Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language

= July 5 =

Japanese place names outside Japan
Assaí is a Brazilian municipality whose name is derived from the Japanese word 朝日 Asahi. Are there other instances of place names (villages, towns, cities, provinces etc..., not street names or restaurants) outside of Japan (modern and historical, thus excluding, for example, Karafuto] with a Japanese etymology or with an outright Japanese name? I'm particularly curious about South America, with its large Japanese diaspora. Thanks! 82.48.30.149 (talk) 14:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)


 * There's Okinawa Uno, Bolivia. Nardog (talk) 12:50, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * There are several places (either tiny communities or ghost towns) in the U.S. and Canada named Tokio or Togo, which the study Names on the Land attributes to the pro-Japanese sentiment in some circles during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. There is also Japan, Missouri in the Missouri Ozarks, which was named after the local Roman Catholic church, the Church of the Holy Martyrs of Japan. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  12:34, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There are four U.S. places named Satsuma. These were named after the Satsuma orange, which was itself named after the former Satsuma Province. Lantzy : Lantzy 21:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In line with what Orange Mike mentioned above, see Oyama, British Columbia, Togo, Saskatchewan, Mikado, Saskatchewan. See --Soman (talk) 11:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

"It is interesting to find the state of Texas bearing the most Japanese-named spots. The total is four . Aside from the two given in the foregoing paragraphs, there is Mayekawa , a place named after the Japanese pioneer Mayekawa . A railway station and a school are located in the town . Then there is Satsuma , a place a Japanese pioneer named Satsuma helped to develop . A fairly large sized town , the village and vicinity still produce the Satsuma oranges ." (Japanese vignettes, p. 17, published 1939). --Soman (talk) 11:36, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 6 =

Questions
--40bus (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has a phonemic contrast between close-mid and open-mid vowels?
 * 2) Is there any dialect that pronounces the P in word psychology? Several other languages pronounce it.
 * 3) Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has /z/ or /v/ phoneme?
 * 4) Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has a /b/-/v/ distinction?
 * 5) Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) where j / soft g is a coronal sound, rather than velar?
 * 6) Is pronouncing the T in words tsunami and tsar more common that pronouncing P in psychology?
 * 7) Why letter S is silent in viscount? Silent letters don't typically appear at the ends of non-initial syllables.
 * 8) Are there any words in English with coda /sl/?
 * 9) Are there any words in English that have a consonant cluster containing an affricate?
 * 10) Are there any words in English that have affricates or /h/ in complex onsets?


 * As for 8, "hassle" etc, if you're willing to accept syllabic L. AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As for 6, many people pronounce "tsar" as if spelled "zar". I don't think there's much initial /ts/ except in Tsetse fly. AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As for 7, presumably borrowed from French after the amount of silent consonants in French had increased... AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I figured it might have been a later "etymological spelling", such as isle or debt. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Definitely from Old French. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As for 9, if medial clusters are allowed, there's "judgement". AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There are accents where 'tree' is pronounced "chree" and (I think) 'dream' is "jream". And of course many people still pronounce 'which' as "hwich". Also 'hue'. — kwami (talk) 08:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The /b/–/v/ contrast in Spanish is reported in the US, northern Mexico, and Puerto Rico (Exford 2018). Nardog (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there any Spanish dialect (other than Judaeo-Spanish) that has a phonemic contrast between close-mid and open-mid vowels?
Spanish phonology:
 * In Eastern Andalusian and Murcian Spanish, word-final /s/, /θ/ and /x/ regularly weaken, and the preceding vowel is lowered and lengthened:[157]
 * /is/ > [ɪː] e.g. mis [mɪː] ('my' pl)
 * /es/ > [ɛː] e.g. mes [mɛː] ('month')
 * /as/ > [æː] e.g. más [mæː] ('plus')
 * /os/ > [ɔː] e.g. tos [tɔː] ('cough')
 * /us/ > [ʊː] e.g. tus [tʊː] ('your' pl)
 * A subsequent process of vowel harmony takes place so lejos ('far') is [ˈlɛxɔ], tenéis ('you [plural] have') is [tɛˈnɛj] and tréboles ('clovers') is [ˈtɾɛβɔlɛ] or [ˈtɾɛβolɛ].[158]

