Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 November 9

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November 9

Duck Duck Goose

I'm dating a Minnesotan (I'm from Boston) and it recently came to my attention that she calls the beloved children's game - Duck, Duck, Grey Duck

Naturally, I'm concerned that our future children will be confused and scared in an already harsh world.

Please, Wikipedia. Can you help me understand how the heck Minnesotans seem to exclusively play this variation? Seriously though, I'm just wondering why it seems so limited to that region?71.255.175.197 (talk) 01:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Goose" can mean "to poke someone in the rear end." Maybe someone in Minnesota substituted "gray duck" because of that.--Cam (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that was sort of glib -- what I was trying to say was that maybe because the word has a naughty connotation, someone wanted to replace it with something else.--Cam (talk) 02:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Political correctness does affect children's games. When I was a lad in the 1960s, any chasing game was called "he" with the child who was doing the chasing also called "he" whether male or female. Today's children play "had" with the chaser being "it". Oh the times, oh the customs. Alansplodge (talk) 11:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure that's because of political correctness? I ask because I grew up in the 80s, playing "tig" with someone who was "it". Given we also had jokes about "pakis" and "spastics", political correctness wasn't exactly ruling the playground. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

My parents told me that "catch a tiger by the toe" used to be something else when they were children...I don't know if that's true but I suppose it would be an example of political correctness. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

We have an article at Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. The short answer is that it used to be a lot of things, but at some point an unpleasant word became the norm. That was then replaced with other things (such as tiger) after people stopped being quite so stupid. But we played 'tig' with someone being 'it' in the 80s: I don't think there is any political correctness in the wide variation children display in their local versions of it. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 16:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The names of chasing games are highly regionalised in the UK and can be called Tag / It / Tick / Tig / Catch etc depending on where you live. A good read on the subject is "The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren" by Iona & Peter Opie[1]. But I can't think of any other reason why a name for a game would change in a generation. Alansplodge (talk) 16:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In 1980s Ohio, a popular playground pastime was "smear the queer," a game that essentially had one rule: Swarm and beat on the kid with the ball until he is forced to give it up. Of course, we had no idea what a "queer," let alone a homosexual, was, so there was no offense intended. But I'd guess that nowadays there's a little more sensitivity to that kind of thing, so I bet there's another name for the game nowadays. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nope, from what I can tell, they still call it that. That is ok. Kids don't need political correctness until their indoctrination is complete. Googlemeister (talk) 17:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Or, you know, until any of them belong to a group typically subject to cruelty and prejudice. Oh wait! A good percentage of those kids are gay, and others will have gay family members. Many kids are not white. It's no more indoctrination to not use hurtful language towards a subsection of your classmates than it is to not stab them. Most young children won't know what the word 'queer' means, but a few of them will be acutely aware before the others are. Hardly indoctrination to discourage its use. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 19:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

But I'm not convinced that the game has anti-homosexual implications (inasmuch as the person with the ball doesn't act "gay"). Queer also means "different" which is what the person with the ball IS, and which is how I always understood the word. Kingsfold (talk) 20:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

audio-ization?

If you close your eyes and imagine a slowly spinning pyramid with a flashing light on top, that is visualization (the disamb points to spatial visualization, to be more specific). Is there a similar word like "audio-ization" for imagining a sound accompanying the pyramid turning? Not necessarily a musical accompaniment, but just some arbitrary pattern of sound. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 03:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Audiation is pretty close to what you're referring to, and auditory imagery is a related term. Grutness...wha? 05:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Another word, one not limited to sounds, is synesthesia. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Synesthesia is completely different - it's about mixing together your senses so you taste words or see numbers as having inherent colours. It has nothing to do with voluntary visualisation. --Tango (talk) 07:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, that article always struck me. I was taught that synesthesia is the technical term for a mixture of mental images of different senses, like the ones in the present example. But I was told that in my Spanish-based education: apparently, the English term is reserved for the neurological trait. Pallida  Mors 13:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've smelled that that's the case.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Politeness and grammar

When referring to oneself and another person in the same clause, it's considered impolite to put oneself first, although it's not ungrammatical per se. So, it's "My mother and I went to the movies today", not "I and my mother ..." or, heaven forbid, "Me and my mother ...".

