Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 May 9

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May 9

Wikipoetry

Why doesn't someone create Wikipoetry? I think it would be a good resource, a compilation of poetry. I don't know how or I would. Thanks, Zrs 12 (talk) 01:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is of course, all the copyright issues. If you want to include only public domain poetry, then there are larger projects, that attempt to put on the internet all public domain published books. Wiki-projects are for people to write in them and add value, not just retype from an old book. --Lgriot (talk) 06:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Already-published (and out-of-copyright) poems belong on wikisource, which has a fair few already. Algebraist 08:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Classifications of persons

I’ve checked out grammatical person but it doesn’t tell me what I want to know. I understand that not all languages restrict themselves to the 3 persons we use in English (I, you, he/she/it). And some don’t distinguish between persons at all. But for those that do, does “First person” always refer to oneself? I ask this because in English we capitalise the first person singular pronoun "I" but not any of the others, which is consistent with "I" being accorded primary status among the persons (not that the two things are necessarily related). But most other languages do not capitalise their equivalent of “I”, so maybe in some language’s grammar "you" is 1st person and "I" is 2nd, 3rd or nth person. Or is this a standard convention? Any ideas? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe by definition first person is always I. That would make sense to me. However, I do not know for sure. Someone else will have to give you a definite answer. Cheers, Zrs 12 (talk) 01:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Linguistic convention dictates that the first person is always 'I'. That is linguistics. It is a science. The capitalization has nothing to do with status, but rather a convention from Early New English, otherwise the first person plural 'we' would also be capitalized. Originally, 'I' ('ich' in Middle English and 'ic' in Old English) were not capitalized, and the convention arose from the word 'I' being basically a single letter with the same pronunciation as the name of the actual letter. European languages often used abbreviations in texts, and this seems to be a relic of this habit. As for the other question, all languages have three persons (this is a linguistic fact), but some do not distinguish gender in the 3rd person (e.g. Finnish), while others distinguish gender in the 2nd person (e.g. Arabic), and some have a dual (i.e. meaning a plural but with only two people involved), and even a triple (with only three people involved), as well as a plural. Some of these 'plurals' also have distinctive terms as to whether the first person, second person, and third persons are involved, with various combinations of this, bordering on the absurd, from an English speaker's point of view. Then there is Japanese, where your usage of the personal pronoun depends as much on who you are talking to as what gender, age, and social status you are. Some Native American languages also have different ways of saying the third person, depending on whether the person in question is present or not.--ChokinBako (talk) 02:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I am very impressed with ChokinBako's extent of knowledge. I have just a couple more links to mention about pronouns: As ChokinBako said, some pronouns vary depending on who, among the present, are involved in the action. One of the most frequent case is the first person plural (we) which has in some languages like Kapampangan, 2 forms: one form that includes the person you are talking to, one form that excludes him. For e.g.: if 3 people are present and one says "We are going home" to one of the other two in English, it is ambiguous, because the person you tell that to does not know whether he should come along home with you or not. But in those language that have an "exclusive we" and an "inclusive we", the pronoun "we" is different, and therefore the listener will know if he is included or not in the "going home" action. --Lgriot (talk) 07:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's not a "linguistic fact" that all languages have at least three persons in their pronouns. The Raritätenkabinett lists the Balante language, for example, as having a two-way contrast between "speaker" (ie, first person) and "non-speaker" (ie, merging second and third persons). Similarly, the gender distinction need not be limited to the second and third persons - plenty have it in the first person as well. Macnas (talk) 10:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

IANAL, but I've never seen anything to suggest that Japanese has any personal pronouns or any concept of person in the grammar. Words like "watashi" and "kimi" are nothing like pronouns; they're full-fledged nouns in every respect that I can see. You can classify them according to a first/second/third person scheme, but there's nothing in the structure of the language to justify that. You might as well say that "this writer" and "the esteemed senator from Wisconsin" are personal pronouns. Like the Japanese words, they depend on context, social status, etc.; like the Japanese words, they have none of the properties that you'd normally associate with pronouns. -- BenRG (talk) 12:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You might as well say that "this writer" and "the esteemed senator from Wisconsin" are personal pronouns. — that is quite brilliant, and I think I shall save it somewhere. :) I think an entire Wikipedia article could be written on how languages like Japanese do without pronouns. I hear Korean is another pronoun-less language, although I personally cannot attest to that. Paul Davidson (talk) 14:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I am saying. These words were originally nouns, but then, I believe that all pronouns in English were originally nouns in proto indo-european. Anyway, what is a pronoun if it is not a type of noun? And what properties would you 'normally' associate with pronouns that you wouldn't with nouns? Don't say nominative, accusative, genitive and dative, because we are talking about languages in general, many of which do not have these forms. This is not about English or any other Indo-European language, or Ural-Altaic, etc.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There are numerous syntactic differences between nouns and pronouns. Pronouns are pro-forms that substitute for noun structures and require antecedents. They have restrictions that do not apply to nouns, like the inability to affix adjectives. In many languages (not just English), they inflect quite differently from nouns for gender, case, number, etc. There are probably other significant differences I can't think of just now. If there were no grammatical differences, pronouns would not be considered an individual part-of-speech. Paul Davidson (talk) 14:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

