Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 October 13

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Alphabet

Why most of the world languages use the same alphabetical system? (A-Z) I find it very confusing, I cant distinguish between Finnish and German, Esperanto and French... (But I can tell which one is Japanese, Russian and Korean) I dont think making another 26 symbols is hard...59.149.91.57 06:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

It would make more sense if everyone used the same alphabet and pronounced it the same. Maybe all languages should adopt phonetic writing. DirkvdM 08:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The reason is because they could. Cyrillic came about because they couldn't (too many postalveolar sounds) and Korean and Japanese writing systems came about as an attempt to make a more phonemic system from the Chinese system with thousands of word characters. A writing system is successful if native speakers can learn to use it, not if foreigners can distinguish its writings from those of other languages. Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but I think you misread my question. I asked 'why' but not 'why not'. And this question popped up in my brain because I am now learning two more languages using the Latin alphabetical system. The number of False friend between this two languages just dont fail to amuse me. If I read something in one of the two language I am learning, I always have to stop and think a bit before I can grab the meaning of some vocabs. (Too many false friend between these two languages)

If for some reason, the two languages can have two different alphabetical systems, I maybe able to read an article quicker.(At least they dont look so similar) 59.149.91.57 12:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question, the success and heritage of the Roman Empire, mainly... Btw, Ƶ§œš¹, I think Latin alphabet could have been adopted for most Slavic languages, if there were some modifications to it. It didn't happen for historical reasons, though... And 59.149.91.57, you hardly could differentiate between the different languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet, anyway. You probably would just assume everything was Russian... 惑乱 分からん 11:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Mostly the heritage of the East-West Schism actually - Catholic countries adopting Latin script and Orthodox ones adopting either Greek or Cyrillic. I don't see why Latin couldn't be used for all Slavic languages - it was adopted by all Catholic Slavs (e.g. Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian). Likewise the Moldovans (formerly) used Cyrillic to write a Romance language. Ossetic has manged in its history to be written in Greek, Georgian, Latin and Cyrillic alphabet variants. That isn't to say all scripts are equally suitable though (see below), but it really does depend mostly on how you adapt it. --BluePlatypus 16:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Changing the alphabet is going to add its own set of false friends; Russia, in Russian, starts with РУ, pronounced RU. It hides all the real friends, too; if you speak any of the Scandavian languages, you can puzzle through any other Scandinavian language (except Finnish). If you speak a Romance language, you can puzzle through another Romance language. You get parts of a vast array of languages, just by exploiting commonly borrowed vocabulary. It's also easy to pick up a little bit of another language in the same script, without having to learn a new script.

Something no one has approached is that it's trivial to tell between French, German and Esperanto. Esperanto uses ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ. French uses à, è, ù, é, â, ê, î, ô, û, ë, ï, ü and ç. German uses ß, ä, ö, and ü. Arguably, Finnish is more easily confused, because the only special characters it uses are ä and ö, but it's way more likely to have the same vowel twice in a row than any of those languages. Once you look at texts in a language enough, you'll start to see the special letters, the usual and rare letter combinations, the usual function words that stand out, usual features of the orthography, etc. A different script makes this much harder; I've seen a far amount of Farsi and Arabic, and Hebrew and Yiddish, but not being familiar with the Arabic script or the Hebrew script I can't tell the pairs apart.--Prosfilaes 13:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• Why is it so hard to learn another 26 (or so) characters? It's certainly a small effort within the context of learning a language. And there's a difference between having the same letters and having the same values for them. "Chat" means "informal conversation" in English but it means "cat" in French. Neither meaning nor pronunciation is similar. The Latin alphabet is good for Latin, but gets increasingly worse for every other language which have sounds that don't exist in Latin. Which means you have to assign those phonemes to certain letter-pairs. E.g. "sh" in English - the (approximate) sound of which is written "sch" in German, "sz" in Polish, "s" in Hungarian and can even be "k" in Swedish. This all leads to inconsistency and spelling mistakes. Now if you compare to say, Russian, which has an alphabet specifically tailored to its sounds, spelling is much easier and consistent. I don't see why they should sacrifice that just to make it more recognizable to non-speakers, in particular since there's little to be recognized apart from proper names and a few cognates (which are very liable to be misinterpreted anyway). --BluePlatypus 16:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it gets easier to learn a foreign language if you don't have to learn a new alphabet in the process, and it's easier to read signs, too. IPA is largely an adaptation of the Latin alphabet, so it's basically proven that it could be adapted to include most sounds imaginable... 惑乱 分からん 16:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Saying the IPA is an adaption of the Latin alphabet is a bit of oversimplification. IPA began with the Latin alphabet but it fell extremely short and they had to add dozens of new characters from Greek and modify existing letters for new symbols. As for Cyrillic, at the time of its formation, they didn't have the fancy diacritics like with š or ć. If they had, then they certainly would have been much more willing (that's why I used past tense). I'm sure there are also social and reasons for not trying harder to use the Latin alphabet as well. Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

