Hello all. I've been studying linguistics and I've noticed a trend, that writing systems seem to make languages more analytic over time. For example, more analytic languages such as Mandarin Chinese or Latin have long written traditions, whereas polysynthetic languages such as Ainu, Chukchi, and many New World languages have not until recently had a writing system. My explanation is that extremely long words are hard to read (with phonographic writing systems) so those people who were educated enough to read and write started breaking up words in text, which led to breaking up words in speech, and this just trickled from the educated people down to the vulgar people. Is there any linguistic research or support on this supposed trend? Or am I just barking up the wrong tree? (to put it politely) 72.128.95.0 (talk) 02:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When you observe that "Mandarin and Latin have had writing for a long time, whereas Ainu and Chukchi have not", you should be mindful that correlation does not imply causation. The polysynthetic Mayan languages, for example, had the Maya script for some time. Latin was, during its prime, written without word dividers (see scriptio continua), and the introduction of spaces into written Latin didn't alter spoken Latin in any meaningful way. Gabbe (talk) 07:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are several problems with your suggestion. First, I would not put Chinese and Latin close together on the scale of analyticity (supposing there is one). Second, Chinese does not separate words in its script: it separates morphemes, some of which are words. Thirdly, since essentially every human that has ever learnt to write has comprehensively learnt their language (apart perhaps from some vocabulary) before they started learning to write, the possibilities of changes in writing being reflected in changes in speaking are rather limited. --ColinFine (talk) 18:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to point out that (Han) Chinese has been written for a long time but the development of Mandarin is a comparatively recent thing. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:30, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, see spelling pronunciation for changes of speech due to writing. But no, the trend in Indo-European languages toward analyticity is a general one not related to how long the language has had writing, and explanations from genetic and areal linguistics are more relevant than lexicographical ones. μηδείς (talk) 02:43, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Finnish is highly synthetic, depite Finland having one of the most literate populaces on earth. Rhinoracer (talk) 13:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"I wouldn't keep driving if I thought I couldn't keep winning."

Is this correct grammar? A double negative? If incorrect, how could this have been stated correctly in a single sentence? Are there exceptions to the double negative rule? Quinn ^{❀ BEAUTIFUL DAY} 20:10, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The rule is not "no double negatives in a single sentence", it's "no double negatives in a single clause." A new clause usually starts with a conjunction (such as "if"). There are three clauses in this sentence: I wouldn't keep driving / if I thought / (that) I couldn't keep winning. - filelakeshoe 20:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec x 2) It's fine. Not a double negative, but single negatives used in adjacent clauses/phrases.

A double negative would be something like "I wouldn't not take out travel insurance when flying overseas" instead of "I would always take out travel insurance ...". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, makes sense. (In the South we have to be careful with our double negatives. They are an unfortunate aspect of the dialect.) This sentence just gave me pause when I heard it. Kind of like when people say they "could care less" instead of "could not care less." Anyway glad to know it's correct. Thanks! Quinn ^{❀ BEAUTIFUL DAY} 20:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There ain't no such rule. --ColinFine (talk) 20:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen some contrived sentences that use a double negative in a way that would be acceptable to proscriptive grammarians. One is "'When all those around me did nothing to help, I can be proud that I didn't do nothing" -- Q Chris (talk) 14:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't that be rewritten as "I will keep driving as long as I think I can keep winning" or "I'll drive as long as I can still win" ? StuRat (talk) 21:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Depends, really, on whether these are dichotomies, and the taken meaning of "if". In the OP's, it seems to me that if I do think I can win, I can choose whether to drive or not; in yours, I am obliged to keep driving. It's quite difficult to discern exactly what differences there are, but I do think there are some. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also depends on context. If someone said to him "You've done OK so far but you're not going to be able to keep winning", it would be more natural to respond with "I wouldn't keep driving if I thought I couldn't keep winning", rather than "I will keep driving as long as I think I can keep winning". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see someone diagram a sentence connected with Dizzy Dean, commenting on a batter swinging at a pitch that he was unlikely to hit well: "He shouldn't hadn't oughta swang!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How old is the English langauge? Neptunekh2 (talk) 04:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

