Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 September 12

= September 12 =

Flying Tigers
Hi. Claire Lee Chennault was born in America to American parents; his first language was English. He spent much of his later life in China, and married a Chinese citizen, Anna Chennault, so I am guessing that he had some fluency in one of the Chinese languages later in life.

Chennault would conceive, create, then command the First American Volunteer Group to victory. This unit is much better known as the Flying Tigers in English, and the "Flying Tigers" (飛虎隊) in Chinese.

Question 1: Who, and in what language, first coined the name "the Flying Tigers"? To be specific, in 2023, what is the oldest known piece of reliable historical evidence that contains the phrase "Flying Tigers", in either English or Chinese?

The Special Duties Unit is much better known as the Flying Tigers in English, and the "Flying Tigers" (飛虎隊) in Chinese. This nickname is the exact same nickname given to the First American Volunteer Group, both in English and in Chinese.

Question 2: Who, and in what language, first coined the name "the Flying Tigers" for the Special Duties Unit?

Question 3: Is the Special Duties Unit nickname a reference to the First American Volunteer Group nickname? Satoshit1 (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Side note: According to Flying Tigers, "The AVG was created by an executive order of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. He did not speak English, however, and Chennault never learned to speak Chinese. As a result, all communications between the two men were routed through Soong Mei-ling". Clarityfiend (talk) 02:58, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * A direct quote from Chennault:
 * Before I left the United States in the summer of 1941, I asked a few friends in Louisiana to watch the newspapers and send me any clippings about the A.V.G. Now I was being swamped with clippings from stateside newspapers, and my men were astonished to find themselves world famous as the “Flying Tigers”. The insignia we made famous was by no means original with the A.V.G. Our pilots copied the shark-tooth design on their P-40’s noses from a colored illustration in the India Illustrated Weekly depicting an R.A.F. squadron in the Libyan Desert with shark-nose P-40’s.
 * An added note under that text says;
 * "The Book Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory (Pappy) Boyington, by Bruce Gamble, published 2000. Page 181, Time Magazine published an article (last issue of 1941) using the name Flying Tigers. Prior to this the The New York Times did an article with the name. The people of China started calling them “fei hu,” which meant “Flying Tigers.” Most likely the way they attacked the Japanese airplanes. A reporter covering the area must have sent it back to the states".
 * Below that:
 * "Spenser Moosa an American journalist was in Kunming when the first P-40’s arrived to a cheering crowd. Someone in the Chinese crowd yelled “Fei Hu” and Spenser knew a god tag line when he heard one, This was verified to me by Yu Wei a Chinese cadet in that crowd when I interviewed him in Taipei. If you are interested in the real story of the American Volunteer Group check out our documentary Fei Hu, The Story of the Flying Tigers, the only documentary sanctioned by the AVG, Flying Tigers. It aired on US and Chinese Public Television. Frank Boring co-producer."
 * Alansplodge (talk) 08:45, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * The documentary referenced above is viewable on YouTube. Not sure if this qualifies as RS, but you can use Template:Cite AV media if it does. Alansplodge (talk) 17:16, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, all! The WWII half is completely answered.
 * The Hong Kong connection, I fear, is much harder. Since they're less famous. Satoshit1 (talk) 17:36, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * A thorough bash through Google failed to find anything about how the Hong Kong nickname came about. Alansplodge (talk) 20:27, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * It just occurred to me that there may be some connection with the Flying Squad, the Royal Hong Kong Police being a British organisation. But I'm guessing now. Alansplodge (talk) 22:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

I’ll take Chinese mythological creatures for $100, please. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:55, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

New questions
--40bus (talk) 20:26, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Does Finnish have modal auxiliaries?
 * 2) Is there any Romance language where $⟨ge⟩$ and $⟨gi⟩$ are pronounced /ge/ and /gi/?
 * 3) Are there any languages in Europe which have many words with two Q's in a row?
 * 4) Does German have aspect?
 * 5) Is Icelandic a pro-drop language?
 * 6) Is English verb want an auxiliary verb?
 * 7) Why English want is not a modal verb?
 * 8) Is there any language with open front unrounded vowel and none other open vowels?
 * 9) Can palatalized consonants occur at the end of word in Lithuanian?
 * 10) Are there any lexical words in French where plural suffix -s becomes pronounced in liaison?