But there's more than enough letters in the Extended Latin alphabet to represent any language. Unicode encodes more than a thousand Latin letters (including all the precomposed ones), including several perfectly appropriate ones for sh, including the Esperanto ŝ and the IPA esh with a capital for African languages. There's more than a few cognates between Dutch and German, and between French and Italian. Many of the problems in English likely would appear even if Caxton had invented a new alphabet perfect for English, due to the Great Vowel Shift, and other lingual shifts. And I think you underestimate the difficulties caused by proper names and different scripts; Muammar al-Gaddafi has 32 aliases listed in the Library of Congress catalogs, and that's not the complete set. Any search of newspaper and magazine indexes for his name is likely to be futile. That's not unique to him; it's a problem that every name not originally written in the English script shares.--Prosfilaes 18:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that the best answer to the original question is historical. The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabet because for many centuries in Western Europe, until around 1400, almost all writing was Latin. This was so because Latin was the language of the pan-European church, it was the language of education, and it allowed communication among people of different nationalities. When, around 1400, the practice of writing spread to nonreligious uses and to the vernacular languages of Western Europe, those who already knew how to write in Latin naturally applied the Latin alphabet to their vernacular languages. This produced the written European languages that we know today, or their forerunners. Over the next 500 years, Western Europeans, who had developed some technical advantages in weaponry and in state structure, were able to conquer much of the world. Wherever they achieved dominance, they brought their language and alphabet. Often European missionaries devised the first writing systems for languages that had previously not been written. When they did so, they typically used the Latin alphabet with which they were familiar. In a few cases, languages that had previously been written in a different script, such as Turkish or Vietnamese, adopted the Latin script for its greater ease of use or as part of a sociopolitical movement to make the societies using those languages more open to modern western culture. Marco polo 01:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

It happened because somebody in the Middle East (reportedly the Phoenicians) developed a writing system that was really convenient, so most of the peoples in the Mediterranean area adopted it and adapted it. There was no point in making up a totally new one to rival the old one. It's like asking, why does every country drive cars and not indigenous vehicles. It's because somebody invented it, and other nationalities just adopted and adapted them to their own needs. CCLemon 20:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, that was long before the spread of the Latin alphabet (which replaced many reasonably convenient alphabets, actually) but I guess it was often for the same reasons. Trade and interaction between different cultures. 惑乱 分からん 21:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Writing dialogue

I'm writing a story and I suck at the grammar and punctuation that goes with dialogue. Is the following correct?

“You’re him. The... the one on the news”, she stammers.

Or should there be a period before the last quote mark since it's the end of a sentence within the quotes? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 10:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Although putting a period there would be entirely logical, no style manual I've seen recommends it. Also, the prevailing style in the US is different from the rest of the world, putting the comma inside the quotation marks. See also Quotation mark#Punctuation.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... Thanks! I'll read over the article more. Dismas|^(talk) 17:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ancient versus modern Egypt, in Arabic

In English, we use the term "Egypt" to refer both to the modern country of Egypt and to the ancient Egyptian civilization. Is it the same in Arabic? That is, do Egyptians today use the same word for their modern state as they do for the people who built the pyramids? Looking at the titles for the relevant articles on the Arabic version of Wikipedia, it looks to me like they might — but I don't know nearly enough to be sure. -- Vardion 16:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Consulting my Hans Wehr dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic, it appears that the same root is used for both. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 19:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