I guess that is phonetic rather than phonemic. --Error (talk) 00:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Numerals
Do numerals constitute a distinct part of speech in English? --40bus (talk) 21:04, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * They're not usually considered to do so. AnonMoos (talk)


 * In general, cardinals would be nouns, and ordinals would be adjectives. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In Finnish, it is a distinct part of speech. Even words like sata (100) and tuhat (1000) are definitely numerals, and not nouns. --40bus (talk) 06:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * (ec) Grammarians may label some word as a distinct part of speech, but is this reflected in its actual use in the language? The word sata can be inflected just like a common noun such as utu, so it can function as a noun, just like an English numeral such as hundred, which can be qualified with an adjective ("the happy hundred") and has a plural ("hundreds of people agree with me"). What makes cardinal numerals distinct from common nouns, though, at least in some languages, is that they can be used as determiners of nouns ("the first hundred years"). You can substitute the noun "lot" for "hundred" used as a noun ("the happy lot"; "lots of people agree with me"). You cannot do this with "hundred" used as a determiner (*"the first lot years"). That is IMO enough reason to assign cardinal numbers their own part of speech, but an alternative is to assign several parts of speech. Wiktionary classifies Finnish sata as only a numeral but English hundred as both a numeral and a noun. The English word some is classified as a pronoun, a determiner, and an adverb.
 * Rather in general, grammarians do not agree among themselves on which parts of speech there are and which ones should be assigned to given terms. The common assignments are also a matter of what is conventional, rather than theoretically sound. --Lambiam 08:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Parts of speech are to some extent subjective. There are different kinds of noun that might be considered different parts of speech, and to some extent it's just tradition that they're not. English numerals, if you want to call them nouns, behave differently than other nouns. In "two [dogs] bark", "two" is not your typical noun. It doesn't take the plural, yet counts as a plural for the verb. (That's different than "I wrote four twos", where it does take the plural and does behave as a typical noun.) It's attributive ("two dogs bark"), yet can occur without the main noun ("two bark"), which is also odd. There's lots of behaviour like that that would be odd for a noun, so you could say that it's not a noun. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Back in 2017, Zompist had a post on the syntax of mathematical sentences (e.g. "two plus two equals four"). Double sharp (talk) 09:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

NB (I don't know if this is the reason for your question, 40bus), if a numeral is not a part of speech, then the second bullet at Numeral needs to be corrected. I'm not bold enough to do it myself since I don't know what exactly is a "numeral" or a "part of speech". AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 13:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 7 =

Loans from Welsh in Old English
Were Welsh words with /ɬ/, /r̥/, and /n̥/ loaned into Old English (possibly also early Middle English) with /hl/, /hr/, and /hn/? What about loans in the other direction?

