Language desk
< January 1	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 3 >

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.

January 2

Chinese poem

Hi everyone. I need to make sense of the following poem: http://blog.udn.com/quietdharma/8963422. The English translation given on that page doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, and it seems to be an automatically generated one. Could anyone explain me the meaning of part two (starting with 我聽見音樂)? Thanks a lot! MuDavid (talk) 01:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

我聽見音樂 is "I hear the echo". The Chinese text is below the translation. I do see what you mean about verse two - I don't know if it's a machine or a translator trying to be clever. I make it out to be something like -

我聽見音樂，來自月光和胴體
I hear the music, from the moonlight a feeling of peace in my guts.
輔極端的誘餌捕獲飄渺的唯美
My greatest stability, bait to catch my vast whirlwind, simply beautiful.
一生充盈著激烈，又充盈著純然
Lifelong full of ardour, and full of simplicity
總有回憶貫穿於世間
All I own; memories of what I have experienced in the world
我相信自己
We trust each other
死時如同靜美的秋日落葉
Death-time like our still and beautiful fallen leaves of Autumn
不盛不亂，姿態如煙
No abundance, no confusion, passing like smoke
即便枯萎也保留豐肌清骨的傲然
Quickly withered, our ample flesh driven from a clean skeleton - a proud boast
玄之又玄
Profundity of profundity.

Of course, poetry isn't going to have a single simple translation, especially from somebody like me with rudimentary Chinese, but this ought to give you something to work on. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 00:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks a lot in any case. It makes much more sense this way already. :-) MuDavid (talk) 08:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why are the s, sh, and th phonemes so prevalent in English?

In Shakespearean English, the th phoneme is insanely abundant. Yet, there are traditional names like Esther and Theresa, both of which are pronounced with a t phoneme instead of the th. "Ophthalmology" has a ph and a th, but I often hear the ph taking precedence. Somehow, modern English has significantly less th phonemes than Shakespearean English. In the speech of non-native speakers, I often hear replacements like z, sh, or s. Instead of "the", one may pronounce it like "de" or "ze". Instead of "three", one may pronounce it like "shree". Instead of "betrothal", one may pronounce it like "betrosal". When I listen to an English-language song and do not know the lyrics, I am readily able to identify the hissing sound so prevalent in the singing. Is the hissing sound common in the germanic languages? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 04:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good singers will try to soften the sound of the "s", to avoid that "hissing snakes" phenomenon. I have seen those names spelled Ester and Teresa. I've never heard "betrothal" pronounced "betrosal". That would be weird. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

71.79.234.132 -- Current-day English does not have fewer consonant phonemes than Shakespeare's English did (and has even added one that did not exist in Shakespeare's day: [ʒ]). Some varieties of English still had [x] and its allophone [ç], but probably not most London speech ca. 1600. Vowel phonemes are a little harder to calculate, but there's only been a modest reduction (if you count the [ʊə], [ɪə] etc. "centering diphthongs" of non-rhotic dialects as separate phonemes, then maybe no reduction at all in the number of vowel phonemes in those dialects). "Th" is more prominent in KJV or Shakespearean English because it was then the usual third-person singular present verb ending. A lot of frequent English function words with initial "th-" (the, this, that, these, those, they, them, their, then, there) trace back to an early Indo-European demonstrative stem to-, in which the "t" has become "th" through the application of Grimm's Law. "Esther" and "Anthony" were traditionally pronounced with [t] rather than [θ] because those names were borrowed from French with a [t] sound, and the letter "h" was basically inserted as a classicizing spelling correction (like the "b" of "debt" and "doubt")... AnonMoos (talk) 06:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That was informative. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many English speakers have difficulty with th. In Irish English th is often merged with d/t. In African American Vernacular English, Caribbean Englishes and Multicultural London English, th is often replaced with d (dat ting). By contrast in Cockney, Estuary English and some other varieties in England, th is replaced by f/v. "Fings ain't what they used to be." Itsmejudith (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do they really say vese fings? I'd somehow expect dese fings. —Tamfang (talk) 02:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An ess-like phoneme is one of the most common consonants in world languages, those like Hawaiian that lack it are rare. A /s/ phoneme is the only fricative we are sure that the Proto-Indo-European language possessed, although the laryngeal theory has variations that assume an /h/ or other fricative like sound.