Now, when referring to two third parties, what are the rules? Is "His mother and he went to the movies today" preferred to "He and his mother went to the movies today?" Or, where the person is named, "John and his mother ..." vs. "John's mother and he ..." or "John's mother and John ..."? For my money, "He and his mother ..." and "John and his mother ..." sound a lot more natural than any of the alternatives. I guess that's because we have to define who "he/John" is first, before getting to someone who's defined only in terms of "he/John". That problem doesn't exist with "My mother and I" because both can stand without reference to the other.

How would it be in something like "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for my mother and me"? There’s a non-parallel construction there, which might bother some. But the alternatives "If it was good enough for his father and him, it's good enough for my mother and me" and "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for me and my mother" just don't sit well.

Not sure what my question is exactly, but all random thoughts are welcome. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The answer is very simple: in some cases, politeness and structural accordance can't go together. You must decide which of the two you choose.

If you ask me, I prefer structural accordance, so I will never say "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for my mother and me"; Instead, I would rather say: "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for me and my mother".

By the way, how about: "John's brother's daughter, and his wife". Whose wife? John's wife? John's brother's wife? In such cases, I wouldn't say "John's brother's daughter, and his wife"; Instead, I would rather say "John's brother's daughter, and John's wife", or "John's brother's daughter, and the brother's wife".

HOOTmag (talk) 09:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the first time I've heard someone say "It's considered impolite to..." before coming up with something I've never heard of. Which (to me) begs the question: is it impolite if the person you're talking to doesn't know it? Vimescarrot (talk) 11:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Obligatory link to Begging the question. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think JackofOz begs the question, because he doesn't intend to ask whether (nor to prove that) saying "I and he" is considered impolite. He just assumes that it's considered impolite, and then he asks how one should formulate some specific ideas, under the assumption mentioned above. HOOTmag (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I was referring (politely, I hope) to Vimescarrot's use of "begs the question". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I, like you, was referring to Vimescarrot's use of "begs the question", but unfortunately I had put too many ":" at the beginning of my response... HOOTmag (talk) 18:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Generally there's a basis to the understanding that something is impolite; in this case it is something along the lines of being mindful to mention another person before oneself. But I doubt if any large scale double blind studies of the body mind interface have conclusively found offense registered in those who were unjustifiably relegated to a later mention in a sentence than they felt was their right and privilege. Bus stop (talk) 18:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think it's a question of offence being caused by saying "I and <someone else> ..." rather than "<Someone else> and I ...". Both forms are equally comprehensible and are certainly grammatical. But what other than politeness could explain why children are taught to put themselves second in such constructions? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Where are children taught this? Vimescarrot (talk) 21:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

(JackofOz) They're certainly taught to put themselves second (or, where there are more than 2 people being referred to, last) in Australia. I was taught that way, and I taught it to my children, who will hopefully teach it to theirs. The Queen was renowned for her "My husband and I", never "I and my husband". I'm really surprised this isn't considered standard fare across the anglo-board. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 00:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for me and my mother" doesn't sit well. Not only is it structurally sound, it also rhymes. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"What other than politeness could explain why children are taught ... "? Answer: the social imperative to teach your children to talk in such a way that those who are going to judge them will judge them favourably. <POV>Prescriptive grammar, like almost all the rest of etiquette, is for the sole purpose of distinguishing those who have had the opportunity to learn the rules from those who have not, however it may be rationalised.</POV> --ColinFine (talk) 00:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Polite" has kind of a different twist when it comes to language usage. A more obvious example of "impolite" language is "ain't". But is that impolite to the person to whom it's addressed? Or is it impolite to the language itself? In discussing Spanish with friends who speak the language natively, they've used the term "impolite" in reference to getting the gender wrong on nouns (a gross example would be "el mesa") and even in saying "de el" instead of "del". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