English language might have some info on its history. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And History of the English language and Old English#History some more. The oldest version of English attested in writing comes from the 7th century AD, but English speakers arrived in Britain in the 5th century, which is probably as good a point as any for identifying the language as a distinct "English" language rather than a dialect of Proto-Anglo-Frisian or something. The trouble with saying how old any language is, is that with a few exceptions (like creoles and Nicaraguan Sign Language), languages don't have identifiable births. Rather, they've evolved from older versions in an unbroken continuum. English evolved from Proto-Germanic, which evolved from Proto-Indo-European, which evolved from something else, and so on. That's why in general it's pretty meaningless to say "Language X is older than language Y" unless you carefully define what exactly you mean by "older". —Angr (talk) 05:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At least 20 years old, as I moved to America in 1991 and people were already speaking English there. 94.27.134.217 (talk) 18:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1. Is the English Language the youngest/newest existing human oral language? 2. What percent the world's populations speaks English as a first language or second language or at least understand English? Thanks! Neptunekh2 (talk) 12:30, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1. Yes and no - it probably changes as fast as many other languages. 2. As a first language, about 5.4% (375 million as a percentage of 6.92 billion). Estimates of the number who can speak the language range up to 1.8 billion or 26%. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:09, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of the age it depends how you define it. I believe that if you mean "how recently would the language be unintelligible to modern speakers" then it is among the youngest of languages, though normally Middle English and Old English are counted as English even though Middle English is difficult to follow and Old English needs to be learned as a separate language. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1. Almost certainly not, although this may depend on your exact definition of language. Modern English is generally dated from the 16th century, whereas both Jamaican Patois and Afrikaans originated in the 17th century.

2. There is a table of statistics of people speaking English as a first or additional language in the English language] article. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of constructed languages that are certainly younger than English. 130.88.134.224 (talk) 13:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... such as this, since 1979. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hawaiian Creole dates back to the late 19th century[1]. Another creole, Tok Pisin, is an official language of Papua New Guinea, and seems of similar age[2]. Because creoles arise from simpler pidgins that are not true languages, it's hard to be precise as to when they come into existence. Sheng arose in the 1970s but there is debate over whether it's really a language. Another possibility is Modern Hebrew, which was developed in the late 19th century and 20th century; this depends on whether you consider it distinct from ancient Hebrew. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please describe to me what the Canadian accent sounds like in Northern Canada specially Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut? Thanks! Neptunekh2 (talk) 12:58, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best thing for you to do would be to look for videos on the Internet of people from those areas. You can look up the names of famous people from northern Canada on pages like Category:People from Yukon by occupation and then look for interviews of them on Youtube. Jordin Tootoo grew up in Nunavut, for example. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

People's accents in those areas vary. Inuit people from that region speak a version of Canadian English whose pronunciation is influenced by the phonology of the Inuit languages. Members of the First Nations may speak versions of Canadian English influenced by their various ancestral languages. White Canadians in these regions have come there mainly from other parts of Canada, and their accents will reflect their places of origin. Marco polo (talk) 20:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is the term "Chinese wall" in the sense of an information barrier a reference to the Great Wall of China? Or is it more like a reference to Japanese paper screen walls or similarly flimsy walls in other Asian countries? Or even decorative screen dividers? I ask because, while the Great Wall seems the most obvious candidate linguistically, a heavily defended, well nigh impregnable stone-and-brick barrier stretching across thousands of miles doesn't seem as apt a metaphor for an internal information barrier as, say, a flimsy paper screen. Does anyone have any insight on this? Has there been any academic study of the term? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:52, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This has a little bit of information in the last paragraph, although I'm not sure how reliable it is (and it even cites an older version of our own article). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that reminded me to check the talk page. Quite a lot of conjectures there too... The one about Mandarins pretending not to see each other seems especially fanciful. Mandarins travelled by sedan chairs so wouldn't "see" each other on the street anyway. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:25, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The way I understand it, the metaphor is the Great Wall and the point is that you have to build an information barrier that's impregnable, etc., in order to prevent any possible breach of ethics. 99.108.21.20 (talk) 06:02, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The OED derives it from "the defensive wall built between China and Mongolia in the 3rd cent. b.c." without further comment, and gives its meaning as "an insurmountable barrier (to understanding, etc.)" from 1907, and "Stock Exchange a prohibition against the passing of confidential information from one department of a financial institution to another." exemplified only from 1979. I hadn't met the phrase before, and immediately thought of the Chinese Room, but that dates only from 1980. --ColinFine (talk) 23:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the responses all. I guess reading "Chinese wall" as "paper screen" is a bit too cynical for the original authors of the phrase. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I had never heard use of "Chinese wall" before. However, I work with many Chinese who refer to China's firewall as "The Great Firewall" - a purposeful reference to "The Great Wall." It is not easy to penetrate. I work with programmers (who are very good hackers) and they have extreme difficulty getting through it. -- kainaw™ 18:03, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a word/term in the English language for "poor or improper" speech, but I would like to know if there is a word/term in the English language for speech that is "proper or well-spoken."

16:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)~~JAK — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.86.218.130 (talk)

See Standard English and Received Pronunciation. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:02, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fluent ? "Surprisingly, Bush is fluent in Spanish (I suppose he had to be fluent in some language)". StuRat (talk) 23:35, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

U and non-U English might also be helpful. "Are the requisites all in the toilet?/The frills round the cutlets can wait/'Til the girl has replenished the cruets/and switched on the logs in the grate." (Betjeman) Tevildo (talk) 10:07, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This has also been known as the humble-bee - see the article in the OED. I think it occurs (inter alia) in Thomas Hardy's 'Mayor of Casterbridge' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.129.215 (talk) 17:28, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And your question is?..... Richard Avery (talk) 18:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish has two different words for "or": tai and vai. Tai means pretty much the logical disjunction operator. "Haluatko syödä lihaa tai kalaa?" means "Do you wish to eat something that is either meat or fish?". Vai means a choice. "Haluatko syödä lihaa vai kalaa?" means "Which do you wish to eat? Meat, or fish?". Are there any other languages with this distinction? JIP | Talk 20:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latin has three words for or: vel, aut, and sive. Aut means the options are exhaustive and vel means they aren't. (I'm not sure about sive.) So Vin carnem aut piscem edere? means you have to eat either meat or fish; there are no other options, and you can't even say "neither". Vin carnem vel piscem edere? means there are other options besides meat or fish, including eating nothing at all. I don't know if this really matches the Finnish contrast, though. —Angr (talk) 20:27, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My Latin is a bit rusty, but shouldn't that say vis rather than vin? Anyway, the Finnish vai means that the options are exhaustive, but depending on context, you can generally answer "neither"/"none". How would the Finnish tai translate to Latin, how would one ask "Do you wish to eat something that is either meat or fish?" with an expected answer of "Yes, I wish to eat either of them" or "No, I don't wish to eat either of them", but not "Meat, please" or "Fish, please"? JIP | Talk 21:11, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vin is a contraction of visne, i.e. vis "you want" plus the interrogative enclitic -ne. —Angr (talk) 21:28, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin has the same thing; 还是 háishì is the exclusive "or" and 或者 huòzhě is the inclusive "or". rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Uyghur, and I assume other related Turkic languages, also has a distinction between exclusive يا (ya) and inclusive ياكى (yaki), although I think the distinction is less clear-cut in certain contexts. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:40, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latvian "vai" and "jeb" might fit a similar bill, although their use depending on phrasing or compound words can imply in either fashion (choose one or the other definitely versus chose one or the other or none). PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:41, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Romanian has the distinction for this particular example. In the first sentence you would use ori and in the second sau: Vrei să mănânci ceva ce este ori carne, ori peşte?; Ce vrei să mănânci? Carne sau peşte? I don't know if the distinction would be equivalent to the Finnish one in other examples, though. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 20:54, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand Romanian, but by the way you phrased the questions, I guess they match the Finnish examples. JIP | Talk 21:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not sure that Romanian has the same distinction.

Romanian has only one word for "or" alone, that is the word sau. Romanian ori ... ori means "either ... or".

Notice that the distinction in the meanings of the two original sentences is expressed in no way other than the two different Finnish words for "or".

Haluatko syödä lihaa tai kalaa?
Haluatko syödä lihaa vai kalaa?

As shown in their explanatory English translations by JIP, the first of them could be answered "Yes, I do" or "No, I don't", whereas the second one could be answered "I want meat" or "I want fish".

In my native Bulgarian, where there is again only one word for "or", this distinction is perfectly expressed by word order:

Искаш ли да ядеш месо или риба? (yes/no)
Месо или риба искаш да ядеш ? (meat/fish)

