Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 February 17

= February 17 =

"Non" vs. "un"
I recently added a new section to the article lonkero saying that the new Gin Long Shot is non-carbonated. I originally thought of writing "uncarbonated" but then I thought that this would mean that it was manufactured by first making a carbonated drink and then taking the carbonation away, whereas "non-carbonated" would mean it was never carbonated in the first place. Is this distinction correct? J I P &#124; Talk 09:08, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * It's true that prefixed un- can sometimes have the meaning of undoing or reversing an action, while prefixed non- never has this meaning, but I'm not sure that there would be any real confusion in this case. The word "inflammable" is far more confusing... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:25, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) :An unasphalted road is not a road from which the asphalt has been removed, and neither is unleaded fuel derived from leaded fuel. So this is not a general rule. But whereas un- can have many meanings, non- always neutrally means “not”, so it is the safe choice when no other alternative is already established. Sometimes there is indeed this difference; uncorked implies that the bottle was previously corked. There can also be other differences in meaning, established by usage: undead does not mean “not dead”, and irresponsible does not mean ”non-responsible”. But often the meaning is a neutral negation: untroubled, unugly, unbrined. --Lambiam 11:33, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * (ec)For this British English speaker, "un-" or "non-" are ok, but "not carbonated" or "still" even better. (For taking carbonation away, it would be "decarbonated".) Bazza (talk) 11:41, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The deal is, English (as with any language) has general trends more than rigidly defined rules. While it is generally true that, often, "un" tends to care a sense of "do the opposite of" or "undo" or "reverse" an action, it doesn't always.  The expectation that any rule in any human language should never have any exceptions or variations is simply not a realistic view of language.  -- Jayron 32 13:04, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

This is a really good question! I think "non-carbonated" means 'intentionally not carbonated' and "uncabronated" could mean "de-carbonated." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Temerarius (talk • contribs) 11:12, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I think I did something wrong with the formatting here. Fix it if you would like. Temerarius (talk) 11:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
CHARACTERISTICS OF A DEVELOPING COUNTRY Dependency on agriculture: Majority of the working population in the developing countries depend on agriculture as a sorce of income. Agriculture in this case is the main employer of labour. Low savings and investments: Labour receives low income and this leads to low savings and investments. Population explosion Low per capital income Low standard of living Inadequate medical facilities Low rate of economic growth CHARACTERISTICS OF DEVELOPED COUNTRIES High standard of living Low birth and death rate High level of illeteracy rate Low level of unemployment High level of industrialisation High per capital income 154.72.167.125 (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Kai Sheong-san
Where is Kai Sheong-san, Kwangtung mentioned here: https://books.google.com/books?id=eiQEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA136? KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
 * If this is referring to the family origin of Yale alumnus Chun Lung, the Chinese Wikipedia article on his father zh:陈芳 says that they are from the village of 黄茅斜, now in Zhuhai but then in the county of Xiangshan (later Zhongshan). 黄茅斜 sounds nothing like Kai Sheong-san, but Xiangshan could be Sheong-san. Not sure what the Kai corresponds to though. --49.255.185.235 (talk) 03:53, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Which language is old Hindi or Urdu?
Please, tell me which language is old, Hindi or Urdu? , I want to add that Hindustani is a Dialect of Hindi, so it is very important to me. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by Fogstar (talk o  contribs) 20:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Hindustani is a name for spoken dialects across certain areas of north India. Urdu is Hindustani developed into a literary language with borrowings from Persian and written with the Arabic alphabet.  Hindi is Hindustani developed into a literary language with borrowings from Sanskrit and written with the Devanagari alphabet.  Urdu was developed into a literary standard earlier than Hindi, but in general, the question of which of two living languages is "older" than the other is usually not too meaningful... AnonMoos (talk) 21:34, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Please read our article Hindustani language, in particular the section Registers, and also our article on the Hindi-Urdu controversy. Linguists generally view Hindi and Urdu as standardized versions of two close dialects of a single language, Hindustani, or even not different dialects, but two registers of the same dialect, Khariboli. So rather than Hindustani being a dialect of Hindi, it is the other way around. Hindi started to grow apart from Urdu at the same time that Urdu started to grow apart from Hindi, so it is not very meaningful to compare their ages. That said, the standardization efforts for Urdu, which was the register spoken at the Mughal court (see Mughal Empire) and thus a status language, took off much earlier. --Lambiam 21:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)