maths

Around here I sometimes see the noun "maths" used, but this is something I've never seen or heard before despite having some education in math. Is "maths" the same as "math" or is there some subtler meaning? Is "maths" a regional thing? (I'm from the US.) Rckrone (talk) 08:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Math" seems to be the version used in North America. Most if not all of the rest of the anglosphere says "maths", cf. "stats". -- JackofOz (talk) 08:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Is "math" not used in those places where "maths" is used? Rckrone (talk) 08:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I can speak only for Australia, where the answer is "No". -- JackofOz (talk) 08:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks. Rckrone (talk) 08:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I recall a minor dispute when editing Cockney where an editor assured me that math is unused in the UK as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Math (disambiguation) confirms the above, but it also isn't sourced. Interestingly, wikt:maths says maths can be used in North America to refer to more than one math, a course in mathematics. I couldn't find any reference to math being used outside North America, though. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm that it's always "maths" and never "math" in the UK.Alansplodge (talk) 09:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If you had paid attention in school, you'd know that "maths" is short for "Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin", thus entirely different from "math". Or maybe you didn't have that in the U.S.?--Rallette (talk) 11:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, "math" is typical usage in the U.S. and "maths" in the U.K. Hard telling why the latter, because it's harder to say than "math". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If the "subs" is short for "submarines", then it's logical that "maths" is short for "mathmatics". I suspect you're right about the pronunciation difficulty though. Perhaps that's why we only had "arithmatic" at primary school.Alansplodge (talk) 16:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Maths" would be kind of slobbery, especially for someone with a lisp. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"I resent that dethh-ssspickable remark!!!" — D. Duck to —— Shakescene (talk) 22:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

That would make sense if "mathematics" was a plural word, but it isn't. You can't say "One mathematic, two mathematics." It's not unusual to abbreviate words by taking the middle out and leaving the beginning and end. We usually spell such contractions with an apostrophe, but over time they can become words in their own right (I don't know if "math's" was ever correct, I haven't studied the history of the word). --Tango (talk) 19:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Surprising as it may be, language is never a totally rational thing in terms of predicting one word's formation from a basic structure...either way, "maths" is extremely well established in UK and Commonwealth English -- that's just how they say it. Again, like one poster said above, look at "stats" (even though stastics is singular not plural) as an example -- we do the exact same thing in the US with this word as they do in UK with "maths". Remember, to British people, we in America wipe our mouths with diapers (just kidding -- but napkin is historically the root of the word nappies). --71.111.194.50 (talk) 19:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Mathematics, in the sense of a discipline one studies (like statistics, chemistry or history), is also singular, not plural. However, statistic exists as a singular word ("This is an interesting statistic"), and its plural is statistics ("These statistics are rather revealing"). Disraeli used the plural form of the singular statistic in "There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics" -- JackofOz (talk) 20:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In the US we always say math. As soon as I hear "maths" I know that the person saying it is from the UK or someplace that speaks British English. I'm not sure if the converse is true: I believe they say math in Canada. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 19:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

We do say "math" in Canada. I've never heard "maths" except in British books. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 06:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Math" is never used in New Zealand either - presumably because there is no such thing as a mathematic. I must admit I'd never come across the term Math except on US television until the internet came along. Grutness...wha? 23:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be a sound argument, about plurals, apart from the number of people who use the singular verb "is" with "maths" [2]. Particularly people who would say things like "Arsenal are full of confidence" [3]. Really it's just a dialect difference without any justification on either side. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

There is such a thing as a "mathematic"; it's an adjective, from the French mathematique, and now rare, the preferred form being "mathematical", which is from Greek mathematikos, which means "disposed to learning", and mathemata, "things learned". "Mathematics" came to mean the study of equations, just as "Physics" is the study of the physical universe, and similarly "physic" is a now-rare term. The difference is that folks simply say "Physics", they don't typically shorten it to "Phy" or "Phys". Another seemingly-plural word like that would be "logistics". The singular forms exist, they're just little-used. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I'm just saying that if people used "maths" because "mathematics" is plural, then they would say "maths are important" as well. But if they want to treat "maths" as a singular noun, it's hard to argue that the plural nature of "mathematics" is the reason for including the "s". — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Math" and "Maths" are both short for "Mathematics". What's missing is the punctuation: "Math." and "Math's." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A pedant may argue that way, but they are never written like that, and usage wins. I don't think anyone argues that "mathematics" is plural. The addition of the "s" in "maths" is not for reasons of pluralisation, but just acknowledges the full version is plural in form, like ethics, logistics etc, which are discrete fields of study. A person who is on a single medication might refer to their "meds", but that doesn't make it plural, unless they're referring to the individual pills, of which there are many. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This is clearly as UK-US as boots and trunks, bonnets and hoods or labor and labour. However, Rallette's Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin is nonsense: none of the last three words registers any google hits aside from within this phrase. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that expansion comes from Look Around You, which is also to blame for this periodic table. -- BenRG (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Maths is entirely logical, and not at all hard to say. "Math" just sounds strangely quaint; or cute, like a child with a lisp. Gwinva (talk) 08:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It sounds neither quaint nor cute to an American, trust me. -- BenRG (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You go to Math(.) class, you go to Stat(.) class. No logical reason I can think of to stick an "s" on the end of either abbreviation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've taken stats as one of my math classes. —Akrabbim^talk 13:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

