Language desk
< March 4	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 5

The land of our ancestors

Which is the difference between "Fatherland" and "Motherland"? Both seem to have the same definitions. Is that completely so, or are there circumstances for using either one instead of the other? MBelgrano (talk) 02:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fatherland tends to have more militaristic overtones. Marco polo (talk) 03:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Motherland also has the meaning "metropole", which fatherland does not.--Rallette (talk) 06:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Both of them are to some degree translation-English or "calques" from other languages... AnonMoos (talk) 07:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A long discussion about this here[1]. Alansplodge (talk) 13:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

hors-cadre

Anyone know what this French phrase means -- it refers to a state or type of duty within the context of military service? Thanks. W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Literally "outside the cadre". From French wiktionary, "it refers to an officer or civil servant who isn't included among the officers". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merci! W. B. Wilson (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

From The Funniest Joke In The World article. What would be its english translation? I understand it consists of nonsense words, but perhaps the word-parts are translatable. To me it reads "When is the something something and something? Yes! Something the something the something something!" Thanks 89.242.242.77 (talk) 10:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is a nonsense sentence that is not even grammatically correct in German. An English translation would run something like this (non-German words not translated): "If is the Nunstruck git and Slotermeyer? Yes! Beierhund(or Beierdog) the Oder (although it should have been "die Oder", "das Oder" could mean "the other", but then Oder should not have been written with a capital O) the Flipperwaldt gersput!". As you can see it mostly consists of made up words that kind of sounds German, but in fact are not. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I dont't completely agree - it contains lots of (intentional, of course) typos and grammatical errors, but it's not complete gibberish. To my native German ears it sounds like (translated to English) "When is the nouthpiece ("Mundstück" would be "mouthpiece") gives and slaughtermeyer (Meyer being a very common last name, "sloter" not being a word in German so I guess it's okay to use the English "slaughter")? Yes, Bavaria-dog that spit over the Flipper-forest." (substituting "über" (over) for "oder" (or), which kind of makes sense since most native English speakers have trouble pronouncing German umlauts and an English guy trying to say "über" will often say "ober"). -- Ferkelparade π 11:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. I used the transcription in the linked article, thinking that it was an "official" transcription from the script or a screenshot of the sketch. I do think that at least a couple of the guys in Monty Python knows German, so it would not be far fetched to assume that it would actually be German exposed to the Monty Pythonesque branch of humour. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another association I've always had with Sloter- is "Schlotter-". The verb "schlottern" can mean to "tremble", "shiver" or "shake". I don't know whether "Schlottermeyer" or "Schlottermeier" ("Tremblemeyer") exist as surnames, but Schlotterbeck does. Friedrich Schlotterbeck, for example, or the fortune-telling Witwe Schlotterbeck, one of several funny-named characters in Otfried Preußler's Robber Hotzenplotz. To me the "Ja" — harshly breaking the short pause in which "Slotermeyer" had been allowed to resound for a second — is the funniest and deadliest part of that joke. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's what I'd like to know: What is the German written down, and more importantly the true English translation, of the clip they show of Hitler addressing some young men, with this fake translation - Hitler: Our dog's nose doesn't work. Crowd: How does it smell? Hitler: Awful. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hitler: "...insbesondere keiner mehr dann in Deutschland leben wird" ("...especially since nobody will remain in Germany by then")

Soldier: "Wir sind des Reiches Junggemeinschaft!" ("We are the Reich's youth community!")

Hitler: "Eure Schule..." ("Your school...")

As you can probably tell, it's entirely taken out of context and starts and ends in mid-sentence, but that's kind of the point... -- Ferkelparade π 13:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All three quotes are taken from the same segment in Triumph of the Will : Day 2, where Hitler addresses the Reichsarbeitsdienst. (transcript). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Thank you! Now here's part 2, so to speak. That, I think was the TV version, and the words match perfectly.[2] The film version is the one I recalled,[3] and it has a different trio of clips. Would you care to give that one a go also? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:01, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hitler: "...Euch in der Jugend dafür stählen..." ("[you must] toughen yourselves for this during youth.")