I am not confident enough about my Romanian to give a competent answer about it, but I still think it would rely on word order and prosody to express the difference. --Theurgist (talk) 07:43, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm revising the second Bulgarian sentence. --Theurgist (talk) 22:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you have a point in that ori... ori means either... or. However, that's how it was phrased in English and I translated it to Romanian. I don't speak Finnish, so I couldn't translate directly from Finnish. Also, in questions, ori and sau mean the exact same thing. Te duci ori ba?; Te duci sau nu? (Ori usually takes ba instead of nu, for some reason, just like in da ori ba? but da sau nu/ba?) I have tooltipped my answer now, for non-Romanian speakers :) 80.123.210.172 (talk) 13:52, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Polish it's lub for an alternative, and albo for a disjunction, although some native speakers tend to mix them up. The Polish equivalent of "either X or Y" is albo X, albo Y. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quoted in the Wikinews article: ""We do not know whether Davis was guilty or not, but his conviction cannot be said to be safe," Hughes concluded." What does the word safe mean in this context? Is this a general legalese term or only a British English one? Rmhermen (talk) 18:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have heard it in Australian legal discussion too, and since our law is very derivative of British law, that's no surprise. HiLo48 (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This terminology does not seem to be used in U.S. law. The corresponding U.S. term seems to be valid. In British terms, a "safe" conviction is one based on true, acceptable, and adequate evidence. Any conviction for which the evidence is judged not to meet those criteria can be judged "unsafe". Marco polo (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not necessarily about the evidence. A safe conviction is one that has little or no chance of being overturned on appeal. Appeals can be allowed for a range of reasons, including inadequate evidence, or new evidence, or the jury not being instructed properly, or various other things. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:53, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I lack expertise on this, so I was relying on the second definition from the top of unsafe here and assuming that, in this case, safe is the antonym of unsafe. Marco polo (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Safe" in this context isn't being used in a particular legal sense - the judge was explaining the role of the Court of Appeal in criminal cases. The appeal court doesn't decide whether the prisoner is innocent or guilty - that's the function of the trial court. Their decision is based on whether the _conviction_ - the verdict reached by the trial court - is safe. It may be unsafe for various reasons, including (as in Davis's case) procedural irregularity, even though it's virtually certain (as in Davis's case) that the prisoner actually committed the crime. He didn't get a fair trial, therefore the verdict was _unsafe_, even though it was probably _accurate_. Tevildo (talk) 10:22, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which explanation sounds like a particularly legal sense and a particularly British one! Rmhermen (talk) 13:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take that as a compliment. :) Considered _purely_ from a legal perspective, "safe" means "not liable to be overturned by the Court of Appeal", which isn't particularly informative. But it was chosen by the legislature as a neutral word, as opposed to "unfair" or "wrong" or "unjust" or "invalid" or something similar, to make it clear (to a lawyer, at least) that the court (a) wasn't restricted to the _purely_ legal aspects of the case, so that it didn't have to overturn convictions on technicalities, and could hear appeals if new facts came to light even if the procedure followed by the trial court was impeccable, and (b) didn't have to re-try the accused and determine if he was guilty for themselves, but just assess the way in which the trial court dealt with the case. Tevildo (talk) 20:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a source I think might tell me a little history about the establishment of the Royal Hospital in Baghdad, for an article about the Garden of Ridván, Baghdad, which went up on DYK recently. I've tried Google Translate and the PDF copies over all wrong (boxes, etc), so that won't work. Can anyone who can read the PDF tell me if it mentions dates or other major details for the establishment of the Royal Hospital and further hospitals on the site, and, if so, what are they? Many thanks. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 18:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a continuation of an earlier question I asked about a song written in a "mystery language" that a friend asked me to help identify; due to a delay, the previous question slipped off into obscurity. Here's a rough phonetic transcription of the lyrics of the song:

Miva, miva, novia miva, miva; Miva oteka plemi. (x2)

Elabena Baha'u'llah, chosia evado; Miva oteka plemi. (x2)

Here's the audio of the song:

Based on the word "elabena", which means "because" in Ewe, I looked up an Ewe vocabulary, and pieced together a possible meaning out of the sounds:

Mí va, mí va, nɔvi á mí va, mí va; mí va (wo ɖeka?) kplé mí.

We come, we come, siblings, we come, we come; we come, they are one with us.

Élabéná Baha'u'llah, (tsó síá Eʋeawo?); mí va (wo ɖeka?) kplé mí.

Because of Baha'u'llah, all the Ewe people come; we come, they are one with us.

Since my friend and the ones who taught her the song are active in Baha'i choirs, we strongly believe it's a Baha'i religious song, which means "Baha'u'llah" is correctly used as a proper name. I'm not an expert in Ewe by any means, so the rest of this (ad hoc and totally uninformed) translation might be completely off. It does sound vaguely like some of the African Baha'i folk songs I've heard. Still, I'd like to know if anyone out there can confirm whether what I've come up with makes some sense. To those out there who are familiar with Ewe or Gbe languages, what do you think? Does the translation I've given have a snowball's chance in hell of being correct? --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 19:26, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The word "suspicious" can be used in 2 related but different ways. When an event is suspicious, it's negative; but when people are suspicious of that event, it's positive. An example:

• Police are investigating a suspicious house fire at 9 Elm Grove that left a family homeless.

'Suspicious' here has a negative connotation, that this is not just some accident but some untoward human intervention is believed to be at play.