When I was in school we called it Stat class. "Stats" is a colloquialism and implies plural, i.e. a ballplayers stats (which aren't really "statistics" in the mathematical sense, but that's another story). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

And when I studied Maths at uni, part of my course was Stats. Arguments about illogicality or why one version "should" be preferred over the other don't wash. Different parts of the world do say different things. End of story, really. -- JackofOz (talk) 18:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How about Econs? -- Coneslayer (talk) 16:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Never took that one. I did take Econ though. Googlemeister (talk) 17:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I took maths, stats, and ecs at university, FWIW. "Math, stat, and econ" seem odd to me, (unless, in the case of stat, you're referring to an individual statistic). But it's clearly a local usage thing: Commonwealth English is different from US English; US English is different than Commonwealth English. :) Grutness...wha? 00:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Maths are plural in French, too. —Tamfang (talk) 01:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Compound sentence

The wikipedia article on Compound sentence says The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (with or without a comma). But this http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/writerscomplex.nsf/0/e42f0742452027ba852569f5005c1c0d?OpenDocument reference says The two parts of the compound sentence need to be linked correctly, with a comma and then a linking word at the place where one sentence ends and the other begins. (Otherwise you will have a sentence error called a run-on sentence. Run-on sentences are typically compound sentences without the proper punctuation and/or linking word.)

If I follow the second reference i.e. Empire State College, then the wikipedia example of compound sentence (My friend invited me to a tea party; my parents didn't let me go.) becomes incorrect and run-on sentence. Please help, which reference is correct wikipedia or Empire State College? --MaxL1990 (talk) 13:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The Empire State one is incorrect. Claiming that "a compound sentence without a comma is a run-on sentence" is an example of prescriptive grammar; it only takes a little common sense to see that this does not reflect the actual state of the world. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically, the addition of the comma makes it a comma splice, which, according to some authorities, is still a type of run-on sentence. Whatever, but "My friend invited me to a tea party my parents didn't let me go" and "My friend invited me to a tea party, my parents didn't let me go" are just as wrong as each other. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Italian (?) surname: Mucchi

...as in the artist Gabriele Mucchi. The _cch_ cluster has us stumped, and I failed to understand what's written on the Italian phonology page. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 13:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[ˈmukːi]. That is, the first c is [k] as it is not followed by e or i, and the subsequent ch is another [k] because it always is, in Italian. — Emil J. 14:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather formulate it as follows: consonants normally written as digraphs (ch, gh) are by convention written as "cch" and "ggh" when geminated. But the end result [ˈmukːi] is the same as you described, at least for "ch" and "gh".
Now I wonder, what about "ggl" and "ggn"? Is the first name Magglio pronounced as ['magʎo] or ['maʎːo]? Is there an example with "ggn" cluster? No such user (talk) 14:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Magglio is ['maʎːo]. ggn shouldn't need to occur, since [ɲ] is always geminated word-internally in Italian. (So is [ʃ], so ssc shouldn't need to occur either.) +Angr 15:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, [ʎ] is also always geminated word-internally in Italian, it's the same case as gn. ['maʎːo] could (and indeed is) as well be written as maglio, I don't know where the spelling Magglio comes from. — Emil J. 16:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully noted for the future: [4]. No such user (talk) 17:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, all... And now: returning to EmilJ's initial response: is the pronunciation [ˈmukːi] or [ˈmukːki] (i.e. the second syllable beginng with the consonant)? Because if the latter, it affects my next task: transliterating this surname for readers of Hebrew. I'm considering whether the cch cluster would be best represented by a double letter /ק/...? -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The "ː" already indicates that the consonant is long, which is generally interpreted to mean that the first syllable ends with the first half of the consonant and the second syllable begins with the second half of it. The transliteration /mukki/ is entirely equivalent, and better shows the syllabification, which is [muk.ki]. You know more about how Hebrew speakers interpret unpointed text than I do, but I'd have thought that if you write it with two qophs, it would be most likely interpreted as having 2 /k/ sounds with a vowel between them, like /mukaki/ or something. I think מוקי is less likely to be misunderstood than מוקקי. (If you're using pointed text, you could put a dagesh forte inside the qoph, which back in Biblical Hebrew did mean that the sound was doubled, just like the /kk/ of Italian.) +Angr 08:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, our database doesn't support pointed text (i.e. dagesh forte as you rightly suggest, let alone the vowels themselves). Our common practice is to include the roman-lettered source in parentheses following the Hebrew-lettered representation. Jury's still out on whether or not to double the qoph, and it may be high time to contact a national-level and/or academic library cataloguer in Israel who deals with these questions regularly. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The Italian word mucchi (plural of mucchio) means "heaps, piles". You can listen to mucchio pronounced at http://forvo.com/search/mucchio/.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:42, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