They only inflect differently in inflectional languages, and only now because of sound change. If you'd studied Indo-European you'd see that they were basically the same as nouns, in every way, shape, and form. Also, adjectives can be fixed to pronouns, as argumentative me is proving with this sentence here :). As you say, Korean can do without its pronouns, just as in Japanese, but the same can be said for modern spoken English, such as 'like it?' (for 'did you like it?) where the context is obvious. Same goes for Chinese, and many other languages without verb endings to show person.--ChokinBako (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Your "argumentative me is proving" is bad grammar. You might as well use an example of verbing to prove all nouns are verbs. Additionally, "like it" is not a pronoun-less construction (obviously), because English grammar requires pronouns to indicate whether verbs are transitive or not (unlike Japanese). Paul Davidson (talk) 04:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

"Argumentative me" is not bad grammar in my version of English. I have heard it, read it, said it and no one corrected me. You have the bad habit of prescriptivism, let us speak as we like, as long as we make ourselves understood, what is it to you? And pronouns do not require antecedents: I can start a book with the sentence "I was born on ...". Where is the antecedent? This is the first word of the book! I mean of course: is the antecedent different from the one of the starting sentnce "Mr Jonson was born on ..."? --Lgriot (talk) 21:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't saying that Japanese doesn't have person, just that there's nothing special about person. Japanese speakers understand the speaker/listener/other distinction and can talk about it in Japanese, but in that respect it's no different from the black/white distinction or the boson/fermion distinction. I've had people wonder aloud to me how Japanese can function without a grammatical plural. How do they distinguish one and not-one? Well, they do it with words. Putting the distinction in the grammar doesn't mean you can express it, it means you have to express it even when you'd rather not. A linguist studying the Japanese language in isolation would never come up with the concepts of personal pronouns or grammatical person. I don't see how they could. The whole thing bothers me because it seems like linguists are doing to Japanese now what they did to English in the past—trying to apply concepts from Latin that clearly don't fit. They ought to look at what grammatical structures are present in language X and then try to relate them to analogous structures in previously-studied languages, not start with a grammar tuned to previously-studied languages and fit language X to that. -- BenRG (talk) 12:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the gender distinction I mentioned was only an example. I could have continued, but my post was getting long. As for the Balante language information, I will look into that. Thank you. --ChokinBako (talk) 12:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason "I" is capitalized in English is simply to make it clearer that it's a separate, one-letter word. Note that the word "O" is also capitalized, although "a" isn't. See under I (pronoun) for a bit more of the history. --Anonymous, 07:56 UTC, May 9, 2008.

'O' is a word? You mean when used in the vocative sense of 'O, Caesar'? In this case it is always at the beginning of a sentence and will thus always be capitalized.--ChokinBako (talk) 12:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Is it not possible, O wise contributor, to insert the interjection within the sentence? Wiktionary does suggest "always capitalized". I also found "Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not." (Jeremiah 5:21) ---Sluzzelin talk 15:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

O Jeremiah, you do befuzzle me. Yes, it's true, it is capitalized, but that just makes my argument that 'prime status' is not relevant stronger. --ChokinBako (talk) 16:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for those replies so far, everyone. I guess what occurred to me is that, although linguistics is now a unified discipline in which all the jargon words have meanings that are accepted world-wide, that may not always have been the case. For example, if Portuguese linguists set out to codify their grammar back in the middle ages, what would have prevented them from choosing a pronoun other than "I/we" to call "first person"? Surely there would have been some differences in the ways that linguists from different countries independently sought to describe the workings and structures of their languages. And if so, how were such differences addressed and how was uniformity achieved? -- JackofOz (talk) 11:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Jack, I'm not certain of this, but I think that many of these linguistic terms and conventions have been inherited from classical grammar. Many of these terms (including probably 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person) have been part of Latin and Ancient Greek pedagogy for centuries, possibly since ancient times. European grammarians (including those in medieval Portugal) typically analyzed vernacular languages using the categories and terminology that all educated Europeans had picked up from their study of Latin. So it is unlikely that grammarians in Portugal or any other part of Europe ever used a different set of terms and conventions. (On the other hand, I think that languages such as Arabic and Sanskrit have indigenous grammatical traditions whose terms and categories do not always conform to the Latin or Greek model. Linguists have had to invent new terms, often ironically from Greek or Latin roots, to describe these and other languages.) Marco polo (talk) 14:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Aye! It must have been great fun inventing names for all the cases in Finnish grammar, for example! 62.30.217.57 (talk) 16:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I was actually going to say that but you beat me to it. Actually, Sanskrit does have a totally different way of dealing with it, and from my memory of studying it many many years ago, it did have a system where 3rd person came first, then 2nd person, then 1st. Maybe I am mixing this up, but I seem to remember it as so.--ChokinBako (talk) 16:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like your memory serves you well! I found a reference to Pāṇini accounting for "the distribution of triplets of verb endings called prathama (first), madhyama (second), and uttama, corresponding to what western grammars call third, second, and first person endings." (History of the Language Sciences, Walter de Gruyter 2000, ISBN 3110111039). ---Sluzzelin talk 16:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. So now, I think we are getting close to the answer for Jack's question.--ChokinBako (talk) 19:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, you've arrived. The Arabic/Sanskrit vs. Greek/Latin origins explains it perfectly. Thank you. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It does make sense to put third person first, as that's the least marked form; in many inflected languages (English is anomalous) the third person singular has no audible ending. —Tamfang (talk) 19:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Names for the Grand Canyon.

