Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 April 28

= April 28 =

Arabic romanisation of a name
For this person, what's the preferred romanisation? BBC News prefers Julood but The Guardian goes with Jaloud. Blythwood (talk) 03:17, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * In Arabic script the family name is جلود. The first vowel is short. There is no standard way of pronouncing the vowels in an Arabic name, which also depends on the variety of Arabic (see also ), and there is also no standard way of romanizing them. The ⟨u⟩ in the romanization used by BBC News is most likely meant to represent an, which is not a common phoneme of English but is somewhat similar to the of English hut. An English speaker naively pronouncing an unfamiliar word may produce a better approximation of how the name sounds in the mouth of an Iraqi speaker for the word julood than for jaloud, which might be made to rhyme with aloud. For a French speaker, this would be the other way around.  --Lambiam 19:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Blythwood (talk) 03:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Translation of a (probably simple) arabic text on an image
The quite ambiguously named file File:Unknown image and written language..jpg shows a (likely military related) arabic inscription somewhere in Iraq. I would like to have an English translation of the about 10-15 words visible there. Pittigrilli (talk) 07:09, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * It looks like the words "Allahu Akbar" in the flag have been painted out, then put back in again. Some of the words have more than one meaning, and I can't really make them fit together in a phrase, but the three words surrounding the map of Iraq are Awakening, Sacrifice, and Steadfastness.  The words in the scroll probably mean "the borders of Iraq".  The words under the scroll mean "6th Border Brigade", I guess.  I'm not going to try to figure out the later graffiti... AnonMoos (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * This is very helpful, thank you. Where do/did the words "Allahu Akbar" (I know the meaning) stand? The red phrase? As the pic is from 2008, I assume that the whole wall writing is from before the US invasion 2003, hence from the Saddam rule time. As far as I know Saddam Hussein had a non-religious, quasi socialist (while dictatoric) ruling style and most/all religions (including christianity) were treated mainly equal. This would speak against the strong islamic words "Allahu Akbar" being part of the original painting as a symbol of a military unit, right? Pittigrilli (talk) 09:22, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I didn't attempt to decipher the red text, or anything else that was not part of the original design. "Allahu Akbar" is in the flag: see Flag of Iraq. The design was done before the flag change in 2008, or by someone who opposed the flag change of 2008.  If you could find out the organizational history of tthe 6th Border Brigade, that might help with the dating, but a little semi-perfunctory Google searching (in English) didn't turn up much.  Christians haven't had much equality in Iraq since the 1933 Assyrian massacre -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:32, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Ok, this answers my question. I am quite content with what you translated, so from my side we could close this. Thank you again, Pittigrilli (talk) 17:52, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

The indivisible oneness of the trinity
I was recently listening to the song Hey Ladies and for some reason something just clicked to me about their particular choice of grammatical number. In case you're not a patron of the classics, the lyrics are here. The thing is, it's basically sung from the first person singular "I'm..." despite the fact that three people are singing it, either in harmony or in turns. And they're not expressing their individual perspectives (as you might typically find in a duet), but a kind of multi-person singular. Even the line "I'm Adam, and I'm adamant about livin' large" is started by Ad-Rock, but finished by someone else (Mike D, I think) without a change in perspective. So, I guess my first question is, is this a wildly common form that I've just been oblivious to? Following on that, is it found elsewhere? It's not hard to find instances of multiple lead vocalists on a single song, but my impression is that it's unusual for such songs to take the form of a narrative with a single POV. Matt Deres (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * How is this a language question? Nardog (talk) 22:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Because it's ultimately about grammatical number. What's going on in the song is like a reversed singular they. Matt Deres (talk) 13:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The concept has been around for a while: eg "My name is Legion, for we are many." Mark 5:1-10 MinorProphet (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * My impression is that this is a common and unremarkable form. Consider that choirs and congregations sing hymns with 1st person singular lyrics like "Mine eyes have seen the glory . . ."; barbershop quartets render "I dream of Jeanie . . ."; etc. I suspect examples could be found in virtually any musical genre. Perhaps a vocal expert could tell us if there's a technical term for it, but I doubt it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.18.208 (talk) 02:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Whole classrooms recite in unison, "I pledge allegiance to ...". --Lambiam 17:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Pledging allegiance or declaring your love of god are not the same sort of thing that I'm talking about at all. When Americans do their flag ritual, they're speaking in unison, yes, but acting individually. If we all stood together and declared "I edit Wikipedia!" or "We edit Wikipedia!" it would mean largely the same thing: we're Wikipedia editors. But if you and I stood together and declared "I am Matt Deres!" that's a little different, right? You could be stating your solidarity with me, a la Je suis Charlie but if we went on to relate a narrative in the first person singular, that would be different again. That's what's going on in the song. Your point about barbershop is spot on, though; they're doing something very similar and I hadn't considered that at all. What the singers in Moonlight Bay are doing is exactly what's going on in my original example. Thank you! Any other examples out there? Matt Deres (talk) 13:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm too lazy to go check, but if I'm not mistaken the Greek chorus at least sometimes speaks as I. On a basic level I guess it's just the old distinction between the author (or performer) and the lyrical subject: when that distinction is made it shouldn't matter whether the singer is of a different number, gender or whathever than the I in the song. Reminds me of Neil Young's Powderfinger where the lyrical subject is actually dead whereas Neil clearly is not... --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:47, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
 * A slightly related previous thread here discusses what happens when a singer performs a love song originally written for a singer of the other gender. Alansplodge (talk) 09:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm Spartacus! -- Jayron 32 11:46, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
 * "Now, won't the real Spartacus please stand up, and put one middle finger on each hand up?..." (Although googling shows me that the joke is hardly original...) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:34, 2 May 2023 (UTC)