1000 words of a language

If you learnt the 1000 most common words of for example French, then in everyday conversation, what percent of that stream of words would you be able to understand? Ignoring things like place-names. 92.27.152.41 (talk) 14:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I wonder how the 1,000 would be counted. Does a verb count as 1? Or do the conjugations count as 1 apiece? Usually verbs are the most complex part of learning a language. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Another question: how about a very common word having many meanings, each of which is very rare? If it's counted as a "common" word, then the learner must spend very much time to "learn" it, as much as the time required for learning many words... HOOTmag (talk) 15:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You probably wouldn't be able to understand anything in everyday conversation, especially since French sounds so much different than it is spelled. (I've been learning French since I was 6 and I still can't have a conversation...) Maybe if the person was speaking very slowly, and using the 1000 words you know... Adam Bishop (talk) 15:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The main difficulty in understanding a foreign language is not the vocabulary, but the grammatical structure (including conjugation, which is a particular hurdle in French). Knowing the meaning of individual words would not help you understand how they fit together into thoughts. So you would have a sense of what the conversation or radio broadcast or whatever was about (e.g. food, politics, workplace gossip), but wouldn't be able to understand what was actually being said. --Xuxl (talk) 15:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

@Adam Bishop and @Xuxl: Although I'm not the OP, I afford to respond on behalf of the OP. I think the OP refers to a learner who is expert in the French grammar, expert in the French phonology, expert in all of the relevant aspects, except for the vocabulary... HOOTmag (talk) 15:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Adam and Xuxl that, without a firm grasp of the phonology (how the words sound, especially when spoken together) and grammar (how sentences work), you would understand very little, even with a 1,000-word vocabulary. However, taking HOOTmag's assumption that a speaker knew not only the most common 1,000 words used in conversation but also the phonology and grammar of the language, then I think a person would understand most of what was being said. Words would come up fairly often in everyday conversation that you might not understand, but I think not so often that asking the meaning of those words would seriously disrupt the conversation. The situation would be different, I think, if your conversation were with a university professor or government official, but that's not what you asked. Marco polo (talk) 15:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Most languages (particularly major ones like this) have word frequency corpora available that list all words that appear in some sample of the language (for example, 50 years' worth of newspapers or fiction or something) ordered by their frequency in that sample. From there, you can snoop around and look at what sort of words pop up in the first 1000 words, and what sort pop up after that. If you're seeing a lot of words that you think are pretty important beyond 1000, that would probably suggest that the 1000 most 'common' words aren't enough. If, on the other hand, by the time you reach 1000 it's all random weird words that you'd never use anyway, then 1000 might be ok. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See wikt:Wiktionary:Frequency lists. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Guys, most of y'all are answering the wrong question. The OP didn't ask how well he could get by with 1,000 words (that question is meaningless; you can often "get by" knowing no words at all); he was asking about how well represented the 1,000 most common words would be represented in everyday speech. My suggestion to the questioner is to get a list of the 1,00 most popular English words then compare it the first, say, 100 words in a random magazine article (or Wikipedia article!) or spoken conversation. That will give you a rough percentage, which you can refine by repeated experiments. Matt Deres (talk) 17:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If you can find a list of words with frequencies (which isn't too difficult) then you should be able to get the precise percentage of words that were from the top 1000 in that corpus. --Tango (talk) 19:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Everyday conversation relies on a much more limited vocabulary than the written forms of most languages. Also, the 1,000 most common words in written French or any other written language will not be the same as the 1,000 most common words in everyday conversation. So the most common written words would not be the best basis for everyday conversation. However, I am confident that the 1,000 words most commonly used in everyday conversation in French (or any other language) account for more than 90% of the word uses in a given (everyday) conversation (counting repeated words as distinct word uses). By contrast, the 1,000 most common written words will make up a lower proportion of word uses in a written corpus. Marco polo (talk) 20:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

