Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 November 24

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November 24

The initials P.P. after someone's name

Looking at File:Jakob Bernoulli.jpg, I'm wondering what the "P.P." stands for? I couldn't see anything obviously applicable within PP nor at wikt:p.p.. I'd speculate that it's an old form for "PhD", but I can't see any indication of that in Doctor of Philosophy. Thanks. Quiddity (talk) 04:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Professor Philosophiae (Professor of Philosophy)? --Orange Mike | Talk 05:13, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

It means it was signed by someone else on behalf of the named person. See Procuration.-gadfium 05:22, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

It does not mean that in the painting of Bernoulli. He used this designation himself in letters he sent, in the heading.^[1]  --Lambiam 06:49, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

My theory is that "MATH.P.P." stands for "mathematicae professor publicus".  --Lambiam 18:31, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

'PP' after John Paul II stands for 'pope' [2] --Ouro (blah blah) 19:18, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Following a pope's regnal name it stands for papa pontifex.  --Lambiam 22:46, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Article

Is there any language where article is declined in more than four cases? Hungarian is only article-using language in Europe with more than four cases, but in this language, article is not declined. --40bus (talk) 16:23, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Old English and Old High German. ColinFine (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Colinfine -- that's only true for Old English if you include the Instrumental case. In Old English, most words did not have separate Instrumental case forms, and in the relatively few words which did have distinct Instrumental inflection, the Instrumental forms tended to have special uses. So the Instrumental inflection of the interrogative (ancestor of modern English "Who?" and "What?") survives as the separate word "Why?", while the Instrumental inflection of the definite article survives in modern English as the "The" in such expressions as "The more the merrier", which is a little bit different from an ordinary definite article (in other languages, a word with a similar function is often not an article at all)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:49, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

40bus -- I'm having difficulty finding this in somewhat well-known languages, but Lithuanian has definite adjectives (not a definite article) inflected in six cases... AnonMoos (talk) 22:57, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Basque language has a suffix -a that works like a definite article. It also has several suffixes corresponding to cases. Some of them take -a: psikologo, psikologoa ("the psychologist"), psikologoaren ("psychologist's"), psikologoak ("the psychologist", ergative), psikologoarentzat ("for the psychologist"), psikoloarengan ("at the psychologist's"), psikoloarengatik ("because of the psychologist"),...

The indefinite article bat can take several cases as well. --Error (talk) 02:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Greek name of Djerba

in Tunisia. A linguist friend told me that the greek name of Djerba island is (or was) Felie, according to the opinion or knowledge of someone he knew long ago. Is it true ? and if it is, what's its etymology ? בנצי (talk) 18:34, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

What time-period did he have in mind? "F" was not a sound used in the Greek language until Roman times, roughly, and the [f] of medieval Greek was still often transcribed into the Latin alphabet as "ph". However, I thank you for making the Latin name Quodvultdeus known to me! ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 21:15, 24 November 2022 (UTC)