• Police are suspicious about the house fire at 9 Elm Grove that left a family homeless.

'Suspicious' here is more positive. The police are not just taking the fire at face value but are getting to the bottom of what really happened. They're doing their job, which is a good thing, even if the fire itself is not.

I'm looking for some other good examples of words that can be used in the same or similar contexts, in different ways, and be at different places on the positive-negative scale depending on how they're used. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:32, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cynical comes to mind. "He was cynical about the Isotopes' chance of reaching the playoffs" (simply pessimistic, perhaps by disposition), vs "The congressman proposed an amendment to the must-pass bill in a cynical attempt to curry favor with his constituency" (showing contempt for integrity through one's actions). --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 00:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops: missed the "similar context" requirement. Strike my first example, and replace it with: "He was cynical enough about the process to know that the bill had a slim chance of passing as written, this close to an election." --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 00:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll bite. "The kid was sorry and made an attempt to fix it." and "The kid made a sorry attempt to fix it." "I was in the driving rain." and "I was driving in the rain." "His wife was mad and told him not to do that again." and "His mad wife told him not to do that again." Falconus^{p t c} 04:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two that come immediately to mind are "repute" and "plausible". "The reputed Picasso is being examined by a reputable expert." "Mr Smith is a plausible speaker, but Mr Jones, although his presentation was less polished, has the only plausible solution to the problem." Tevildo (talk) 10:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"She was dubious her softball pitching record would help her land a contract extension"/"She held the dubious record of most batters hit in a single season" --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 16:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might interest you to know that I started a blog to list words you can never use, for a very similar (but not quite the same) reason. But I decided people wouldn't "get" it, and so I abandoned the project. However, I do quietly have a list of words - and constructions, grammar, punctuation, etc, and contexts that I can never use, despite the fact that they are very clear, which you would probably be interested in if I got around to recording it. "Dubious" is, actually, on that list. So is "plausible" and "arguable". And top word on that list? Hopefully. If you Google how to use "hopefully" correctly, you will note that the top hit can't bring itself to do use hopefully at all! Literally is another such word. Relax, I didn't just use the word at all. 188.157.175.85 (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"You're supposed to lock the front gate when you leave!"/"You're supposed to have locked the front gate when you left?" --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 23:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the suggestions, good poeple. I particularly like a couple of them. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Addressing the original question, it is not a valid distinction in meaning, but is just bad usage. Suspicious should only be used of conscious entities. A house fire can be suspect. For it to be suspicious would mean that it had a mind and suspected the owner of deserving to lose his home, or the like. μηδείς (talk) 03:15, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. So, by "conscious entities", do you really mean "humans"? I'm not sure we're able to say that cats, dogs, elephants or worms exhibit suspicion. Curiosity, caution, tentativity, instinct - yes. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I said conscious because that is the relevant property of humans which allows them to be suspicious. Fires would be able to be suspicious too--if they were spohisticated-enough conscious entities. I have no problem assigning consciousness to higher animals, and would describe a dog which has been abused and is hesitant around strangers to be suspicious. You might want to read Animals in Translation if that interests you. μηδείς (talk) 20:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the sentences:

• Second page of http://www.asc.gov.tw/downfile/SQ006_CHT.pdf: "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以英文版為" - I believe this says that English is the version that has precedence over the Chinese version, correct?
• Third page of http://www.asc.gov.tw/downfile/CI611_CHT_vol1.pdf says "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以中文版為主" - And then this says the Chinese version has precedence over the English, right?

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing one or a few characters in the first quote, and possibly one or two in the second as well. Could you re-copy? (Accessing the internet from behind the Great Firewall atm so cannot access Taiwanese government websites.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I was missing one character. The first sentence is exactly "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以英文版為準"

The second is "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以中文版為主"

If you can't access the ASC website, I have archives at

SQ006: http://www.webcitation.org/5z1P2dYwQ

CI611 Volume 1: http://www.webcitation.org/5z1PhDcqE

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:18, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your original translation looks right to me; "there are two transcriptions of this report, the English/Chinese version is the official one", something like that, I guess. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The two say different things literally. The first quote says "this report has two versions (identical in form), written in Chinese and English respectively; the English version is official", while the second one says "... the Chinese version is the principal one." But it seems like the intended meaning is the same - that the named version prevails in the case of inconsistency. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't appear to have articles on my definitions of these two topics:

A) Objective test = One in which all observers will reach the same conclusion.

B) Subjective test = One in which different observes will reach different conclusions.

