Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 June 9

= June 9 =

Fully and digitally transcribed hieroglyphic texts
Are there any Egyptian reliefs with transcriptions here or elsewhere that are copy and pastable? Temerarius (talk) 20:09, 9 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Possibly this? "Teaching of Ptahhotep. Converted automatically to Unicode using HieroJax." Going up one directory level reveals a whole slew of these things. Card Zero  (talk) 23:30, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Wonderful, thank you! Temerarius (talk) 23:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Does Latin contain the letter J?
The chemical elements do not contain the letter J or W (name, not symbol, e.g. tungsten not W or wolfram) is because the name of all non-transuranium elements are from either Latin or Greek, but both Latin and Greek do not have the letter J or W, e.g. jodium become iodine, wismut become bismuth (for transuranium elements, it may contain, e.g, joliotium), Latin seems to not have the letters J, K, U, W (and use V in place of U), kalium is not Latin and instead it is Arabic, and if “junonium” (after 3 Juno, which was a proposed name for cadmium, just like cerium after 1 Ceres palladium after 2 Pallas, but its Latin name is “Iunius”, Start with I instead of J) was used in place of cadmium, then the English name of it should be junonium or iunonium? Also, Latin seems to have no J, but aren’t “major” and “junior” Latin? 2402:7500:92C:2EC4:C50:24C1:2841:C6B5 (talk) 21:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * On the question in your heading, see Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 September 12. Deor (talk) 23:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)


 * (ec)This question sounds familiar somehow. In any case, Latin letters I and V can be used as either vowels or consonants depending on the context. One example is the time-honored INRI on the cross of Jesus, which stands for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * All my life I thought it was Nazarensis! —Tamfang (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * So, maior and iunior? The articles on j and i explain that j was for a long time just a decorative i, although Latin i could stand for what I will casually refer to as a "y sound" (or more formally, but confusingly, /j/). Is it still used that way? Ja! Later this sound was replaced with the English "j" sound. And should we use i or j in a Latin context? It's optional, but if you're aiming for historical authenticity, try i, and if you're coining English derivations from Latin, j is what we are used to. Card Zero  (talk) 23:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As a Swede, I find "y sound" more confusing than /j/. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:51, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I deduce you didn't see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That scene grated on me; am I (in this as in much else) alone? —Tamfang (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It offends me in an engineering sense. How could some letter spots hold a man's weight when they're surrounded by crumbly ones? When Indy almost falls through to his death, we can see that there are no supports underneath. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * How is kalium not (Modern) Latin? FWIW, it is in the Lexicon Latinum Hodiernum. Double sharp (talk) 10:12, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The most directly relevant facts (somehow unmentioned in the 2014 discussion) are that before the 17th-century, I and J weren't considered to be distinct letters but merely swash glyph variants, and similarly U and V. The distribution of the forms "J" and "V" to write consonants and "I" and "U" to write vowels was established during the 17th century, but well into the 18th century, they weren't always considered separate letters (see the alphabets in the image File:Sampler by Elizabeth Laidman, 1760.jpg).  So obviously there was no "J" used distinctly from "I" to write sounds in ancient Roman times.  Whether there's a "J" in modern writings of Latin depends on the conventions that have been chosen. AnonMoos (talk) 10:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * And Latin did use K, though in rather restricted use. See kalendae. ColinFine (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That the English names of the (cis-uranic) elements don't contain W or J is simply coincidence. Names like iron, zinc, tin, tungsten are purely Germanic, potassium and vanadium are Germanic names with a Latin-sounding suffix. J and W weren't used in classical Latin, but can occasionally be found in modern Latin. Apparently, the modern Latin word for tungsten is wolframium, borrowed from German. Just like W can be found in Italian, in loans from Germanic languages. PiusImpavidus (talk) 12:49, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Wolfram almost became the normal English name of the element (source, and also see ). In 1949, IUPAC wanted to make wolfram the scientific name as part of its cleanup of double-named elements (beryllium/glucinium, columbium/niobium, cassiopeium/lutetium, celtium/hafnium). But this was misinterpreted as ruling out the name tungsten altogether (even though it was still supposed to be an accepted commercial name), and the resulting outcry led to IUPAC changing back to tungsten pending another review. That pending review has never happened. (Personally, I would've preferred wolfram, chiefly because it would've meant one less odd symbol to explain.) Double sharp (talk) 16:02, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

In fact, lawrencium contains W, and is the only element whose English name does so. Double sharp (talk) 09:42, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


 * There's no element that contains Q, which is a tolerably common letter in Latin. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:13, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There's quicksilver, an alternative name for mercury. It's a Germanic name though. The classical (really classical, not Neolatin) name is hydrargyrum. PiusImpavidus (talk) 13:46, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Also quadium. --Trovatore (talk) 05:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Why deuterium (2H) has symbol D and tritium (3H) has symbol T but quadium (4H) has no symbol Q? 118.170.47.29 (talk) 06:47, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I find "quadium" only in connection with the satirical novel that provided the name. It doesn't look like the name is in official or common use, and therefore there is no official or commonly used symbol. I have reverted your edits in Isotopes of hydrogen that hastily suggested otherwise. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There's no real point to naming higher hydrogen isotopes because they decay too quickly to have any chemistry. Muonium is a better way to extend the series, although in the opposite direction.
 * If we were to give them names as an exercise, though, it would make more sense to continue the series of Greek ordinals: protium, deuterium, tritium, tetartium, pemptium, hektium (or hectium if you'd prefer to transmit kappa as c), hebdomium. Double sharp (talk) 08:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As to elements with q, you would have liked "Becquerelium" but that suggestion lost out to Darmstadtium. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:19, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Also “sequanium” for element 93, see Chemical symbol. 118.170.47.29 (talk) 07:28, 12 June 2024 (UTC)