Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 June 28

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June 28

Crossword clue?

"Possess, to Burns", 3 letters. The answer is apparently "HAE". What does this even mean? Dismas|^(talk) 01:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

In Scots (and thus in many poems by Robert Burns), hae means "have". As in English, it is used as an auxiliary verb (see Scots Wha Hae, for instance) and as a verb meaning "possess". Deor (talk) 01:18, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah! I see now, thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 03:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

... and, of course, hae just represents the phonetic spelling of the Scottish and northern English pronunciation of the standard English word have. It is not a separate word except to ardent Scots (who, strangely, do not have a separate army or navy). Dbfirs 07:45, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

You sure about that? The Scots Language article states "The UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages". 173.66.161.221 (talk) 10:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The UK government makes decisions for political reasons, not linguistic ones. --Tango (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I wrote my response knowing that however I worded it, someone would come along and take me to task either for considering Scots a dialect or for considering it a language. As I tend to think of it as a dialect myself, I thought it polite to acknowledge the alternative view. (And Scotland certainly has had an army and a navy.) Deor (talk) 11:08, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

And there is a Scottish army even now. Warofdreams talk 16:01, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh! In that case, I'd better be careful what I write about Scottish dialects of English! However, being highlanders, they would presumably defend the Scottish Gaelic language, not the northern English dialect of Lallans! Dbfirs 08:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

There's even a Scots Wikipedia. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:57, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

... and one that isn't a joke! Dbfirs 19:46, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

What makes the one I linked to a joke? If it were a joke, it would have been removed by the Foundation. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:47, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Not only is it not a joke, it's actually in Scots, unlike the one Dbfirs linked. Algebraist 19:21, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

AAVE - Southern American English

I saw a documentary about New Orleans recently, and they interviewed a white ship captain. As a white guy who has spoken AAVE himself (because everybody at school spoke it), it seemed to me that this guy was speaking AAVE as well. I understand from the AAVE article that it has a close relationship with Southern American English, so could this be the only explanation? Is the Southern English in Louisiana so close to AAVE? The pronunciation, the grammar, everything seemed distinctly AAVE (if I wouldn't have seen him, I would've guessed that he's African-American). Maybe someone from the South could shed some light on this. Rimush (talk) 10:08, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

For those who just casually read RD/L and aren't even amateur linguists, here's a link: African American Vernacular English I had no idea what AAVE is. Dismas|^(talk) 10:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

My bad, I figured everyone here is an expert :D Rimush (talk) 10:29, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

What is distinctive about AAVE is not the pronunciation but the grammar. The pronunciation of AAVE varies quite a bit regionally and can be identical with non-AAVE pronunciation in the same region. I live in Boston. Thirty years ago, when I heard AAVE, it was usually with an eastern Carolinian accent (since most African Americans in Boston migrated from that region in the 1950s and 60s and schools remained de facto segregated into the 70s). Now I hear AAVE spoken with the characteristic Boston accent. So the question is whether AAVE grammatical features are in widespread use among white New Orleans residents. Students in the public schools in New Orleans are predominantly black, so it wouldn't be surprising for a working-class white guy who went to public school in New Orleans to have picked up AAVE. Marco polo (talk) 12:49, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