Using chemistry examples, an objective test might be to measure the mass of a sample, using a digital scale. A subjective test might be whether the sample tastes "bitter". Wikipedia's article on the first title seems to be similar, but focusing exclusively on psychological tests. Wikipedia lacks an article on the second title. There are also articles on objectivity and subjectivity, but they seem to focus on philosophy, not science. My questions:

1) Do we have articles on the scientific usage of these terms ?

2) If I were to create them, how should I deal with the existing article at objective test ? Rename it to objective test (psychology) ? Make the new article objective test (science) ? Create a disambiguation page ? StuRat (talk) 23:29, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't trouble-free ground, you know, epistemologically. The digital scale can be wrong. Somebody might come up with reason to suspect that it was wrong (perhaps it was affected by radiation from the sample?), and then not all observers are reaching the same conclusion. Meanwhile, we read the scale using eyes, and taste the sample using tongues. There is no particular reason to say that one organ is more objective than the other. Everything is interpreted. This isn't what you asked, though. Sorry for not helping. Does "subjective test" come in for much use in scientific papers, I'd like to know?  Card Zero  (talk) 04:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quantitative research and Qualitative research are probably the articles you're looking for - perhaps some redirects could usefully be created. Tevildo (talk) 10:43, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if you create a separate article on Objective tests in general then move the current article to the redlink you suggested and create a hatnote to it. But make sure you've got several good dictionary of science refs or the like before you do so. μηδείς (talk) 20:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This question may have been asked before now, but can anyone explain why "live" (e.g. I live in...) and "dive" are pronounced differently? As a teacher of English to Germans, my students, whose language is much simpler than ours to speak, are not satisfied knowing there are not the same hard and fast pronunciation rules in English as in their language! Any insights would be most welcome.58.175.131.253 (talk) 09:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They're pronounced differently because they have different origins. Live comes from Old English libban, which has a short [ɪ], which has stayed the same vowel ever since. Dive comes from Old English dȳfan, which has a long [y:]. The long [y:] later became [i:], which became the diphthong [aɪ] in the Great Vowel Shift. —Angr (talk) 12:02, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But "live" rhymes with "dive" when we're talking about live eels or livestock. Alansplodge (talk) 17:27, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right, because the adjective live is etymologically short for alive, from Old English on līfe, using the noun līf, which has a long vowel, which is why the modern English noun life has the [aɪ] diphthong. —Angr (talk) 17:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They're pronounced differently because they have different origins. That doesn't explain why similar words would be pronounced the same way in German, or in pretty much any European language other than English or French. JIP | Talk 18:46, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, English is the only language that I can think of where the etymology, or indeed the meaning, of a word can have any effect on its pronunciation. In every other language that I can understand, or even have encountered, the pronunciation of a word depends only on its written form. English is a language where a word can have several different pronunciations depending on its meaning, even though they are all written exactly identically. I don't know of any other language that does this. And yet English has somehow established itself as the language spoken and understood in most countries. JIP | Talk 18:52, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're putting the cart before the horse. Spoken language is primary, written language is secondary. In all languages, the etymology of a word is what determines its pronunciation (with a few exceptions like spelling pronunciation). The thing about English is that it didn't adapt its spelling to reflect the changes in pronunciation, and that it has some ambiguous spellings. But in other languages (like Finnish, which I know is your native language), it is not the case that "the pronunciation of a word depends only on its written form", but rather that the written form of a word depends on its pronunciation. Still, English is not alone in having a spelling system that's more etymologically based than phonologically based. Faroese and Tibetan also have orthographies that tell you more about how the words used to be pronounced than how they're pronounced today; and most of the silent letters in French (les lits sont laids) are there for etymological reasons rather than to indicate the pronunciation. —Angr (talk) 19:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I phrased my comment the wrong way. I didn't mean "the written form influenced the pronunciation", I meant "a word that is written one way is only pronounced one way". I don't know of any language other than English where a word that is written one way can be pronounced different ways depending on its meaning. I'm not saying such languages don't exist, but I can't think of any. JIP | Talk 19:52, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See homograph and heteronym (linguistics), and the corresponding articles on the other language Wikipedias. Our article mentions several cases in Chinese, and I can also find examples in French (couvent, "convent" / couvent, 3rd person plural of couver, "to sit on eggs"), German (modern, "modern" / modern, "to rot"), and Russian (берег, "coast" / берёг, past tense of беречь). I think you're right, though, that this is most common in English. Lesgles (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are countless examples in my native Finnish where a word that is written the same way has various different meanings. The comic strip Fingerpori makes extensive use of them. However, the only place where it makes any difference on the pronunciation is if one of the meanings is a compound word and another is not, and that only affects the stress of the syllables, not the actual vowels/consonants pronounced. JIP | Talk 20:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary has heteronyms from a few other languages (Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Latin) at wikt:Category:Heteronyms. Getting back to the OP, who teaches English to Germans, you could point out to them cases in German like Osten/Ostern, Matsch/latsch, Bruch/Buch or (before the 1996 spelling reform) Nuß/Fuß, where the spelling doesn't tell you that the vowels in the words are different. —Angr (talk) 20:50, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A large part of what is relevant is that English adopted a standardised spelling in the 15th century, before the Great English vowel shift had run its course, while other languages like Spanish and Russian have undergone more recent spelling reforms meaning their spelling better reflects pronunciation. Prior to this shift, English vowels had been pronounced mostly as in Latin. (The vowels of Chaucer, who wrote before the shift, are pronounced not as in Modern English, but as in French.) This is somewhat analogous to the much more extreme case of Chinese, where what are separate and mutually incomprehensible spoken Chinese dialects share the same written system. Two English speakers from Brooklyn and Edinburgh can exchange notes while they might not understand a single word the other is saying. Germans simply accept Luther's usage as standard and whatever spelling reforms come down from on high, so much so that written Hochdeutsch is of no use to someone speaking Schwyerduetsch.

