Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 May 17

= May 17 =

What does "arbiya jarabiya" mean in Arabic?
What does "arbiya jarabiya" mean in Arabic? I may have misheard to a small extent, but it's definitely soccer-related. Splićanin (talk) 04:21, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Dobar dan,
 * Ne znam Arapski jezik. Technicalrestrictions01 (talk) 09:53, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is just a qualified guess, but could arbiya be a Romance borrowing like French arbitre (judge), and the other word some form of Arabia, something like "Arabic judge"?(The post above just says.Good day,I don't know the Arabic language.in Serbo-Croatian or some other Slavic language, btw.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:00, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There's no such thing as Serbo-Croatian. There are Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian languages. It's as rude and inappropriate as me using Scandinavian for Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Splićanin (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ahem: Serbo-Croatian. In many circumstances using "Scandinavian" wouldn't be rude or inappropriate (in my opinion, though I am open to correction). Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are closely related and somewhat mutually intelligible; the majority of people not from Scandinavia (or Finland), hearing one of them spoken, probably wouldn't know which of the three they were hearing, so couldn't specify. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.88.97 (talk) 09:07, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a Nope. Splićanin (talk) 00:41, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * My knowledge of Slavic languages is very limited, and I'm proud even to have managed to translate that simple sentence. But since, from what I can see, it only seems to be the formal Shtokavian register, would there be any way to separate between the four different varities if written in the Latin alphabet, as here? (And apparently even the Montenegrins themselves disagree on whether they speak a separate language or not... =D )As for Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, Swedish and Norwegian sounds very similar with the Danish flow somewhat distinct, whereas the Norwegian (Bokmål/ Østnorsk) and Danish vocabulary are more similar. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:14, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Half of Montenegro's population is not Montenegrin. It's so easy to spot a teenager online. Splićanin (talk) 16:37, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I wonder why Splićanin did not go so far as to propose a replacement for the offensive word Serbo-Croatian. — What if Wakuran said "says … in Slavic"? (That's all I'd be able to say.) —Tamfang (talk) 01:30, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it begins to feel like troll-feeding, but I still don't think there's a way to tell which language Technicalrestrictions01's short post is written in. Something like "Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or Montenegrin" feels too long, and abbreviations like BCMS aren't as widely known. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:26, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Tamfang, your userpage says you're "afflicted with depression, insomnia, underemployment, allergy to perfumes, pollen, authority and good advice". I have nothing to beat in your case. Wakuran, you'll have a great time in Croatia telling the Croats they speak Serbo-Croatian. You're cordially invited. Splićanin (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Whether they are separate languages or regional varieties of one language is not a linguistic but a political issue. --Lambiam 18:36, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Jebem ti usta 98.240.113.219 (talk) 06:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "Arbiya" looks immediately like عَرَبِيَّ (ʿarabiyya) - the feminine form of the adjective meaning "Arab".
 * "Jarabiya" I can't find. If the "j" is as in English (and English transliteration of Arabic), it might be a form of جرب (jarab) "mange, scurvy", but I can't identify the grammatical form. On the other hand, I wonder if the OP is using 'j' to denote /j/ (English 'y') as in most Eastern European orthorgraphies. --ColinFine (talk) 17:08, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Having used 'y', I obviously didn't mistake 'j' for /j/. Splićanin (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Maybe what you heard as "arbiya" was the word for four (أربعة) or fourth (رابع)? Adam Bishop (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * For a moment, I thought it might be "Fourth Test" (a cricket term), but it didn't really work... AnonMoos (talk) 22:11, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Apposition with extra commas
I keep seeing appositions on Wikipedia written with commas in situations where I would never use a comma. For instance, on Sky High (TV series): "Sky High is a ... television drama series ... based on the Japanese manga, Skyhigh." This doesn't seem correct to me. I would usually write, "... on a Japanese manga, Skyhigh", "... on the Japanese manga Skyhigh", or "... on Skyhigh, a Japanese manga". I'm tempted to correct this. Is this style standard in some variety of English? Daß Wölf 21:01, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, no. I routinely correct cases like "the Japanese manga, Skyhigh" to ""the Japanese manga Skyhigh". Many, many people don't understand the difference between restrictive and nonrestrictive appositives. Deor (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So "Skyhigh, the Japanese manga" is a valid option. Does the article (a/the) make any difference? "A Japanese manga Skyhigh", with no comma, reads peculiarly to me. Card Zero  (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks & . What you've written fits my intuition on the topic. It seems the rules for these commas in English are the same as in my mother language, and people here -- even those with college degrees -- regularly make the same kind of (absolutely jarring) mistakes. I just wanted to make sure my intuition isn't off since I'm not a native English speaker. Daß Wölf 22:59, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey, don't thank me, I just asked an additional question. I'm still not sure why "a manga Skyhigh" looks jarring to me, since it seems to be a restrictive appositive, and thus shouldn't have a comma. Card Zero  (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * "the Japanese manga, Skyhigh" implies there's only one Japanese manga. Also, "a manga Skyhigh" sounds weird and makes no sense to me; the only meaning I can come up with is that Skyhigh originated in some other genre, say anime, and then was adapted into a manga. With the comma is fine. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:30, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Without comma, the word "manga" in "a manga Skyhigh" seems to be a noun adjunct, like "Paris" in "a Paris boutique" (there are many boutiques, but this is about boutiques in Paris), "marriage" in "a marriage proposal" (there are other kinds proposals, such as business proposals, but this one is about marriage), or "film" in "a film version of the story" (there could also be a musical version). --Lambiam 11:01, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * For the uses with a comma, a simple rule is that the sentence is still fine in the context – although possibly less informative – if the bit with the comma is removed. For instance, replacing "a television drama based on a Japanese manga, Skyhigh" by "a television drama based on a Japanese manga" works well. Replacing "a television drama based on the Japanese manga, Skyhigh" by "a television drama based on the Japanese manga" requires that a specific manga has already been introduced in the conversation as a topic. If that is the case, the comma is fine. For example, "Kitamura was impressed by Takahashi's work, particularly one manga. Together they developed the concept for a television drama based on the Japanese manga, Skyhigh." --Lambiam 10:47, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that is logical. Come to think of it, are there languages that use commas differently here? (Perhaps Japanese?) Daß Wölf 19:12, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * See Russian_orthography. Russian punctuation generally requires commas more often than in English. There's no distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive subordinate clauses -- they get commas regardless. But there are also no articles, and appositives aren't used like they are in English, so there's no perfect parallel in Russian to the example you asked about. --Amble (talk) 20:47, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * German too uses commas for restrictive clauses where they would be considered wrong in English. E.g. "The man who you met is a lawyer." — "Der Mann, den Sie getroffen haben, ist Anwalt." Leaving them out in German is considered wrong. --Lambiam 18:45, 19 May 2022 (UTC)