Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 March 25

= March 25 =

Translation request: Chinese.
Could anyone of you please translate what the Chinese characters in this image say? Thank you in advance. --190.19.107.194 (talk) 02:32, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * They seem to be 平安. I believe that this is, or was, Chinese; however, it's best known now in Heian jidai, Japanese for the Heian period. In Japanese, its meaning is something like tranquillity. -- Hoary (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In Chinese this would be Ping'an, as e.g. in Ping An Insurance. 149.14.152.210 (talk) 14:18, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I recognized 安, but my identification efforts were hindered by assuming that it was overall one character, not two...[[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] The small red-and-white characters to the side are in old "seal script" and are probably some form of signature... AnonMoos (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Out of pure curiosity: what do the red-and-white seal script characters say? --194.213.3.4 (talk) 07:46, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The red-on-white one is 字. The white-on-red one would probably take me more time and effort than it would be worth to try to track it down... AnonMoos (talk) 13:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Zi (字) means "last name" or "surname". The stamp should be the name of the person who did the calligraphy. The character above it is a stylized Hua (not the common surname, but the term for a bamboo brush artist - a calligrapher). So, where it should have the calligrapher's name, it actually has what could be translated as "Place calligrapher's name here". 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Just to check: do you mean 畫 ? --194.213.3.4 (talk) 15:49, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes. By itself, it can mean to draw or paint. It can also mean the product - such as a painting. When used for a person, it refers to a person who draws or paints. The roots of the character are a hand holding a bamboo brush and producing something artful. It is well-known that the stamp at the bottom right is the signature of the artist, so it is clear that this character is referring to the person who did the art and not the art itself. You can also get signature stamps made. I have a set with my last and first names. They have extra "flourish", but still look very much like Wu Shen. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 16:06, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I've seen attempts at Chinese calligraphy that are actually just very sloppily written Chinese. If that is the case (which the generic signature stamp suggests), this could be a very sloppily written 爱 which means Love. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:14, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I would tend to doubt that -- the writing in the image in question is a little smooshed towards the top, but has a very clear "woman" radical 女 at the bottom, while 爱/愛 does not... AnonMoos (talk) 17:10, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Is Singlish and Manglish mutually intelligible?
From Singlish and Manglish, I get the idea that the two share a lot of similiarities. Both combine elements from Tamil, Malay, English, and Southern/non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese. But Singapore has a large ethnic Chinese population, so Singlish borrows a lot from Chinese varieties. And Malaysia has a large indigenous Malay population, so Manglish borrows a lot from indigenous Malays. Obviously, for international communication, they'll probably use English or Mandarin or something, but on the Singaporean streets, can a Malay understand Singlish? Likewise, on Malaysian streets, can Singaporeans understand Manglish? SSS (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. Same as an English native speaker can understand Singlish mostly. Also remember the degree of Manglish or Singlish varies from person to person. These are not true languages but rather corruptions of languages. Legacypac (talk) 18:12, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You mean, like Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian etc aren't true languages but rather corruptions of Latin? -- Hoary (talk) 13:00, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it was probably bad terminology, but linguists do draw a distinction between creole languages, where as the article notes, arise "at a fairly sudden point in time", and natural languages which have evolved more slowly. The Romance languages did evolve from Latin, but the development of them as distinct from Vulgar Latin dialects was a much more slow evolution than the development of a creole language, such as Tok Pisin, which grew to its current state in a few generations rather than over many centuries of slow divergence from the parent language.  The use of a perjorative term like "corruption" is unfortunate, but the concept that creoles differ from natural languages in terms of their evolution is a well-established linguistic concept.  -- Jayron 32 16:25, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, "corruption" looked rather like mere icing on the cake provided by the assertion that these "are not true languages". The concept of "true language" aside, yes, Manglish (an unfamiliar term for me, though a familiar concept) and Singlish came about more rapidly than did Spanish and the others, and I imagine that for this reason they would be less stable. -- Hoary (talk) 01:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Hoary: As late as the 8th century A.D., when many scholars -- and almost all low-level Catholic church functionaries -- in Romance-speaking areas saw a written Latin text, they read it out in their local Romance vernacular, and most of them had no idea that Latin and their 8th-century A.D. local spoken Romance dialect were actually different languages -- they just assumed that the written Latin text was part of a complex and convoluted writing system. It was the reforms of Alcuin which started to change this, so that a quasi-international scholarly pronunciation of Latin which was closer to the written texts (and different from any local Romance vernacular) started to take hold.  But as late as Dante's time, some Italians were still confused about whether Latin and Italian were separate languages, or whether the ancient Romans actually spoke Italian, and ancient written Latin was just a very complex and convoluted writing system to represent spoken Italian... AnonMoos (talk) 17:33, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a splendidly erudite comment, AnonMoos. It led me to look at your user page, in turn an enjoyably illustrated read about a subject in which I'd never have imagined that I might have any interest. (D = {P, F, SS}, perhaps?) -- Hoary (talk) 01:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Hoary -- it was mostly based on chapter 8 of the book "Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World" by Nicholas Ostler, which I probably should have cited.
 * As for the "Shield of the Trinity" or Scutum Fidei diagram, I assume (if I'm understanding you correctly) that you want to put "is a member of" in the links connecting the central node with the 3 peripheral nodes, and "is not a member of" in the links connecting the 3 peripheral nodes with each other. However, traditionally all the links in the diagram have been understood as being two-way (i.e. either positive in both directions or negative in both directions), while under that proposal, the links connecting the central node with the 3 peripheral nodes would be positive going one way and negative going the other way... AnonMoos (talk) 05:19, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The OP might find the article World Englishes of interest, though it does not directly address his questions. My understanding of Singlish and Manglish (though I have long since forgotten any Singlish I may have acquired as a small boy in the 1960s) is that Manglish is rather more variable over its larger geographical range, so the question of mutual intelligibilities is not symmetrical. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.14.51 (talk) 23:25, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, they is. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)