Let yours students read and listen to Chaucer at the same time, (But don't let them see the fake you-tube spelling) and they will see that while his spelling is largely modern, his vowels are pure continental. μηδείς (talk) 03:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, Angr's explanations for the specific question are on the ball. μηδείς (talk) 03:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here are two examples of words with one spelling but two different pronunciation depending on the meaning, both taken from European languages other than English. Consider these two French sentences:

Je veux plus [plys] de café. – "I want more coffee."

Je veux plus [ply] de café. – "I don't want any more coffee." (the word ne is often ommited in everyday speech, so the pronunciation of plus is the only indicator of whether the sentence is negative or affirmative)

The Polish phrase w ogóle, when used in an affirmative sentence and in a more formal contex, means "in general" and is pronounced [fʔɔˈgulɛ]. In relaxed, everyday speech it is only used in negative sentences to mean "at all", and is then pronounced as [ˈvɔglɛ]. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:09, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Goethe is widely quoted (on the web) as saying (presumably in German) "Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them." Unfortunately I cannot find a source for this, so it remains suspect. Does anyone know exactly where this might be found?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:24, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This says it's from the preface to "Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert", about Johann Joachim Winckelmann. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:43, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You beat me to it. The original German is apparently "Briefe gehören unter die wichtigsten Denkmäler, die der einzelne Mensch hinterlassen kann". Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:46, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant! Thank you.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have been trying to use tools on my Iphone or like chinese-tools.com to find what this character is, but my drawing is so bad that I can't find anything looking remotely like it. Can some please identify it for me? Here is a photo of it Many thanks in advance for your help. --Lgriot (talk) 10:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't speak Chinese at all, but my suspicion is that it's supposed to say fú ("fortune" / "blessing"), per this. Gabbe (talk) 12:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ThankS!!! I couldn't get the strokes right on the left part, which was making my iphone confused. --Lgriot (talk) 12:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, yup, that's "blessing". Probably one of the most common Chinese characters, actually—people put it on good luck charms and stick it all over their walls everywhere. Good catch. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 14:53, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