 * I already answered the Icelandic pro-drop question previously. Based on the material in the "Teach Yourself Icelandic" book, the short answer is No.  English modal verbs don't have 3rd-person singular "-s" inflection in what looks like the present, so "want" is not a modal.  "Want" is an auxiliary in some exceptional or dialectal cases ("The laundry wants washing"), but not ordinarily.  Liaison is frequent with plural endings: Beaux Arts, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 23:43, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * P.S. See Bal des Quat'z'Arts for a liaison plural "z" sound emerging in spelling. (The word "quatre" is often followed by a liaison [z] sound in spoken French, by analogy with "trois", though this might be considered substandard in some circles...) AnonMoos (talk) 23:52, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * 4: See . --Lambiam 09:25, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I digress, but as Swedish works similar to Dutch, I guess it also has aspect... (Ligga, sitta, stå) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:52, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * 3: Would you consider Greenlandic to be European? Double sharp (talk) 15:54, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Is there any Romance language where $⟨ge⟩$ and $⟨gi⟩$ are pronounced /ge/ and /gi/?
Hard and soft G
 * All modern Romance languages make the hard/soft distinction with ⟨g⟩,[1] except a few that have undergone spelling reforms such as Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) or Haitian Creole and archaic variants like Sardinian.

One of orthographies for Ladino language is based on Turkish alphabet and the one used by Aki Yerushalayim has G g as [g~ɣ]. After reading the articles, I am not sure about Haitian Creole and Sardinian language. Campidanese Sardinian
 * Campidanese also uses the digraphs ⟨gh⟩, representing /g/

There are alternative orthographies for Spanish that may have what your are looking for. Bello orthography:
 * Remove the silent ⟨u⟩ in ⟨gu⟩- (gerra, ginda).

es:Gonzalo Correas's Ortografia kastellana, nueva i perfeta/Ortografia kastellana, nueva i perfeta:
 * Lɑ G ɑdmitimos pɑrɑ gɑ kon el primer sonido kon todɑs lɑs vokɑles, i se lɑ prohibe sonɑr xe, kon e, i.

Kristang language has an orthography based on Malay. Maybe other pidgin and creoles based on Romance languages do as you ask. --Error (talk) 09:23, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * So Campidanese uses ⟨gh⟩ consistently for /g/ in all case? Otherwise, using ⟨gh⟩ before ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩ - to avoid palatalization - is the common orthography of Italian. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:45, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Is "want" an auxiliary verb?
In my methodology, an "auxiliary verb" is a verb which can come before infinitive, so "want" would be an auxiliary verb because it can come before to-infinitive, like I want to eat. --40bus (talk) 11:57, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * So "stoop" is also an auxiliary verb in your methodology? --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:03, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- Counting all verbs X which can occur in a "X to Y" construction (where Y is also a verb) as "auxiliaries" is clearly much too broad. Traditionally, verbs are considered auxiliaries if their use in certain constructions serves to specify a "grammatical" meaning (i.e. tense, aspect, progressive etc) rather than an ordinary "content" meaning.  In English, auxiliaries often have special types of contraction and/or combining two words into one, which do not occur with ordinary "content" verbs (taking an "n't" suffix, an initial vowel or "h" + initial vowel disappearing when the previous word is a pronoun, etc).  The verb "to want" has the special merged form "wanna" (comparable to future tense "gonna" or habitual "useta"), but in other respects it's not an auxiliary, except in special cases such as "The laundry wants washing", which aren't common in standard English. AnonMoos (talk) 12:27, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * But the same-meaning verbs in other Germanic languages (German wollen, Swedish vilja, Icelandic vilja) are full modals and auxiliaries. Why isn't English want too? --40bus (talk) 16:20, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * German wollen (and presumably its cognates in other Germanic languages, including English will) is special only on a formal morphological level – together with a few other anomalous verbs it belongs to the historic class of preterite-presents, which means it has some special inflection patterns, including the lack of an overt 3rd person singular ending in the present tense. This small group of verbs is partly coextensive with those verbs that in English became the "modal verbs" (will, can, shall, must). That doesn't mean that wollen itself is also an auxiliary in any functional, semantic or syntactic sense – in German, wissen ('know') is of the same class, and is also clearly not an auxiliary. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:50, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The category of verbs which can come before infinitive doesn't have a neat name; UW Tacoma materials refer to them simply as "verbs that trigger infinitive complements". See Part A at that link for further information, including a long list of such verbs. Crash48 (talk) 13:46, 15 September 2023 (UTC)