The sh- sound in English comes from many sources. The -sk- sequence in Proto-Germanic regularly develops to sh in English. Hence skirt and skip (which we borrowed from other Germanic languages) natively developed into shirt and ship. Also, the -ish ending develops from a PIE -isk- suffix. Then there's a host of words through French like Chicago and machine, and original /sy/ sequences like pressure and mission and other -tion words that have developed sh sounds. There's even a common feature of American English where sequences like "I'll miss you" become "I'll mishoo". μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

After a person sneezes, another person may say, "Bless you." But it sounds like "Blesshoo" and rhymes with "tissue". 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Despite fear of the QI klaxon, I shall say that that particular usage is from the Black Death, as sneezing was one of the symptoms. Tissues hadn't been invented yet. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are some statistics [1][2]. I wouldn't say that sibilants of any sort are prevalent in English. Although English /s/ is the forth place, but some languages like Greek, Latvian or Lithuanian, where /s/ is very actively used in morphology, will win over English in this respect.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:44, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's sometimes false if the subject's topic's plurals. μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is 'plural' a verb? How come no-one told me this? I would have used 'pluralizes' which contains two sibilants. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My example sentence doesn't use plural as a verb, it suggests perhaps the topic about which the subject is speaking is plurals: "That is sometimes false if the subject's topic is plurals."

Final ess in English can be inherent: "miss", adverbial: "anyways", genitive: "its", and the related possessive: "The queen of England's hat", plural: "cats", possessive plural "the horses' stables", an abbreviation of is: "he's hilarious", and an abbreviation of has: "He's already said that twice." (BTW, "twice" is an adverbial use of -s, originally spelt "twies".} μηδείς (talk) 18:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you play Scrabble? You'll find that 's' is one of our most common letters, which is why it only gets one point. It's in the name of the language, for God's sake! :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 20:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Latvian still wins.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:11, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be talking about the number of sibilant or fricative letters. I am talking about the number of uses of final /s/ in English. μηδείς (talk) 19:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a word for this phenomenon?

One man may take one woman as his wife, and then take other subsequent women as his concubines or mistresses. And his concubines and mistresses give him children. In the animal kingdom, if a male animal mates with several females, then it's not considered monogamous. But we're talking about humans, and humans have this concept of "marriage", and "monogamy" in humans usually means "one marriage", not "exclusively one sex partner". Also, one partner in marriage may consistently and secretly engage in sexual acts outside of marriage. Um . . . would such a partner be polygamous because he is engaging in procreative acts with multiple mates or monogamous because he has one culturally-recognized marriage? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 06:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Anything "-gamy" or "-gamous" has to do with marriages, not concubines. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Polygyny seems to include having concubines (see the China section). I guess "having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too-ism" is too long. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The word "polygyny" was intended to mean "many wives".[3] Polygamy means "many marriages", but is typically used as a synonym for "polygyny". An obvious example of the OP's scenario would by Henry VIII, who only had one wife at a time, but often one or more women "on the side". The proper term might be "promiscuous" or "unfaithful". A more polite term could be "open marriage", although that usually implies approval by both spouses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So, in humans, the cultural usage of -gamy is taken precedence over the biological usage of -gamy. Okay. That's all I need to know. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's more that the usage was taken over from anthropological usage to biological usage in general, not that it was used first in biology and then later culturally. The same has happened with altruism (biology) which was taken over from ethics by analogy, and now does not mean quite the same thing in biology as it does in ethics. μηδείς (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Animals do not marry. If some species are called "polygamous", it's because no one was clever enough to come up with a better, accurate term. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you watch 101 Dalmatians. There is a scene in which Pongo and Perdita have a wedding ceremony. It looks goofy and cute at the same time. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And "Lady and the Tramp" were "married" also. And it was gross. Animals do what they do, and marriage is not on the list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You should try 'origamy' - that's when your marriage on paper folds :) (cue drum roll) Happy New Year everyone! KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:26, 2 January 2015 (UTC) (Captainbeefart (talk) 12:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC), long ago condemned to a life of levity, salutes you).[reply]

How about Polyamory? It seems to suggest knowledge and consent of all parties which would preclude it being secret from the wife (or husband or whoever), but it doesn't require marriage. Mingmingla (talk) 23:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That could work. It may be being used to imply mutual consent of all concerned, but there's nothing inherent in the word that requires that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Meaning of the term "collect prayer"

What does the term "collect prayer" mean, in regards to the Roman Catholic religion/Church? I have never heard the term before. Then, in the past day or two, it arose in three separate incidents. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See Collect. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:34, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I searched under "collect prayer". I did not even think to search under the generic word "collect", simply assuming that it would be about the everyday verb (e.g., to collect coins). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:57, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; that's now fixed with a redirect. The next person to search for "collect prayer" will have more luck than you ;) --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Good idea. That's very helpful. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]