(Somewhat inspired by 40bus' question about h-clusters.) Double sharp (talk) 09:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't know if there were enough Celtic loans into Old English for us to know.
 * Welsh ll came in later as fl, at least in 'Floyd' and 'flummery'. — kwami (talk) 10:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * We have a List of English words of Welsh origin, which as — kwami says above, are remarkably few considering that the English and Welsh have lived together for more than a thousand years. Alansplodge (talk) 11:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Swedish words of Finnish origin are of a similar magnitude... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:20, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I was afraid of that. :( But surely names of Welsh people and settlements must have been recorded by the English? Double sharp (talk) 11:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * They were and are recorded and used, since Welsh is a living language, but they did and do not generally give rise to words in the vocabulary of English. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.226.178 (talk) 15:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, yes of course. I was thinking of the period when Old English still had those consonant clusters.
 * So, just thinking of a prominent Welsh person from the medieval period whose name would've contained /ɬ/: surely Llywelyn the Great must've been mentioned in some contemporary English texts? How was his name spelled in those texts? Double sharp (talk) 15:31, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * 400 years later, Shakespeare included a character in Henry V called Fluellen, which WP describes as "an Anglicised version of Llywelyn". Turner Street (talk) 12:10, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's like kwami's examples of Floyd and flummery. By then /hl/ did not exist in English, so /fl/ was perceived as closest to /ɬ/. What I was wondering was whether /hl/ was ever used to borrow Welsh words when that consonant cluster existed in English – but as indicated by kwami's latest response in this thread, the question may not be answerable due to the small size of the Old English corpus. Double sharp (talk) 17:02, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Alansplodge's example of Latin "Lhein" below is suggestive. This was very early Middle English, so perhaps the sound still occurred, or was remembered. If hw had become MdE wh by this time, we might expect hl to have become lh as well. So perhaps this is indirect evidence for what you're looking for?
 * Note that Llanddewi didn't get the same treatment. Perhaps /hl/ was only maintained in stressed syllables? I'm just speculating here. How important would English phonotactics or orthography be (if there even was an English orthography at the time for hl to have become lh -- unless that happened at the end of the OE era?) to a Welshman writing in Latin when the court language was Norman? It's likely someone has analyzed this somewhere. — kwami (talk) 19:09, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * If the spelling change from "hw" to "wh" reflected any phonetic change (not entirely clear to me), it would be from a cluster [xw] to a single sound [ʍ], not any reordering. Another motivation could have been just to assimilate the spelling to digraphs with "h" in second position (sh, ch, th etc).   In Scotland, the spelling "quh" was occasionally used... AnonMoos (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I just meant as an orthographic change. — kwami (talk) 23:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Okay, Rhyl gives some examples of how Middle English writers tried to represent Welsh /r̥/ around 1300: Hulle, Hul, Ryhull. But I'm not sure if Middle English had already lost /hr/ by then. Those examples are referenced to Owen and Morgan's Dictionary of the Place-names of Wales (2007), so that might be a good place to start researching this question. Now if only I hadti a copy. Double sharp (talk) 15:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Gerald of Wales, writing in Latin in 1191 (for a French-speaking English audience) in Itinerarium Cambriae or Journey through Wales, for example has Llanddewi Brefi as "Landewi Brevi" and Llŷn as "Lhein". Not sure if this helps. Gerald was presumably able to speak Welsh, but English was not the language of geographers or historians at this time. Alansplodge (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think we're looking for something earlier. Presumably Old English would've maintained the distinctions that were available to it. The problem is attestation: the surviving Old English corpus is quite small (a single person can -- and does -- study the entire thing!), so it's possible that such names do not occur, or occur with such low frequency that we can't be sure if the surviving tokens are representative.
 * But Lhein is certainly suggestive. — kwami (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Nothing to do with Welsh, but proto-Germanic "hringaz" was borrowed into Finnish as "rengas"... AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Brittonic words for 18
And continuing the Celtic theme of my previous question: what's the history of the factor-names for 18? I'm referring to Breton triwec'h "three sixes" and Welsh deunaw "two nines". Cornish etek seems to be regular additive 8 + 10 instead, and English Wiktionary tells me that Breton and Welsh both have (presumably rarer? they're not on the main Wiktionary page listing translations of wikt:eighteen) regular alternatives (even if we restrict ourselves to the traditional vigesimal system for Welsh). Double sharp (talk) 16:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The book "Lingo" by Gaston Dorren has a brief discussion of the irregularity of Breton number words, where 78 + 59 is three-six-and-three-twenty plus nine-and-half-hundred. He also says that Welsh (unlike Breton) has regular forms for calculating with, as opposed to the irregular forms for counting.  Some modern languages of India also have a rather complicated system of sub-100 number words... AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Sino-Xenic toponyny
What are some factors that have traditionally played a part in determining whether places in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam use native toponyms or Chinese-derived toponyms? Primal Groudon (talk) 18:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Seoul traditionally had no Chinese characters corresponding to its name, unlike many other Korean placenames of any importance... AnonMoos (talk) 18:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Although the names of Japanese places like Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Nagasaki are written in Japanese with kanji (福岡; 熊本; 長崎), the names themselves are generally Japanese. The characters for Nagasaki are read in Chinese like Chángqí (Hanyu Pinyin romanization). --Lambiam 09:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In Hokkaido, we find place-names like Sapporo 札幌 or Furano 富良野 which are originally Ainu, but were adapted phonetically into Japanese and then given kanji with the appropriate sound. Double sharp (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * My focus for this question is on the etymology of the toponyms, not the script used to write them. Primal Groudon (talk) 19:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * This is a very interesting question! I was able to find online a text called “Standardisation of place names in countries influenced by the chinese writing system” by Hiroshi Tanabe. It goes into detail about it. I’m quoting it here: 82.48.30.149 (talk) 13:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "Kanji" is the Japanese name for Chinese characters, in China it's "hanzi", in Korea "hanja" and in Vietnamese "chữ Hán". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It probably depends on the fact that the author is Japanese (it was a quote from him). Just a question: why was the quote redacted? --195.62.160.60 (talk) 15:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The original PDF of Tanabe and Watanabe's document is here. (It's from the institution of one of the authors, so it should be fine.) Double sharp (talk) 15:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It was perceived as a copyright violation, without giving credit to the original authors of the paper, I believe. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Unlike Wikipedia content, where attribution is sufficient, copyright may prevent reproduction unless permission is obtained. 92.29.246.121 (talk) 16:46, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Ah. When I said "it should be fine", I meant "it should be fine to link". Certainly not to quote at as much length as it had been quoted before redaction. Double sharp (talk) 06:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 8 =