 * If you invent your own terminology, you can do whatever you want. If you use the terminology linguists actually use, an auxiliary verb has a different meaning than you gave it.  In linguistics, an auxiliary verb has a purely grammatical function, rather than having a meaning indicating an action; it doesn't have anything to do with the infinitive.  Take the verb "will", which has two senses.  There's the (somewhat archaic sense) meaning "To make happen", such as in the phrase "God wills it", and there's the use of the word as an indicator of future tense, as in "I will run home later today".  Some auxiliary verbs take long infinitive forms, as in the (somewhat archaic) use of "am" as a future marker (I am to run home later today), while others don't (see will above).  -- Jayron 32 13:00, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * According to your definition, keep as in I Keep Forgettin' would be an auxiliary verb because it indicates habitual aspect, rather than having a meaning indicating an action. Yet, it's not included in Auxiliary verb on syntactic rather than semantic grounds, that is, one cannot negate it without adding another auxiliary: I don't keep forgetting rather than *I keep not forgetting. Crash48 (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry for being incorrect. I will try to do better.  -- Jayron 32 18:33, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Jayron32 -- I see no need to take such drastic measures as striking out your comment. AnonMoos (talk) 22:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Crash48 -- I would have a slightly more expansive definition of English auxiliary than in that article. "Go" in "be going to" is drained of all meaning except proximate future tense, and has the spoken contraction "gonna" (which is not used when "go" is a verb of motion).  Similarly, when "used to" has a habitual meaning, it's pronounced with an [s] and no [d], and so is completely different from the past of the verb "to use", which has a [zd] pronunciation.  "Keep" is a more marginal case... AnonMoos (talk) 22:23, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The category that you and Jayron32 are describing, using the semantic criteria, is light verb. All English auxiliaries happen to be light verbs, but other languages may have semantically-heavy auxiliaries. For example, Grammatical aspect explains that a continuous aspect can be expressed by one of the auxiliary verbs liggen ("to lie"), zitten ("to sit"), hangen ("to hang"), staan ("to stand") or lopen ("to walk"), according to the stance of the subject performing or undergoing the action. Crash48 (talk) 13:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I remember a classmate of mine (we must have been about 7 years old) who told us what he had done during the weekend (he had hiked): “We zaten dus te lopen.” (“So we were walking,” literally: “So we sat walking.”) We had a good laugh. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Crash48 -- What is called a "light verb" in that article is mainly a vague verb which accompanies a noun so that the tense/apect/mood/person etc. categories (and possibly inflections) are attached to the verb, while the semantics come mainly from the noun. Japanese suru is almost the platonic ideal of a semantically empty verb which verbifies a large range of nouns.  I don't think that this accurately describes the role of English "going to" or "used to" in their constructions with proximate future and habitual meanings... AnonMoos (talk) 17:03, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

On the modality of "want"

 * See modal verb. Modal verbs, in general, do not take the "to" form of the infinitive, as in "I can run", "can" is a modal verb.  Because want does not normally, in modern English, do this (I want to run is normal, but "I want run" is not), want is not normally considered a modal verb.  This is explained in the article modal verb, which draws a distinction between a modal verb (that precedes the "short infinitive" form, without "to") and verbs like "want", that may express modality, but operate grammatically like "normal" verbs.  -- Jayron 32 13:17, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Are there any lexical words in French where plural suffix -s becomes pronounced in liaison?
Not sure what you mean exactly, but it's quite common for a plural "s" to become pronounced in liaison. For example: les hommes, pronounced lé-z-omm, or les grands hommes, pronounced lé grand-z-omm. Xuxl (talk) 15:11, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Or petits enfants /pətiz⌢ɑ̃fɑ̃/. --Lambiam 08:08, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Are there any instances where the -s suffix becomes pronounced in liaison after another consonant? --40bus (talk) 11:13, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, in feminine plural adjectival forms like in mes petites amoureuses, /pətitz⌢amœʁøz/, this is common. -- Jayron 32 13:11, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * /a.mu.ʁøz/. --Lambiam 07:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)