Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 July 23

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July 23

Predictive model for language differentiation?

I know we have (rather sparse) articles on language change and drift (linguistics). My question is: if a group from a preliterate civilization of speakers of "Langauge A" migrated (say, across a rugged mountain range or over a sea) and both groups then remained isolated from contact with both each other and any other language, how long (how many generations) would it take for the languages of each group to evolve to the point of mutually unintelligibility? Are there any predictive models for this or other similar situations?--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 01:46, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Lexicostatistics models this, but the method is imprecise, and the rates vary from language to language and between systems within languages. μηδείς (talk) 15:56, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The article "Glottochronology" might also be of interest. Gabbe (talk) 06:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

S(h)bnai Israel?

he:שבטי ישראל is the Hebrew Wikipedia article corresponding to our Israelites article. I thought the phrase was "B'nai Israel", not "S(h)b'nai Israel"; what's going on? Is the ש an article/preposition/other grammatical feature, or is it literally part of the name? Nyttend (talk) 02:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I consulted a printed bidirectional dictionary of English and Hebrew, and the first word (the word on the right) is defined as "tribal". Its third (consonantal) letter is ט (teth).

—Wavelength (talk) 02:41, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, so I completely failed to notice that it was ט and not נ. The issue originally arose while I was preparing this image for upload; not really visible over the entrance is the phrase "בני ישראל", preceded by four letters: (ת or ח) and (ב or כ), followed by רה. What does the full three-word phrase mean? Nyttend (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

My dictionary defines חברה as "company, society, association", and wikt:חברה agrees. The three-word phrase
(חברה בני ישראל) means "association of sons of Israel".

—Wavelength (talk) 03:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary defines בני ישראל as "Jews" at wikt:בני ישראל. Therefore, "association of Jews" or "Jewish association" might be a better rendition of the three-word phrase, although my first translation is a more literal translation.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Back up to your first response, Wavelength: the adjective "tribal" is not the only meaning of this sequence of letters. It's the "construct form" (m.pl.), a contraction indicating the possessive when a noun precedes another noun (the former belong to the latter). In this case: Tribes [of] Israel (pronounced ShivTEY YisraEL; Sorry, not up to IPA this morning.) And yes, (Wavelength's response directly above), the word Israel here is the Jewish people. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:17, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

...and B'NEY YisraEL is the expression meaning "Children of Israel" -- same construct form, this time from בן = ben, "son", pl. baNEEM, construct m. pl. b'NEY (sometimes transcribed beney - the penultimate vowel is shortened with the construct suffix). Note that all Hebrew nouns are either M or F, and the m. pl. is inclusive of both. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:22, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

More information is at Modern Hebrew grammar#Noun construct (version of 14:37, 30 May 2013).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:12, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of "construct state", the combining form of חברה would be חברת... -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:38, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

The Hebrew article he:חברה בני ישראל appears to be a disambiguation page.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I just checked by following your link AND by keying it into the search field there - it's a nonexistent page in the Hebrew Wikipedia, not a DAB. The term, besides being ungrammatical as spelled, apparently doesn't refer to any known entity present or past. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:58, 28 July 2013 (UTC)