There have been studies where people have been given tape recorders to carry round with them everywhere they go to record their spoken conversations. The results of those studies include frequency tables for spoken word use, which are what we need. I agree that the top 1000 words are likely to be at least 90% of spoken conversation. I'll try and find one of those studies... --Tango (talk) 19:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Here is a (unlemmatised - so "jump" and "jumped" are counted separately, but I think "jump" as a verb and "jump" and a noun are separated) frequency list of spoken English (including, but not limited to, everyday conversation). It contains 4841 words that appear in the spoken part of the British National Corpus at least 10 times (I'm not sure what proportion of the spoken corpus is made up of rarer words). Out of those words, the top 1000 make up 89.7%. The top 100 make up 63.3%. Those will be slight overestimates due to the exclusion of rare words. If we restricted it to just everyday conversations (I can't find frequency lists limited to them, although I haven't spent long looking) I would expect those percentages to be significantly larger. Oddly, number 7 in that list is the verb "s". I wasn't aware of a verb "s"... Also in the top 50 are "ve" and "re", both verbs. Anyone know what these strange words are? --Tango (talk) 19:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You're probably kidding. If you aren't then: all them are abbreviations of words: e.g. in it's, you've, you're. Weren't you kidding? HOOTmag (talk) 19:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Except that these are word elements and not words. "You've" is formed from two words, "you" and "have", but the result is only one word. "ve" is part of the word "you've" and is also part of the word "have". Same for the others. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The big initial step of learning a new language is gaining the ability to hear conversations as discrete words instead of as continuous streams of sound. Once you can do that, you can follow most conversations even if quite a lot of the words in it are unknown to you, and you'll gradually fill in what the actual words mean. With a 500 word vocabulary that you can understand when spoken at normal speed, you are pretty functional, much more than you'd be with a larger vocabularity that you had acquired from written materials rather than spoken conversation. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 05:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

According to The Art and Science of Learning ... - Google Books, the percentage is in the low nineties for spoken words, and in the eighties for written words. My Google search terms were most common words percentage vocabulary. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[I am removing the quotation marks and adding italicization. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)]

Another wrinkle is that nuance is really something you can only pick up gradually. Everyday conversation, I think, combines purely declarative elements that would be decipherable from knowing some basic vocabulary and grammar ("I will buy some milk at the market this afternoon.") with more subtle elements of idiom, even in mundane exchanges ("I should really be buying some more milk this afternoon, were it not for the weather.") I've tried Sporcle's quiz of the 100 most commonly-used English words dozens of times without remembering all 100, because some of the simple and very common words have acquired dozens of distinct uses and shades, as they're combined with each other ("up to", "up against", "up from", "up with", "up and about"). And though other languages don't make quite so many combinations, these idiomatic usages can be a challenge for me when I read a simple-looking sentence in French, Spanish or Portuguese. They're a challenge for most English-speaking people just reading or hearing English from 400 years ago, such as Shakespeare (1564-1616) or the Authorised King James Version of the Bible (1611). —— Shakescene (talk) 22:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Simple Dutch translation, please