What is the derivation of the word? I saw something, many years ago, in which there was speculation that it evolved from the Greek eco - "house" and Ptah, so, "House of Ptah". User:Zoe|(talk) 04:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Our article Egypt has a section on the etymology.  --Lambiam^Talk 18:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

ball

what is mean by ball

Have a look at Ball (disambiguation) for some of the possibilities covered in Wikipedia! Wareh 17:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

or Wiktionary:ball, although I get the impression that the asker is not a native English speaker, and might not get much help from our links, anyway... 惑乱 分からん 18:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

"He's got big balls, she's got big balls, but we've got the biggest balls of them all." (ACDC) For clarification, the first two times it refers to a dance, the third time to testicles. But it can also mean to have sex: "I want to ball you all night long" (Ten years After). That meaning was not included in the disambiguation page, but I fixed that. DirkvdM 08:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

'Having a ball' can also mean 'having a good time', as opposed to 'having a baby' which means something different. CCLemon 20:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

What ideaR am I talking about?

Hi all! Is there a name for the practice in english of saying, for example:

"My ideaR is that AustraliaR ought to beR a country..."

That is to say, when a word you are saying ends with a vowel, and the next word you'll say begins with a vowel, you put an R sound in the middle of the two! I'm not sure if this happens for ALL vowels. (I hope you know what I'm talking about, or I can make a better example if you like.) I've never heard anyone even mention this "phenomenon"! I assume it's for clarity of expression; is this something that is taught in schools, or is it something that you learn by practice? Is this only done by the British/Australian/etc. (i.e. not used in American english)? (I am assuming you DO notice you do this!!:) Thanks in advance! Kreachure 19:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

It's called Intrusive R. It only occurs after vowels that could have theoretically dropped an -r. Word-final -a and -er sound the same, so all -a are treated as -er. -aw and -ore sound the same, so they're both treated as -ore (drawing is pronounced "droring"). But final -y doesn't get -r, because there is no r-derived vowel homophonous with it. (So your "beR a country" example is wrong.)

It certainly doesn't happen in standard American English, but I suppose it might happen in dialects that drop the -r, like New York. --Ptcamn 19:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

When I say it, I get ought toR be a instead of ought to beR a. Hyenaste ^(tell) 19:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, it's certainly not taught in schools—if they notice it at all (most people aren't aware they do it), a teacher would be likely to say it's incorrect. People just learn it by hearing other people speak that way, just like they learn every other detail of pronunciation. --Ptcamn 19:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

True. It's a characteristic of the Bristolian accent. -- Arwel (talk) 19:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Also a Boston accent. StuRat 23:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks everyone! Now I understand this 'intrusive R' thing a little bit better, and I guess it's more common than I thought it was... But it's still kinda freaky to think that some people aren't even aware they do this when they talk! Oh, you silly non-rhotic accents, you! -- Kreachure 02:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The extra R on the ends of same words was part of the accent of a certain class of Masachusetts residents. President John Kennedy was widely imitated by humorists such as Vaughn Meader(sp?) for his extra R's"I will go to Afriker, but not to Cuber." American TV carpenter Norm Abrams says we can order "Measured drawerings " of his furniture projects. But descendants of John Kennedy do not speak that way to my knowledge. Edison 22:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

On The Simpsons, Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby, who is a copy of JFK, has the same accent. StuRat 22:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

We've got the same feature in Liverpool English, but it's more noticeable as we use the flap R, instead of the more common curled R (I forget the terminology), being a mixture of Irish and Lancashire English, both of which use flaps. CCLemon 20:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

A certain number of Japanese people do that as well, and it sounds absolutely distressing. I first thought it was a result of the common transliteration of "-er" sounds into "aa" when written in Japanese, which then results in a lot of Japanese people assuing that every "aa" sound is really supposed to be pronounced "er", and "r"s start popping up every where. True, this is the reason for about 90% of the mistakes, but there are still a few Japanese that can't pronounce final "a" sounds properly even in Japanese, so places like Yokohama start sounding like "Yokohamer"... Japanese being a language positively lacking in "r"s, "Yokohamer" is just mind-blowing.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  10:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"Lacking in Rs" isn't quite right. They just don't distinguish between Rs and other letters, famously Ls: "Would you like flied lice with that ?" :-) StuRat 15:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

No, there is no "r" or "l" in Japanese, by that I mean that there is no alveolar approximant (as the "r" is perceived in the mind by most English speakers), nor is there an alveolar trill (as it is perceived by many others), nor an alveolar lateral approximant (i.e. the letter "l"). It's confusing because the Japanese alveolar lateral flap is romanized with an "r", even though it is much closer to a non-veralized "l", though it is really close to neither, and should be (and is) thought of as a unique sound. Most Japanese speakers not only don't distinguish between English "r"s and "l"s, but reduce both sounds (as well as flapped "d" and "t" sounds) to their native alveolar lateral flap. The image of the Japanese person mixing up "r"s and "l"s is spread by Japanese speakers who don't perform such pronunciation reductions (and yet falter still), or by the haphazard spelling of most Japanese, who often can't remember "which is which".  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I preguntar; you contestar, I might dar a prize for ganar!!