Individual conjecture
Journalist Nesta Roberts wrote in 1971 about the later so-called 27 Club members: "In what proportion drink, drugs, and desperation respectively contributed to those deaths is a matter for individual conjecture." I'm not sure what exactly she means with "individual conjecture": Is it "We can assume the proportion was different for each of those individuals", or "Everybody may make his own assumptions on this topic."? --KnightMove (talk) 15:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Definitely the second option ("Everybody can do their own guessing")... AnonMoos (talk) 16:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that that is what she did write, but is it what she actually meant to write? Why should anyone (including myself) care about what I think caused Jimi Hendrix's death? It seems to make more sense to state that each case must be assessed individually, and I suspect that she just formulated this poorly. Of course there's no way to know for certain. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * It's the same thing as leaving it up to the reader, which was already a clich&#233; centuries ago. Jane Austen ended Northanger Abbey with the following rather sarcastic final sentence: "I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience." AnonMoos (talk) 17:33, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In mathematics, and possibly elsewhere, the phrase is "...left as an exercise for the reader". --Trovatore (talk) 20:33, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've read Northanger Abbey (twice) and I know a bit of mathematics and I'm still not convinced, although, it should be noted, I did agree about the literal meaning. The context of the sentence might help. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "„Jim Morrison, vocalist of The Doors, who had lived in Paris since the beginning of this year, died here on July 3 in what has become almost the classic fashion of the folk hero of pop culture. Like Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix: and at the same age, 27, he was found dead. In what proportion drink, drugs, and desperation respectively contributed to those deaths is a matter for individual conjecture.“ --KnightMove (talk) 10:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Here purely a matter for individual conjecture is given as a definition for the term anybody's guess. In this definition, individual corresponds with anybody's – it refers to those doing the guessing. The subtext is that such guessing is baseless, also expressed in the saying your guess is as good as mine – I can't know, and neither can you. Paraphrasing, she is saying that speculation how much each factor contributed to these deaths is meaningless; we don't know and we can't know.
 * If one shouldn't engage in speculation about specific cases, guessing group statistics for the 27 Club as a whole is even more pointless, so for that reason it is also unlikely that that is what she meant. As I understand the sentence she takes it for granted, though, that each death should be considered on a case-by-case basis; in some inebriety may have played a major role in the events leading to a person's death, while in other cases it perhaps did not. We just don't know more than what is known. --Lambiam 22:18, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 13 =

Der Alte (Fuchs?)
The German crime television series de:Der Alte is named The Old Fox in English, fr:Le Renard (série télévisée) in French, fi:Vanha kettu in Finnish, and sv:Den gamle deckarräven in Swedish.

All four of the translated names I have mentioned mean "the fox" or "the old fox". The original German name does not. It simply means "the old one".