I'm looking for the name of the Grand Canyon in the various languages of the Native American tribes that live in the area (both ancient and modern). Specifically, I'm looking for the Havasupai name (I think it's called the Pai language), but if that can't be found, others will do.

If anybody knows or can help me find this information, I'd greatly appreciate it. --69.207.118.198 (talk) 04:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything specific, but some of the books mentioned in this article may have what you want. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Indigenous languages of the Americas#United States, Canada and Greenland may give you a starting point for further searches. Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America has a talk page where you might find people who could help. What I know fits in a very small thimble, but in many cases there may not be a "name" because things often are described, rather than named. (sort of like "very deep valley" or "going down with running water". There is a dictionary for Zuni, but I don't think that includes place names. Hope this helps. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 13:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not unique to indigenous languages -- consider the French TGV, their high-speed train. I assumed for many years that the French Academy, their national language purists, would have pondered the matter at length, and come up with some "uniquely French" name for their train. Imagine my serious disappointment to learn that TGV means nothing more than "train of great speed". (Surely, they could have done better that?)

And, I apologize for taking this thread off its original track. -- Danh, 63.231.163.147 (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

If it comes to that, the English name "Grand Canyon" is just a description too. Anyway, my Navajo textbook gives two names: Tsékooh Hatsoh and Bidáá’ Ha’azt’i’. I don't know what either of those names literally means, but tsékooh does mean "canyon". And our own article says it's called Ongtupqa in Hopi. Don't know about Havasupai, though. —Angr 09:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

differences

Please describe the differences in the words founder and flounder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.202.83.90 (talk) 05:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you looking for something specific? Letter-wise, the only difference is the "L". The words have different meanings, and likely different root words. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

For differences in meaning and etymology, please have a look at wikitionary: wikt:founder and wikt:flounder (I guess you are interested in the verbs, not the nouns, so scroll down to see that). Especially the usage note section on flounder might help you. --Lgriot (talk) 07:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Poem: To bed, to bed said Leatherhead .. (I don't know any more)

Folks,

When my brother and I were growing up my Dad would often repeat several different poems, but only partially. Now that we're older and Dad is no longer with us we are wondering just how the rest of the poem went and what it's title actually is. I've found one or two other ones but this one eludes me. I did an internet search and it sent me to Wikipedia and the English town of Leatherhead.

Thanks for any help and/or direction you can give. Jack R. Jones Pennsylvania, USA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.30.237 (talk) 10:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

To bed, to bed,

Says Sleepy-head.

Tarry a while, says Slow.

Put on the pan,

Says greedy Nan,

We'll sup before we go.

I think your dad may have gotten a couple of words wrong. "To bed, to bed" is a nursery rhyme. I found the lyrics here. Neıl ☎ 12:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I remember the same one. The web shows many variations, e.g "let's wait a while", and "put on the pot says greedy spot" (or even "greedy gut"). I think it is anonymous/traditional. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Neil's version is the one that I remember though. (Southern UK). SaundersW (talk) 18:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Finding a girl

I am 19 and still now I haven't being with a girl in an intimate relationship. The girls I know seems to be fascinated about funny guys, guys with cars, or good in sport. How can I make a girl like me? GoingOnTracks (talk) 11:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably not here in the Language RF. I'm moving your question to the Miscelaneous.11:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.168.1.109 (talk)

Interpreting the ambiguous question "How can I make a girl like me?" would seem to belong to the language desk or even to the science desk. Maybe cloning is one option. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that joke took me way too long to figure out, but then I LOL'd. 69.243.226.157 (talk) 21:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant one Cookatoo! It is for such pearls that I check this page every day. --Lgriot (talk) 21:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a classic piece of graffiti: "My mother made ma a homosexual" Underneath it in another hand "If I sent her the wool, would she make me one too?". SaundersW (talk) 12:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Freudian slip alert, SaundersW. ("My mother made ma a homosexual")  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 13:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

hihihi My ma is somewhere to the right of Atilla, though she tries hard... the slip's more an anticipation of the "a", I fear. SaundersW (talk) 18:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest that you take care of yourself in the areas of hygiene and physical fitness, and then find something that interests you (birding, humanitarian aid, recreational drug use, whatever) and get good at it? Reading helps, too, for certain types of women. If you're not off-putting in some way and are interested in something, you have a high chance of pairing up with someone before long. --Sean 13:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

And don't beat yourself up over it. 19 isn't particularly late. —Tamfang (talk) 19:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)