There are some parallels to white Americans speaking AAVE. In the UK you can occasionally meet white people from the Caribbean who speak Caribbean English (that article needs improving). A separate phenomenon, but also perhaps of interest, is Multicultural London English. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I would probably speak Caribbean English too, if I would have lived in the Caribbean. I immediately pick up the local coloring of the language: I speak AAVE (because everybody at my high school spoke it), New York Dialect (because I lived in NYC - and which kinda took over from AAVE after I left the US, interestingly), German with an Austrian accent (because I live in Vienna), and Spanish with a Caribbean pronunciation (because my friends in NYC were mostly Dominican) - Caribbean Spanish made me feel like I was hearing my mother tongue when watching TV Canaria (in Canarian Spanish). Rimush (talk) 09:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know whether in New York you get a merging of AAVE and New York dialect that parallels the London situation (Jamaican English, Cockney and South Asian accents that has coalesced into MLE? In other words is there a new kind of New York English that young people who have grown up in a multicultural environment speak? Itsmejudith (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you do get a kind of a merging. I went to a predominantly-AAVE speaking high school (Hispanic students spoke AAVE as well) in NYC, without having lived in an English-speaking country before (I spoke some English, but I guess I had a sort of neutral accent). I quickly picked up AAVE, but when I look at the New York dialect article on Wikipedia, I realize that I have typical NY pronunciation (but I can consciously pronounce words the "AAVE way" as well, for example "aks" instead of "ask"). I also use some NY dialect syntax (for example "She asked why don’t you want any instead of the standard She asked why you don’t want any"), and the grammar is (if speaking freely to peers) heavily AAVE-influenced (if speaking in a formal situation, then I use standard AmE grammar). As for the vocabulary, I was influenced more by TV shows than by either AAVE or New York dialect :P (though I did pick up some few words from both). Rimush (talk) 18:05, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thoribism

What does thoribism mean? Is it a real word? What's its etymology?--151.51.25.173 (talk) 11:09, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it returns 0 hits when queried in Google. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably a spelling mistake for something else. Some context might help; where have you seen it?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there is someone famous with the surname 'Thorib', and they have an -ism named after them? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Google does yield nine results for "Thorybism", apparently a term coined by parapsychogist René Sudre to describe "Poltergeist disturbances". I also found "telethoryby" for "a racket produced at a distance" [1]. The terms seem to be derived from thorybos (or something similar), Greek for "noise". ---Sluzzelin talk 12:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

No idea on the etymology, but this site defines it as: " Psychophonics carried to paroxystical extremes. These are generally attributed to such "noisy" spirits that the sounds they produce are virtually unbearable." BTW, "psychophonics" apparently means " An audible and recordable manifestation of voices and other sounds of a mysterious origin, generally attributed to disembodied entities." Paroxystical, another uncommon word, means uncontrolled crying by an otherwise healthy child less than three months old (see [2]). Zoonoses (talk) 22:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Working as a French-Spanish translator?

Where can I find a job position as a French-to-Spanish online translator? --Belchman (talk) 21:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I trust by "online translator" you don't mean you're looking for work in machine translation, since as far as I know humans don't get to do that. I'd say the best place to find work translating from French into Spanish would be either a French-speaking country or a Spanish-speaking country, although of course customers in other countries will also need people to translate in that direction from time to time. Your chances of finding such a job are much better if you're a native Spanish speaker, though some translation companies don't insist on translators being native speakers of the target language, if they have native-speaking copy editors on staff. +Angr 21:34, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I meant something like "freelance translator that works through the Internet". --Belchman (talk) 23:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Check out this guy's Youtube account (http://www.youtube.com/user/irishpolyglot) and especially his blog (http://www.fluentin3months.com/). He is a profesional translator and does most of his work online. In particular, read thru his blog and you should find somewhere -- perhaps a posting from several months ago -- his description of becoming an online translator --达伟 (talk) 23:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Question on a Japanese word -- 涯

Does the Japanese word 涯 mean "end", "fight", both, or other ? Various online translation systems seem to disagree. 66.102.199.100 (talk) 22:17, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, in Chinese it means "shore, border, cliff, river bank"....that might be at least partial evidence to deduce the Japanese meaning...--达伟 (talk) 23:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

In Japanese, it means shore or horizon. It's mainly used in some poetic compound words, as far as I can tell. By the way "online translation systems" are rubbish. Just look up the kanji in a kanji dictionary if you want to know what it means. Paul Davidson (talk) 00:35, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. To err is human, to really foul things up requires an online translation system. :) 66.102.199.100 (talk) 01:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)