Why is this? Is "fox" somehow implied from "old"? How is it possible that four unrelated languages (Finnish is not even Indo-European) have managed to do this independently? Or is there something I am missing here? J I P &#124; Talk 19:56, 13 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm not familiar with the series, but foxes are, in English (and I believe in Persian), proverbially crafty characters. An old one would be even more so. Reynard of course crosses cultures. Is the "Old One" of the series a cunning, crafty, type? DuncanHill (talk) 20:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * This RefDesk thread concerning the differences between being a person described as "old" in German and English might be relevant too. Alansplodge (talk) 22:11, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Quoting our article The Old Fox: 'By understanding the psychological make-up of his suspect, the "Old Fox" craftily leads the criminal into his own trap, to the great surprise of his often perplexed staff.' --Lambiam 09:48, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It does indeed seem that "Der Alte" in the series is a cunning, crafty type. The main Old Fox is an older Chief Inspector, physically slow, but mentally sharp with a deep understanding of human nature. Apparently Der Alte carries certain connotations in German as a Chief or Boss, implying that With Age Comes Wisdom and so forth. The TV series is a long-running institution in Germany, and the basic concept is indeed promising. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:13, 14 July 2024 (UTC)


 * As a native German speaker - Austro-Bavarian - who has never seen an installment of this TV series: "Der Alte" is generally a term of respect and even endearment to describe a person of seniority and superior experience.  In my understanding, the above mentioned characteristics of foxy cunning is not part of the semantics.  However, I repeat to never have seen any of the productions.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 15 =

Triple parenthetical phrases
We use [brackets] to enclose parenthetical phrases that are inside another parenthetical phrase. That is, brackets are for a double parenthetical phrase. But what do we use when there are three levels of parenthetical phrases?? What do we use?? Georgia guy (talk) 11:54, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * You're talking in English, right? What I've seen, on the rare occasions where it was necessary, was curved brackets {}: (enclosing [this {enclosing this} thusly]). -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  12:15, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * From DPDk, with two levels it is (algunos estudiosos consideran su obra Fortunata y Jacinta [1886-87] la mejor novela española del siglo xix) but in mathematics and chemistry it is reversed [(4 + 2) × (5 + 3)] − (6 − 2). I remember from math class {2 × [3 × (4 + 5)] + 6} . Bracket (mathematics) says:
 * Square brackets are also often used in place of a second set of parentheses when they are nested—so as to provide a visual distinction.
 * --Error (talk) 22:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Bracket (mathematics) Glossary of mathematics:
 * {□}
 * 1. Sometimes used as a synonym of (□) and [□] for avoiding nested parentheses.
 * --Error (talk) 22:53, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Georgia_guy -- I think it's as common or possibly even more common (based on what I've seen) to use parentheses within parentheses: (...(...)...). This convention is reasonably clear (though it can be a little bit visually jarring if multiple ")" marks are side-by-side at the end). AnonMoos (talk) 22:20, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Bracket says:
 * Parentheses may be nested (generally with one set (such as this) inside another set). This is not commonly used in formal writing (though sometimes other brackets [especially square brackets] will be used for one or more inner set of parentheses [in other words, secondary {or even tertiary} phrases can be found within the main parenthetical sentence]).
 * --Error (talk) 22:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Scientific transliteration
Why can't every language romanize Russian using scientific transliteration? It would eliminate irritating conventions using $⟨y⟩$ for iotated vowels and $⟨sh⟩$ for Ш etc. and reflect language's Slavicness better. --40bus (talk) 19:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Why can't the English teach their children how to transliterate Russian? They can, but they don't feel like it. --Amble (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Languages do not romanize. Did you mean, why can't publications in every language use scientific transliteration for Russian terms (presumably mainly proper nouns)? Many languages do not use a Latin alphabet, and in several of those that do some of the transliterations use letters not in their alphabet. Even if it solves a problem, it addresses only a minute part of the general problem; most non-Latin scripts do not have a "scientific" transliteration, and many romanization schemes rely on the English pronunciation of letters. --Lambiam 21:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)