福, if you need to copy and paste. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:福. We have a related article at Fu Lu Shou. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:54, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's the Kanteiryu style of Edomoji. See this Oda Mari (talk) 08:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've just been doing some Googling, and apparently the French way of saying "all", as in "15 all" or "five (games) all", is either "A" or "partout". So, for example, one would say "quinze A" or "quinze partout". In one place it seems to be suggested that the former is short for "quinze à quinze", but elsewhere people seem to write it as a capital "A", which seems a bit odd. Does anyone know the origin of this "A"? Oh, also, what is the difference, if any, between "A" and "partout" in this context? 86.148.153.145 (talk) 20:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to a former version of our article Tennis score (which now doesn't include this anymore, probably because it was original research), X-à is for points in a game and X-partout is for games in a set, so "quinze-partout" shouldn't really be possible. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 07:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This was covered on the BBC tennis commentary the other day in the second round Andy Murray match. The question was, why do they say "quinze-a" and "egalite" seemingly interchangeably? The answer given was that "quinze-a" is used the first time it happens, and "egalite" is used thereafter. I can't remember whether it was the first time in a set, or in that game. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:01, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the rules in French. It seems that we cannot say “15A”, or "30 A". The word “partout" is used for games (deux jeux partout) or for sets (deux manches partout). But, the first time in a game the players are at “40 all”, we say “40 A” and the next times “égalité”. AldoSyrt (talk) 07:59, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree about the use of “égalité” for the English deuce. But if you listen to the umpires they are definitely using the "30 A". I shall be listening today to verify this! --TammyMoet (talk) 08:04, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to the French Wiki Lexique du tennis , you are right: 15 A, 30A are the correct terms. I'd rather give you a link to the "official French rules".— AldoSyrt (talk) 08:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the same document there are the rules of the jeu de paume, more precisely "jeu de courte paume". It may be of interest to notice that (in rule 22), if the two players have three points it is announced à deux (or égalité). It is sometimes said that à deux is the origin of the "A" in "40A". AldoSyrt (talk) 08:16, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hence the term "deuce", perhaps? Meaning that (1) the two players are at equal score; and (2) one player needs two consecutive points to win the game. The oddity is that the term "deuce" doesn't show up until it's 40-all, when in fact its already "deuce" at 30-all. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:04, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for the replies! Do I understand from "It is sometimes said that à deux is the origin of the 'A'" that the origin is not completely clear? 86.160.219.177 (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm now listening to the Nadal-Ljubicic match at the French Open championship, and the umpire has been using the "-a" form from the first point. There haven't been many deuces yet but the term "egalite" has been used at that point. I would also comment that the origin of the normal English terms used for scoring isn't at all clear, so it wouldn't surprise me if the origin of the French terms isn't that clear either. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:12, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am currently reviewing "Phidippus clarus". This article includes the sentence "Like other jumping spiders, it has vision more acute than a cat's and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly's." Is the grammar used appropriately? Could it be improved? Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fine to me, but could probably be rewritten to avoid the awkward apostrophes. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. My suggestion was "Like other jumping spiders, its vision is more acute than a cat and 10 times as acute as a dragonfly." However this was not accepted by the main editor. Perhaps you could you give me a suggestion please? Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In your sentence, apostrophes are necessary ("its vision is more acute than a cat's [is], and 10 times as acute as a dragonfly's [is].") However, they _aren't_ necessary in the original sentence ("it has vision more acute than a cat [has], and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly [has]" - you can't eliminate them from your sentence in the same way (¶"its vision is more acute than a cat [is]"). I would also change "10" to "ten" (supported by WP:MOS, but not (explictly) by WP:ORDINAL), assuming it's just an approximate value. If it's not approximate, the corresponding figure for the cat should be included. Tevildo (talk) 10:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an alternative: "Like other jumping spiders, its vision is more acute than that of a cat, and ten times more acute than that of a dragonfly." --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the proper use of the apostrophe--it just frightens those not sure of its proper use. But KageTora's solution "that of a cat" is perfectly cromulent.μηδείς (talk) 19:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please translate the Mandarin text on the following three pages, or at least provide the general sense of what is being said?

• 中山大学图书馆 - 首 页 (including the floating text at the left-hand side of the page)
• 中山大学图书馆数字资源服务系统满意度和需求调查 - nQuestion网题
• nQuestion网题 - 在线调查系统

—Wavelength (talk) 16:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You do, of course, know that Google Translate will, if you're lucky, give you a "general sense" of what is being said? 86.179.112.237 (talk) 17:21, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't open the first link, but judging by the title and the URL it's the website of the Sun Yat-sen University library. The second link is a service satisfaction survey for the same library, and the third link is the website hosting that survey (a general website for creating web-based surveys, similar to Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much.—Wavelength (talk) 18:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following web page has a list of 20 links.

• Multilinguale Auskunft - Partnerbibliotheken der Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin

I have ascertained the following information.

• The sixth link is to a reference desk in French, with options in English and Spanish.
• The seventh link is to a reference desk in Vietnamese, with an option in English.
• The ninth link is to a reference desk in Finnish, with options in English and Swedish.
• The tenth link is to a reference desk in English. The website is in Slovenia.
• The 14th link is to a reference desk in Hungarian.
• The 19th link is to a page which reports a 404 error. The main page (web address to the first virgule) is redirected to a Chinese web page which is not a reference desk and which does not link to a reference desk. (See #Translation: Mandarin to English.)

In the list of 20 links, is there any other link to a reference desk or to a web page which has a link to a reference desk?
—Wavelength (talk) 19:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I already know some Chinese from studying it at uni, but I cant read the script My friend asked me to translate the text in this image, and I think I could if it were transcribed into print/"block" Chinese, I would like to give it a go to test my Chinese so if someone could please transcribe this that would be much appreciated. (I will be back to ask someone to check my translation ;) thx PS IF YOU need my Email it is jqelm22@hotmail.com