, which is the same as the Abib of the Pentateuch. The intercalary month is still not mentioned in this second period, although its existence from the remotest times cannot be called in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:A14:AA00:5C20:9E71:CB9F:2F9D (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

This Chinese script
I purchased some Chinese paintings at a rummage sale, and one is a grid of characters in what looks like some obscure seal script. I've been trying to figure out what it says, and I'm reasonably sure it's either "100 fu characters" (fortune) or "100 shou characters" (longevity) as these seem to be popular subjects for Chinese calligraphy. Now it's been nearly 20 years since I studied Chinese characters (actually kanji), but I can barely make heads or tails of these radicals! They don't seem to correspond to any traditional seal script. I'm thinking it might be an idiosyncratic style for this one artist. Can anyone help me clarify a little? --Ginkgo100talk 17:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Ginkgo100, Your first hunch is correct, these are all variations of the "fu" character. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:07, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The script used does seem to be a more modern variation of small seal script. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:12, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Searching literature about how to learn better a foreign language
I am not after material like grammars, dictionaries, workbooks, exercises and the like. I'd like to find scientific publications about how students of a foreign language could retain more words, read better, understand spoken language better and so on. That is, more on the psychological and education perspective, than on the linguistic description. --Llaanngg (talk) 18:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Is something like this what you are looking for? -- Jayron 32 18:55, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Take a look also at the bibliographies and references of the following two WP articles Language learning strategies and Language acquisition. Basemetal  19:01, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep, something like the article linked above would help. The learning strategies article, with its literature at the bottom, is also of help. Language acquisition seems oriented towards first language acquisition, but I found the article Second-language acquisition through it, so it was also helpful.--Llaanngg (talk) 20:25, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Be you [placeholder]
The lyrics of "Tribute" contain a question "Be you angels?" I've never encountered such an interrogative in English. Is it some sort of poetic or archaic form? Thanks.--93.174.25.12 (talk) 22:05, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Bist thou serious? It's both an archaic and a poetic form, and a current form in some British English dialects. DuncanHill (talk) 22:14, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * "Fee-fi-fo-fum; I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread". Alansplodge (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Lyrics from Home! Sweet Home!: "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home..." Akld guy (talk) 00:54, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * A bit of dialogue from a Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon from the late 1940s:
 * Sam: "Be you the mean hombre that's a-hankerin' for a heap o' trouble, stranger? ... Well, be ya?"
 * Bugs: "I be."
 * [commence western-style duel]
 * ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:07, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I think you're thinking of the exchange with Colonel Shuffle in Mississippi Hare. Matt Deres (talk) 14:04, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That could be an example. WB tended to re-use material. The one I was thinking of was 1945's Hare Trigger, and this excerpt: ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:32, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

There's some useful discussion of variant historical conjugations of "to be" at this link. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:31, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Alan's and Akld's examples are of be used as a subjunctive. That's not the kind the OP asked about. The use of be as subjunctive is still current in standard English. Its use as an equivalent of a present tense form (OP's example, Duncan, Bugs and Quora) is not. Basemetal 08:57, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Quite right. Alansplodge (talk) 13:39, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * "Arrr, that it be." "'Yes it is', not 'that it be'. You don't have to talk in that stupid voice to me, I'm not a tourist." Tevildo (talk) 21:01, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that this form has somewhat made a comeback in reggae music, as in "We be jammin'" lyrics from Bob Marley: . StuRat (talk) 00:53, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Maybe not a comeback, but something that was always there. For the "We be jammin'" form, see African American Vernacular English and African American Vernacular English. And the article Caribbean English says that Caribbean English, which I assume has a role in reggae, has been influenced by African American Vernacular English. Loraof (talk) 01:47, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Official languages of Israel
I haven't been to Israel, but since Hebrew and Arabic are both official in the country, presumably some services are available in both languages and one can choose between the two. I observe that the Hebrew names for the two languages are עברית and ערבית respectively. Not very easy to distinguish, are they? If one swaps the two adjacent similarly-shaped characters ב and ר in either of the two names, one gets the other name. Doesn't this ever lead to any confusion or misunderstandings?