 * 40-bus -- We discussed this exact same topic not too long ago. My basic answer is the same as before: Most English-language speakers have been rather resistant to the use of diacritics (except as optional marks of sophistication for some semi-unassimilated loanwords borrowed from a few foreign languages which use the Latin alphabet, especially French).  In the case of Finnish, Finnish speakers are accustomed to diacritics, due to the use of &#228; and &#246; in the orthography of their language, and there's no native Finnish way of spelling the "sh" and "zh" sounds, so there was no problem with introducing &#353; and &#382; into Finnish practices for transcribing foreign words.  However, none of that applies to English.  The average native English-speaker reading an article about Eastern Europe, if he cares at all about how words transcribed from Cyrillic are pronounced, wants a rough practical approximate guide based on customary English spellings, and does not want to worry about strange little marks flying around various letters.  (And that's assuming that his news source would even include the diacritics -- in the days of Wade-Giles, its diacritics and apostrophes were almost always omitted in mass-market English-language newspapers, as has also been explained before.) AnonMoos (talk) 22:38, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * But West Slavic names usually appear with diacritics in English texts. If Russian used Latin alphabet, then there were no irritations and the alphabet would be similar to Czech alphabet. Thus I hope that Russian will eventually switch to Latin alphabet in next 30 years. --40bus (talk) 06:25, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * You may well hope, but there is no chance that Russian changes alphabets. Cyrillic is perfectly adapted to the language, has been in use for centuries, and is known by the entire Russian population. Why should there be a switch, except to please a few eccentrics in foreign countries who don't even speak the language? Xuxl (talk) 09:34, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * And most English speakers generally ignore the diacritics on West Slavic names. They get printed, but the average reader doesn't give a shit about them. My question is "why can't 40bus accept the fact that different languages are different?" Seriously, you keep asking questions phrased in such a way as to suggest that you know best and that any language that dares to deviate from your preferred methods is in some way deficient or wrong. STOP DOING THAT. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * He won't stop until he's forced to stop. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No one can force so well-augured a user to stop—according to Myles na gCopaleen, "Fortuna favet 40 bus". Deor (talk) 16:36, 16 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Interesting that you refer to "West Slavic" and then only mention the Czech alphabet. Do you think Polish orthography, which also uses digraphs, insufficiently reflects the language's Slavicness?
 * (In fact Polish does transliterate Russian using the Polish conventions, e.g. pl:Anton Czechow.) Double sharp (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

If Russia does after all decide to switch to the Latin alphabet, it may actually go for the English style, with ⟨sh⟩, ⟨y⟩, etc. That style is more internationally recognisable (which languages that chose diacritics weren't too concerned about when they did so), would make Russian orthography distinct from those of related languages, and already serves as the mainstream standard for romanizing the language. On the other hand, scientific transliterations, as the attribute scientific suggests, seek linguistic precision but not necessarily user-friendliness. --Theurgist (talk) 22:13, 16 July 2024 (UTC)


 * They could. It would be more recognisable for native English users, but wouldn't be much more helpful to native Latin alphabet users who aren't native English users. A user-friendly transliteration system must be tuned to the target language, otherwise it isn't any more user-friendly than a scientific system. Russian ш is transliterated as š for a Czech or Croatian audience, sz for Polish, sch for German, sh for English, sj for Dutch or Norwegian etc.
 * The problem of English-based transliterations is that they only work well for sounds that not only exist in English, but are also the standard pronunciation of some letter combination, which, given the chaotic nature of English spelling, is far from given. (Zh is a remarkable counter-example. The sound /ʒ/ occurs in English, but the zh digraph doesn't; yet it's understood.) PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Pinyin and the Hepburn system, both pretty much universal romanization standards, already use ⟨sh⟩ for "sh"-like sounds. If Russian switches to Latin, other Latin-written languages will no longer adapt Russian names but will cite them as they are. A ⟨sh⟩ would then be a clearer indicator of something going on than a diacritic over a ⟨s⟩, which, as discussed, would be ignored by many and often even omitted. --Theurgist (talk) 00:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, ch is in the Slavic languages using that digraph (Czech, Slovak, Polish) used for /x/, as it is used in German, Dutch and the Celtic languages. Using ch for /tʃ/ in transcriptions from Russian is more confusing for people who expect /x/ than using č. Over here, the newspapers usually get the diacritics right for Slavic languages. (Here, Russian /tʃ/ is usually transcribed tsj.) PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Where is "over here"? The Netherlands? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 17 =