Choir of labourers: "Wie einst bei Langemarck" ("As once at Langemarck.")

Hitler: "...jemals..." ("...ever...")

The choir excerpt is taken from the same RAD segment mentioned aove. Hitler's quotes are now from day 3, the Hitler Youth rally (from the same film). ---Sluzzelin talk 14:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! It occurs to me that both of these sets of dialogue would be good information to add to the article about that sketch. I wonder if a hard citation would be necessary, or if the information presented herein would be good enough, as it's theoretically verifiable via the primary source, i.e. the Triumph of the Will film. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:36, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I never understand why this is such a problem. It seems like every couple of months, for as long as I've been here, someone tries to add a translation to the article. Why can't it just be nonsense? How is the joke improved if the sentence makes sense? No one ever tries to translate Prisencolinensinainciusol back into Italian, do they? Adam Bishop (talk) 13:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, I guess it's just fun to work out which parts sound like which commonly used syllables or words and how they make the whole thing sound udeniably German (or English). Python and Celentano both chose well, and I suppose it's interesting to analyze their choices, though it won't make them any funnier, of course. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AWWWWWHAWWHAWWHAWWHAWWHAWWHAWWHAWWW... *gasp* *THUD!* HalfShadowDied: 21:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Alas, he's but a shadow of his former self. :'( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Universal Words

Are there any words that are used the same in all languages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Temporialdisporan (talk • contribs) 17:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"used" the same? There are few universal concepts and ideas that can be expressed as words in all languages, but they won't look or sound the same. --Kvasir (talk) 17:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The closest you get to this are the words 'no' and 'ma' (for no and mother) which are very similar across a broad range of languages. It is not universal - a few languages use very different sounds - and it's probably due to the fact that infants naturally produce nasal consonants and open, back-positioned vowels (standard 'ngangangongong' kind of thing), so those are more likely to get used for early-learned words. but that's more guess than fact - you might look at Baby talk. --Ludwigs2 18:07, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Initial "N-" in negative words is familiar from many Indo-European languages (but absent from some, including ancient Greek). However, I'm not sure that there's any general typological association observable outside Indo-European). AnonMoos (talk) 03:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Though the pronunciation varies, I think a Chinese word 茶/tea is the most widely spread word. Oda Mari (talk) 18:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But it varies so much that the word is not recognisably the same in many cases. I suspect Coca Cola is the closest to universal you'll find (or perhaps I'm out of date). --ColinFine (talk) 18:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was told that "compass" is the same in English and Russian, if that helps. "Coca Cola" or other trademark would be my best guess. 89.243.198.135 (talk) 19:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Russian word компас (kompas) means "compass". I'd be very surprised if these words developed entirely separately and just happen to sound very similar. There are many words that Russian has borrowed from English, and quite a few vice-versa. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What Russian words are used in English? All I can think of are vodka and pogrom. Other words are just Russian words you use, like saying "avant garde" in French while otherwise speaking English. 89.240.63.162 (talk) 02:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of English words of Russian origin would be a good place to start. I have serious doubts about some of them, though. I mean, does one often hear people talking about praporschiks or beglopopovtsy? I don’t. And bistro is missing, although it’s discussed on the talk page and apparently it needs a cite. For the other direction, this gives details of a much larger number of words borrowed by Russian from English. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tons of words are the same in English and Russian, alphabetically. But with slightly different pronounciation. There are dozens of words which can be translated to Russian by adding "atsia" to the end. ZigSaw 16:16, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The word okay is fairly widespread, but I'm sure that there are African and Asian languages in which it is not used. Marco polo (talk) 19:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See LINGUIST List 9.1779: International Words. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another candidate is hello, which is borrowed from English into other languages but only for phone greetings. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

