Language desk
< September 15	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	September 17 >

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

September 16

Genitive in Algonquian/Narragansett?

Highly technical question so not necessarily expecting a response, but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

In A Key into the Language of America can be found the text squáus aúhaqut (woman's cloak) and muckíis auhaqut (child's cloak). What inflection, if any, is being applied to the words squáus and muckíis? The base form of the former is either squaws or squaw, and the base form of the latter is not explicitly given but can be inferred to be *mucki from cummuckiaug and the cognate mukki in Massachusett. Anyway, is there such a thing as the genitive? It's not mentioned in this guide, and while the article Massachusett grammar uses the word 'genitive', it seems to really be talking about pronomial possessed forms, e.g. "my house" and not "the house's ...". 98.170.164.88 (talk) 08:07, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Knowing your interpretation of a text is right

For example, while reading an article I get the impression it's an advertorial.

I know, or I believe to know, when an article is an advertorial. Other people tend to agree with me, so I suppose I'm not totally out of sync with an average Joe.

However, if we wanted to test this interpretation, or even to make our point and convince others that this interpretation is the right one, how should we proceed?

Is understanding a text properly just an art or having that feeling that this makes sense? Bumptump (talk) 15:00, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is the question specifically about being right in one's judgement that a text is an advertorial, or is it about one's correctness in general of the presence of a covert ulterior motive? Editorial content concentrating on a product, such as a product review, will generally make comparisons with comparable products, mention both advantages and disadvantages, and make clear that any statements of opinion are in fact that, either an opinion that is ascribed to an expert, or presented as the opinion of the author of the piece. So it is a red flag if the assessments are overwhelmingly favourable and presented as objective facts. A reviewer may and occasionally will be genuinely enthusiastic about a product, but will then typically include a disclosure statement about there being no conflict of interest. I think, however, that an accomplished author who aims at deceiving their audience can probably hide the advertorial nature of a commissioned piece and avoid red flags being raised. --Lambiam 20:02, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My main interest is about critical interpretations of texts. The advertorial is what triggered my question. It's not just about hidden agendas, but allusions, implications, hints. Another example, an average foreign speaker of English who is not from a Christian background might construe "daily bread" literally as "bread" and not foodstuff in general. How can we know we have not fallen into this pitfall? Bumptump (talk) 22:03, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You can't know for sure, and neither is there a guaranteed way to avoid the converse pitfall of seeing an allusion or hidden meaning in a text that was not actually intended by its author, as in the novel Foucault's Pendulum, in which the protagonist interprets an ordinary shopping list as a secret Templar document detailing a thousand-year-long plot to take over the world. --Lambiam 09:05, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What languages preserve the ph digraph for the f sound??

I thought it was just English, French, and German. But Sophus Lie disproves me; he is Norwegian. Georgia guy (talk) 16:15, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think his name has more to do with certain classicizing trends in Scandinavian names than the Norwegian language in general. Anyway, standard formal written Norwegian was barely distinguishable from standard formal written Danish until the reform of 1907, after he died... AnonMoos (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sophus is a name. In Swedish, Christopher is often written with a ph, although ph is rarely used for common words, otherwise. Anyway, what is your criterion for preservation? That ph should be used regularly in all Greek-derived words? (Even if I think the pronunciation of /f/ only began in Latin... although I might be wrong on that account...) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:04, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also possibly Welsh per [1] (I can't read Welsh so not certain). 70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:35, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Welsh uses <ph> for /f/, but only when it is the aspirate mutation of <p> (eg pen = "head", ei phen - "her head"). Otherwise it uses <ff>. Similarly Irish, péitseog = "peach", a phéitseog = "his peach". ColinFine (talk) 20:27, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's ei phen awesome. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2022 (UTC) [reply]

The Vietnamese alphabet use the Ph digraph for /f/. --Amble (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect it's more a question of which European languages have regularized it to ⟨f⟩.If you look at the Wikidata links for alphabet, you'll get an idea. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Checking those links and those for philosophy, indeed it seems that English, French and German are the only major languages to preserve the ph to a significant extent. German is in third place here, changing the ph to f quite arbitrarily when the word reaches certain levels of common usage (Telefon, but Photon; Elefant, but Delphin until the spelling reform of 1996 - then switched to Delfin). --KnightMove (talk) 23:43, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Vietnamese use of ⟨ph⟩ for /f/ is a bit of a coincidence. At the time the Latin orthography was introduced, the phoneme was pronounced /pʰ/; only later did /pʰ/ become /f/ (a common enough sound change that happened in Ancient Greek and apparently in Proto-Italic and Proto-Germanic as well). And here's a trivia question for your next pub quiz: Name two common English words that use ⟨ph⟩ for /f/ but are not of Greek origin. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:38, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One is Phew... --KnightMove (talk) 10:06, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another is Phishing... --KnightMove (talk) 12:42, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good ones! And there are other cases of words normally spelled with f being respelled with ph for specific meanings, such as phat and phreaking. However, the ones I was thinking of are nephew and gopher. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:13, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, apparently nephew was an old borrowing of French neveu, and used to be pronounced as 'neh-view' before the p was added to emphasize the connection to Latin nepōs. I have difficulties to see an orthographic reason for the -ph- in gopher, though. Analogy with Christopher? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

English words loaned from Hebrew also usually transliterate פ‎‎ (/f/) with ⟨ph⟩ (aleph, ephah, seraphim, shophet, teraphim), for unclear reasons. These are not exactly household words. --Lambiam 16:36, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of Hebrew loanwords in English came through the mediation of Greek, which may be at least part of the reason. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As your link explains, phreaking is partially derived from "phone".

There is also Baphomet, from Arabic through Old French.

--Error (talk) 23:55, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]