"Two English"
An American man and an American woman are "two Americans". This is gender-neutral and unambiguous. An Englishman and an Englishwoman are "two English". However, this is not that well understandable as it is not your first connotation when you hear "two English". What is talked about here? A translation from Spanish "to English"? Is the girlfriend of a Scottish boy "too English" for his grandmother? Is there a better, unmistakable way to address two mixed-gender people from England? --KnightMove (talk) 10:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Two English people? HiLo48 (talk) 11:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think HiLo48 has the best answer. "Two Englanders" is understandable but will leave you sounding like a comedic stereotype. "Two Britons" is correct but less precise. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * When not in England, the term "Brits" (albeit in this particular case, as you say, imprecise) is something I've heard commonly used and used myself. Mikenorton (talk) 16:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm a little curious about this. When I hear someone described as a Brit I generally assume they're English; I don't really think of the Scots or the Welsh and certainly not the Northern Irish.  Is that the common understanding? --Trovatore (talk) 20:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I worked in Norway as an ex-pat for over five years and the Brits included Scots and Welsh as far as I can remember, but that's just a personal recollection, no citations available, sorry. Mikenorton (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In absolute terms, most Brit(on)s are English (84% of the UK population is in England).
 * Relatively, Northern Ireland is the only constituent country whose residents are more likely to identify as solely British (41%) (or solely Irish at 25%) than solely of their constituent country (21%). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:45, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not aware of a generic & specific term for two people of mixed gender. The word "couple" may be useful, but it does not define two random people. Two Americans, two Britons, two Spaniards (or whatever) can be any combination of genders / sexes.  And two Viennese könnten ja ein Paar Würschtel sein.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you drawing a distinction between thigs like " there's a couple of people standing in that corner" and "there's a couple standing in that corner"? Because I would say the first about any 2 people but the second only if they were romantically linked. Except I would also say "there's a couple in that corner" as a response to the question "how many people are in this room?" Again, without regard to their sexes, genders, or relationship statuses.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Occasionally, people use just "two English" as a noun phrase. --Lambiam 14:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that would normally be considered non-standard, though. There are some (most?) demonyms which are both adjective and noun (e.g. American/an American, German/a German), some which have different words for each (e.g. Spanish/a Spaniard, Danish/a Dane) and some which are (generally) only used as adjectives (e.g. French, Irish, Chinese). Generally those in the third category need "person" added to make a noun phrase (or "-man"/"-woman" in some cases), and that's where I'd put "English". There seems to be a slight shift towards treating the third category the same as the first category and using the adjective as a noun (e.g. I've seen "a Chinese" instead of "a Chinese person"), which is presumably why there are a few instances of "two English" being used, but it still sounds odd to my (British English) ear. (Admittedly, it does sound a little less odd in the plural. "I saw two English walking down the street" would be odd, but "I saw an English walking down the street" would be downright bizarre.) Proteus (Talk) 15:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Possibly the closest we can come in standard-speak is "The English are a curious race", or "You English are despicable". Not even "some English" works for me.-- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  15:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find the usage in the first and third links, and the second was definitely with nonstandard grammar.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Of course, here in Australia we also have the useful word "pom", sometimes expressed more fully as "pommy bastard", especially when an Ashes series is underway. Although the word almost always refers to male English people.HiLo48 (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * On my only visit to Australia many decades ago, I was proud to be referred to as a "to and from". Alansplodge (talk) 10:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Is that rhyming slang? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Sounds like it, but I've never heard that one. There are expressions used throughout our wide brown land, but then there are some others that have currency only within much smaller communities. The Aussie way is to use such little-known expressions on unsuspecting strangers, whether they be from other parts of the country or overseas, causing the strangers befuddlement. They ask for a translation, and this immediately marks them as "not a local", and hence automatically suspect until such time as they can earn a degree of acceptability. That may take a few minutes, or a few generations, or anywhere in between. Xenophobia works on many levels, not just between nations. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "to-and-from n. [rhy. sl. = pom (see POMMIE n.)] (Aus.) a British immigrant to Australia." see  DuncanHill (talk) 22:27, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't have so be an immigrant. "Pom" works for visitors too. I believe our King is visiting later this year. He will be called a pom by plenty of Aussies when he's here.
 * We Londoners are perfectly fluent in rhyming slang, so there was no befuddlement. Alansplodge (talk) 11:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I should bleeding coco! Mikenorton (talk) 19:09, 20 July 2024 (UTC)