nah, "hello" wouldn't pass the "Chinese test". While I think the "Chinese test" mentioned in that link is a pretty good one, I don't think it's very scientific. I mean, all you need is just ONE language to be the exception. The way the OP asked the question is somewhat ambiguous. How similar should these words be to be "the same"? --Kvasir (talk) 22:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That depends how you're counting it. In China lots of people do say 'hello', although not often seriously (more like "I just saw a foreigner, 'HELLO HELLO!'"). Among students at universities and high school, "hi" is used pretty often (arguably more often than 你好). It's common in Taiwan, too. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a native Chinese speaker I can say 喂 is by far the most common (when answering the phone), Mandarin or Cantonese. We can't really count code switching as being loan words in a certain language. --Kvasir (talk) 04:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's true for the phone...Chinese doesn't seem to have borrowed 'hello' for phone greetings like many languages have. (Incidentally, Uyghur hasn't either; it has more or less adopted Chinese wei, although some people lately might choose not to use it for political reasons...) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese also never uses 'hello' on the phone, unless trying to be different, cool, funny, etc. The usual word used when answering the phone is 'moshimoshi' or 'hai' (but 'hai' is generally more used in formal contexts). 'Harou' (a Japanese variant of 'hello') is used all the time in a variety of situations on TV, though. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another little thing that throws a wrench into the whole question...no word you can come up with here, except perhaps proper nouns and technical terms, will appear in sign languages. (Proper nouns and technical terms may appear in fingerspelling.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A word used the same way in all the world's ~7000 languages? No. A word which is used identically by languages spoken by 90% of the world's people? Not likely. A word that can be understood in the majority of (non-English-speaking) countries worldwide? "TAXI!" BrainyBabe (talk) 07:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you exclude English-speaking countries from that, BrainyBabe? I don't think there would be much problem in using that word in English-speaking countries, either. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Besides, the majority of the world's languages are not national languages, and a good many of them are used only by isolated tribal communities. I doubt any of them would have ever had any use for a taxi even if they had seen one. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Verb

Resolved

I noticed that the root verb is used to refer to language in general, such as in "verbal," "verbiage" and "verbose," despite the same term being used to refer to a part of speech. Is this a symptom of generalization of the term, or of an actual double meaning of the term, in that a particular professor, for example, could be characterized as being verbose despite verbs constituting only 10% of the words she uses (let's say she likes to maximize adjectives and adverbs)? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 19:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If anything, the pattern was backwards--not 'generalization', but 'specifization' (not a real word). verb- comes from the Latin root verbum, meaning "word" (see wikt:verb#Etymology), so words like "verbal" and "verbose" are perfectly in line with the word's original origin. If anything, the term "verb" meaning a particular part of speech split off of that history after terms like "verbal" and "verbose" had already fossilized (i.e., those terms were formed before 'verb' itself came to have a less general meaning). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

as an aside, there was a movement in linguistics to restructure language analysis around verbs (i.e. a sentence could be reconstructed symbolically as V(s,o) - V being the verb, s and o being subject and object phrases), and there's some interesting philosophical material on language as an active (verb-oriented) system rather than a descriptive (noun-oriented) system, but I can't remember them off hand, and I'm away from my resources. --Ludwigs2 19:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, the whole of generative grammar (particularly Government and binding theory and the Minimalist Program) is pretty much based around verb domains, and formal semantics tends to treat sentences as functions of verbs, with arguments plugged in (i.e., "he kicked the ball" would be analyzed as something like kick[ AGENT(he), THEME(the ball) ]). Much of the neurolinguistics sentence processing literature is similarly built around verbs and their subcategorization frames...this has been criticized a few times (there was a good paper in Brain Research in 2008 by Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I believe the title was something like "The Extended Argument Dependency Model"). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In De Interpretatione, Aristotle had divided words into nouns (onomata) and verbs (rhēmata); when writing of this division in Latin, Varro used vocabula for onomata and verba for rhēmata. Later Latin grammarians retained the specialized, part-of-speech sense of verbum (even as they increased the number of parts of speech they recognized), which is why we have verb in that sense. Rjanag is correct that your other words (verbal, verbiage, verbose, etc.) are the ones that reflect the basic, general senses of verbum. Deor (talk) 20:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"In the beginning there was the verb..." - kinda has a ring to it. --Ludwigs2 20:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 21:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Abbrevation

One of the columns in the tables has the column heading lif. What does it mean (or stand for)?174.3.110.108 (talk) 23:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no source, but "language interface" seems probable. Deor (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]