I recently took a picture of St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Minster, Ohio, which dominates the community's skyline, so I thought it reasonable to put on the (hitherto unillustrated) various languages' articles on the village. I've not had trouble figuring out the proper caption for the English or German articles, and I think I have the caption correct at the Portuguese article, but I don't know how to write "St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Minster" in Dutch. How should this name be translated? I've guessed at "Sint Augustinus Rooms-katholieke Kerk in Minster", but I'm not at all sure that this is correct. Nyttend (talk) 16:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that it is usual to specify the denomination when giving the name of a church in Dutch. Therefore, this should be as follows:

Sint-Augustinuskerk in Minster

Incidentally, I corrected the label in the German article. You had "im Minster", which I corrected to "in Minster". Marco polo (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I've modified it as you suggested. Thanks for the help! Nyttend (talk) 23:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

request for advice on arabic textbooks

Hi, I'm thinking of buying textbooks from Amazon on Classical Arabic. There are two options, Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic by Thackston, and Arabic Through the Qur'an by Alan Jones. I have access to the former, from a library, but I want to get my own textbook, and I'm not exactly rapt by that one (general structure and layout aren't exactly selling points). Does anyone know anything about the Alan Jones one? The Amazon book reviews are largely positive, but so are those for Thackston, so I suspect they are either inflated or unreliable. What I most want is a CA textbook that focuses heavily on actual readings, and is well structured and comprehensive, preferably with exercises and answers. Also, if by any sort of luck, anyone happens to have browsed a copy of both the aforementioned books, please tell me how they stack up, side by side. Thanks It's been emotional (talk) 19:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the Jones one, but Thackston is at least better than the MSA textbooks we used in my Arabic class (the al-Kitaab ones). I learned a lot more from Thackston on my own than I did in class. If you find Amazon reviews unreliable, are textbooks like that reviewed in academic journals? JSTOR might help you out there. (You're right, I think, there is still something unsatisfying about Thackston.) Adam Bishop (talk) 00:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Latin and German

I'm considering learning Latin and German simultaneously because I'm really interested in both and don't wish to delay learning either. Is this possible? Is it good or bad? I'd appreciate opinions and advice. --Think Fast (talk) 19:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly possible. The languages are very different (they are both Indo-European but from completely different sub-families within that family) so they won't complement each other like learning Latin and French would but they won't confuse you either (you won't have to struggle to remember which of two very similar words is the Latin and which the French). Whether it is advisable or not depends on you, really. Different people learn languages in different ways. How many languages do you speak already? Usually if you are already multilingual you find it easier to learn new languages. --Tango (talk) 19:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I studied Latin and German simultaneously in high school (secondary school) and had no trouble. In fact, I think that they reinforced each other and that it helped to learn both at the same time. One of the harder things to learn about either language is grammatical case. Both Latin and German have case. German has fewer cases, and German's shared origins in English helps to make case a little more accessible in German, in my opinion, since the parallels with the vestiges of case in English (our pronouns) are more obvious and intuitive. So learning German will help you master cases in Latin. The two languages have other shared grammatical features, and learning one will help you learn the other in that way. Marco polo (talk) 20:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, although that may be an argument for learning German first and Latin later. You'll get reduced benefit if you learn them in parallel. --Tango (talk) 20:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think it makes much difference. If Think Fast is eager to learn both, I think he or she should go ahead. Marco polo (talk) 21:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Cognate words between German and Latin include

• some German words ending in -tät and some Latin words ending in -tās (e.g., Universität and ūniversitās),
• some German words ending in -enz and some Latin words ending in -entia (e.g., Exzellenz and excellentia),
• some German words ending in -zion and some Latin words ending in -tiō (e.g., Nation and nātiō), and
• some German verbs ending in -ieren and their counterparts in Latin (e.g., addieren and addere).

See also Latin Loan Words in German - Deutsch Latein.

-- Wavelength (talk) 21:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I learned German before Latin and it was immensely helpful just from a conceptual point of view, because of the cases. In that sense it was more helpful than learning French or another Romance language. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The order you learn them in wouldn't matter, I would say--if you learn latin first, your knowledge of cases would transfer to German...from that respective latin first might be best as it has a more complex case system. Either way, I've studied both and I think learning them simultaneously wouldn't be harmful -- there is some vocabulary overlap, but not enough to confuse you...and the grammatical overlap is beneficial (although, note that the first semester of German probably won't cover all the cases in great detail).--71.111.194.50 (talk) 02:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)