 * We have Terminology of the British Isles and Glossary of names for the British... AnonMoos (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Can someone tell me what language this video are in?
--Trade (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * File:Кампания ООН «Свободные и равные»- Союзники В Действии – Марсия.webm
 * File:الأمم المتحدة أحرار ومتساوون- مساهمة الحلفاء-ات – مارسيا.webm


 * Based on the framed picture in the background, this is probably Daniela Mercury on the left and her wife Malu Verçosa Mercury on the right speaking Brazilian Portuguese. GalacticShoe (talk) 22:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The subtitles appear to be in Russian and Arabic, though. Or possibly some other Slavic language in Cyrillic, and Persian. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:07, 18 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The first video has no sound.  I listened to the second and can confirm the language is Portuguese.   Since I initially found the accent difficult to follow it is undoubtably the Brazilian variety. 2A00:23D0:7C1:5201:8531:C651:42DE:A528 (talk) 11:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)


 * It does indeed have sound. Maybe you'd need to update your browser or something. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Not really interested in the subtitles. Only the audio Trade (talk) 12:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Didn't even realized the videos featured celebs Trade (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Drone as a German word
Hey friends, having another puzzle over a wördle.de answer. Yesterday the solution was "DRONE" which has left me baffled. Any help on what the German language means by this word please? All I get from de.wikipedia are proper names. Thanks! 70.67.193.176 (talk) 22:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


 * German wiktionary lists only an English word under that spelling (without "h"). AnonMoos (talk) 23:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Exactly, that's why am confused.70.67.193.176 (talk) 02:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Could the alternative spelling "Drone" have become common in German in recent years? Given how much has been written, discussed, etc. about these unmanned flying machines in the past decade, I wouldn't be surprised. It's now become the standard term in French. Xuxl (talk) 07:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In my experience, it hasn't. "Drohne" and "drone" are not just different spellings, but also pronounced differently. I guess many German speakers may be more or less familiar with the English term too, but in my perception at least the German term is still the one commonly used, in both meanings of the word (bees and flying devices). Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:12, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't appear as a German word on LEO.org either. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Short of a misspelling, the only think I can think of is the English word "drone" (as in "droning sound") that is sometimes used when talking about music. It doesn't seem sufficiently common to count as a loanword, though. In principle, it could also be the plural of a word *Dron, but that doesn't exist either. For a German (not English) word *Drone, the pronunciation would be the same as Drohne — the existing word Krone ("crown") is a perfect rhyme. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)


 * As a native speaker (as is Fut.Perf.), I have never seen the AngloSaxon word "drone" used as a loan word in colloquial German. A typo can be excluded, as Wördle is a constructed linguistic game.
 * Is it possible, that the solution is NOT "Drone", but a similar German noun / verb / whatever? The OP seems to be Canadian.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * We're all native speakers here ;-) I entered "DRONE" into wördle today and it was accepted, which means that it is in the database. I haven't found out how the database was created and what is or is not in it (misspellings seem unlikely but not entirely impossible). Maybe the creator is a Sunn O))) fan and put Drone (Doom) in by hand... --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * d:Q650316 (Drone music) reports that the article is not present at de.wp, but gives Drone as the German label. Folly Mox (talk) 12:03, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As has been noted, there exists a German Wikipedia article for Drone Doom. It is a rather niche genre, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for all the discussion. It's not the first time this database has been weird, so I guess that's what's going on here. "drone" was indeed the solution, it tells you :) 70.67.193.176 (talk) 01:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It just might be the german spelling of the Drône (river), as we have no accent circonflexe in German. Lectonar (talk) 11:13, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Are other French river names accepted, such as LOIRE and SAONE? --Lambiam 00:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * LOIRE is accepted, SAONE is not. RHEIN is also accepted. GalacticShoe (talk) 01:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note that Drône is an archaic spelling; the current French orthography is Dronne. Since the Saône is a much more significant and better-known river than the Dronne, presence in the Wördle db as the Germanized spelling of archaic DRÔNE is IMO not a satisfactory explanation. --Lambiam 09:34, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

= July 20 =