Why do the majority of Spanish verbs end in -ar instead of -er or -ir. Why are there no -or or -ur verbs? I asked my teacher these questions today, and she got really upset and started to accuse me of trying to change Spanish spelling rules or something. =( Hyenaste ^(tell) 19:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

because most Latin verbs ended in -are. Verbs following this paradigm are classed in the "first" conjugation for a reason. Also, derivatives from nouns or adjectives - that is to say, neologisms - usually follow the most common conjugation - consider esquiar, "to ski". --Janneman 19:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

also because some Latin verbs ended in "-ere" or "-ire"—the final "e" was dropped in Spanish—but no Latin verbs ended in "-ore" or "-ure". Marco polo 22:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC) (forgot to sign earlier)

OK, OK, but why did no Latin verbs end in -ore or -ure? Hyenaste ^(tell) 01:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

That's just how it is. Why is the word to placed before English infinitives instead of ta or ti or tu? It's just how the words came about. -- the GREAT Gavini 06:29, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a more satisfying answer is that human languages tend to order words into lexical classes. In most Indo-European languages that includes genders and declensions for nouns and verbs following similar paradigms for verbs. In English, all that has broken down due to reduction, mergers, and loss of endings. mnewmanqc 18:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't this have something to do with Proto-Indo-European? Like PIE verbs used "are" to signify the infinitive or something? -- Mwalcoff 23:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Ehhh, possibly, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that PIE had an infinitive, Latin has -?re, I think Proto-Germanic had -an and Proto-Slavonic something like -?t, so there's no evidence for a common infinitive form. It had other tenses that I think are hard to understand, though, such as the aorist tense. 惑乱 分からん 13:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Another part of the answer is that many Romance words that did not exist in (Classical) Latin have been created in -ar. In other words -ar is a productive word-building element. An example is verbs derived from nouns and adjectives (e.g. publicar). Another whole category of later -ar verbs much more numerous than Classical Latin -are verbs are those formed by Latin verbs in other conjugations like -ere. This works as follows: Take any Latin verb, for example exprimere. Look at the fourth principal part (or past passive participle: expressus/expressum). Use this stem to make an -are verb: expressare. That's how you get the Spanish verb expresar, even though a Classical Latin dictionary will give you exprimere but not expressare. (This process had begun in Classical antiquity, but accelerated rapidly in Vulgar Latin and the Romance languages.) Wareh 02:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you all. I'm going to pwn my teacher with this information. Hyenaste ^(tell) 03:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Why would you expect a teacher of a foreign language to know why the language is the way it is? That's the job of linguists, which usually do not teach languages (unless like a few ling professors here, they know a language and there's sufficient demand for that language but no other teachers). Sounds like you're being an asshole. When you're learning English, do you ask why teach is so irregular? No. It just is.--152.2.62.69 17:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

An asshole for trying to learn, eh? That's new to me. Having taught the language for a few decades, I thought maybe she would know a bit of history. Had she said, "Hmm, I don't know," I would have been satisfied. You weren't there, so you didn't see the way she accused me of trying to change Spanish spelling instead of answering my question. "It just is" is never a suitable answer. Why is "broken" the word to use instead of "breaked"? It just is. Why is the government imprisoning people who speak about it negatively? It just is. Why is that man shooting the worshippers at our church? He just is. Hyenaste ^(tell) 18:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the asshole charge, Hyenaste. A teacher should not react insecurely to intellectual curiosity. If he/she doesn't know the answer, the right answer is "I don't know, but that's an interesting question." Marco polo 22:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

"The right answer" sounds ever so slightly prescriptive, and doesn't permit of any individuality on the part of the teacher. How about "a good answer". JackofOz 08:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)