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May 25

From the humanities desk

Resolved

– 01:45, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

German translation requested here: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Idiomatic_translation
2606:A000:1126:28D:95AA:34CE:C3B:D9EB (talk) 16:47, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indian names

Resolved

– Sources provided. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:09, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea how Indian names work. I'm working on an article Ayyathan Gopalan and I don't know which name to refer to him by. I took a gander over at Indian name#Kerala to see if my answer was there. My question is how should I refer to the subject? Ayyathan? Gopalan? Ayyathan appears to be the family name but I'm not 100% sure. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 03:58, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here the subject is referred to by the single name "Gopalan", and a few lines earlier named "A. Gopalan". This suggests that, when using a single name, "Gopalan" is appropriate. --Lambiam 06:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam, thanks for the links. I'll start changing mentions back to Gopalan then. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:19, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

West Maryland’s dialect

What is the most common dialect in Hagerstown, Maryland? Or, failing that, what is the most common English dialect in West Maryland generally? (I could not find a Wikipedia article that answers this.) —(((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 08:35, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here I read: "North Midland (northern West Virginia, western Maryland, and most of Pennsylvania)". --Lambiam 11:45, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our Midland American English says; "The dialect region of the Mid-Atlantic States — centered on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; and Wilmington, Delaware — aligns to the Midland phonological definition except that it strongly resists the cot–caught merger and traditionally has a short-a split that is similar to New York City's, though still unique" and has a link to Mid-Atlantic American English. Alansplodge (talk) 12:13, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The region lies at the boundary/overlap area of several linguistic regions of the U.S., besides the aforementioned Midland accent, there's also Appalachian English and Western Pennsylvania English and the Baltimore accent which all likely have some influence over the local dialect. --Jayron 32 17:00, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]