I can imagine some type of touchscreen or mechanism where one can change language by manually moving the lower horizontal bar from the ב to the ר and back. I think that would be fun. Has anyone seen such a thing? --Ubzurvur (talk) 22:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)


 * For obvious reasons, the choice would be between "עברית" and "عربية" (and possibly "English" too), so there won't be any confusion. --51.9.188.8 (talk) 07:39, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And sometimes even русский. Basemetal  09:05, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The multilingualism in Israel really depends on the context: the signage in Ministry of Immigrant Absorption would be in Hebrew, Russian and Amharic (but no Arabic), while the signage in Israel Tax Authority would be in Hebrew, Arabic and English (but no Russian or Amharic). --217.140.96.140 (talk) 09:46, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think Russian is more important in Israel than you suggest, way way above Amharic. Signs are often in just four languages: Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian. For example this one (and a million others you can find by Googling "Russian language Israel" and "Russian signs Israel"). No Amharic in sight. See also Russian language in Israel. Where's Amharic language in Israel? Basemetal  11:15, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Amharic speakers are, in general, not the kind of population that reads or writes Wikipedia; compare >1000 users in Category:User he with just 40 in Category:User am, even though the total number of Amharic speakers is over twice the total number of Hebrew speakers. That would be why there's no article on Amharic language in Israel.
 * In shops, indeed, you'd find Russian signage much more often than English or Arabic or Amharic: if anything, this points at the social attitudes associated in Israel with speaking each of these languages, not at their official or quasi-official status. Curiously, Yiddish is another language that gets the bad rep; even though a considerable number of Israelis understand it, you'd never see it written (outside a handful of ultra-Haredi neighbourhoods), and hardly ever spoken. --217.140.96.140 (talk) 12:18, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: at the entrance of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption you get the sign to the right. So where did you get that the signage in Ministry of Immigrant Absorption would be in Hebrew, Russian and Amharic (but no Arabic)? Basemetal  12:37, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * From personal experience; that photo shows the entrance of the Haifa branch of MoIA, and there are many other branches, e.g. in Eilat. Also note how Languages of Israel mentions that Israeli authorities began to use Russian and Amharic extensively when communicating with these new immigrants. and Amharic is often used in government announcements and publications. --217.140.96.140 (talk) 13:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow. Eilat has also got French. I wonder who for. Basemetal  13:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * According to Aliyah, France is (since the 1990s) the 4th most common origin of olim -- the top three being Russia, Ethiopia, and the US. --217.140.96.140 (talk) 16:57, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * A much bigger problem arises, when international organizations, e.g. the EU and the OECD, translate their formal documents into the formal language of every member, including Slovakia and Slovenia, whose formal languages are: slovenčina and slovenščina, respectively (BTW, the [č] is pronounced like the English "ch", whereas the [š] is pronounced like the English "sh", so not only are both words spelled almost the same but they also sound almost the same)... 141.226.217.81 09:32, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That's not a conceivable problem for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the languages. The pronunciations are about as similar as putscher and pushchair. HenryFlower 06:57, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * People have been known to confuse Niger and Nigeria, Australia and Austria, Latvia and Lithuania, or even Luxembourg and Lichtenstein based simply on the fact that they are very small countries with very long names starting with an L. Not everyone in international organizations can be assumed to have even a passing familiarity with all the languages used. Basemetal  09:07, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

.
 * The OP asked about two languages whose names are spelled almost the same in Hebrew, so he was answered that's not a real problem when either name is spelled in its script, then I gave an example of two languages whose names constitute a bigger problem when either name is spelled in its script. I've only added that both names also sound almost the same, but my main point was about the spelling, because that's what the OP asked about. Anyways, the example you gave is not of names of two languages, so it's not similar to what the OP asked about. Further, the first word you gave (putcher) is pronounced /'pʊtʃə(ɹ)/, whereas the second one (pushchair) is pronounced /'pʊʃtʃɛə(ɹ)/, so the difference is not only due to the additional /ʃ/, but also due to the second vowel in each word. 141.226.217.81 17:20, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's a similarity in Hebrew which actually did cause a problem:
 * In Lithuania in the late nineteenth century a distinguished preacher was so outraged at being allocated a second - rate auditorium that he refused to speak.  The problem, it transpired, was that a conservative community leader had mistaken the announcement describing him as "excellent" as saying he was "from Zion".   The two words are spelled the same and differ only in pronunciation.   The official thought the distinguished visitor was a Zionist and acted accordingly. 86.154.82.135 (talk) 13:21, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually מצוין vs מציון. Close but not identical. Basemetal  13:37, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

(OP's comment) While you technically did answer my question (for which I'm grateful), I don't feel I've got what I wanted. Basically, I asked if the two names are sometimes confused if written out in Hebrew, and I was answered that they aren't if one of them is written in Arabic instead, which would usually be the case in my particular example.

But are the names ever confused when they're both written in Hebrew? After all, these aren't just random languages, but the two official and most common languages in the country, so presumably there's lots of Hebrew-language texts talking about Hebrew (as opposed to Arabic) and Arabic (as opposed to Hebrew). --Ubzurvur (talk) 00:21, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, these words (written out in Hebrew), are not confused more than the words "except" and "expect" (written out in English) are confused. To sum up: They are rarely confused. 141.226.217.81 10:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)