Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 September 25

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September 25

Mother-in-law suite synonym ?

I heard a word used for this I didn't recognize, like "casina". (A mother-in-law suite, for those who don't know, is a bedroom and bathroom, separated from the rest of the house, so as to create a minimum disturbance to the remainder of the household when you murder your mother-in-law there.) StuRat (talk) 00:06, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Commonly called a "granny flat". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:30, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

• Are you sure it wasn't the word "cocina" which is Spanish for "kitchen"? It is cognate with the French and English word "cuisine". --Jayron32 00:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
  • wikt:casina means a "little house" in Italian, so it wouldn't be quite a bad choice to name a small flat annexed to another dwelling. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
    • What looks like "little house" doesn't always mean that. In Welsh "ty bach" means toilet (little house is usually "ty bychan"). Martinevans123 (talk) 08:21, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

• Stu, it's casita. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

In one of Simon Raven's books (offhand can't recall which, but would have been in the Alms for Oblivion sequence) one of the characters (Daniel Mond, if memory serves) stays in a casino in the grounds of a Venetian pallazzo. It was a small lodge, much like what we would nowadays call a granny flat in Britain.

Here in the U.S. Northeast, it's usually called an "in-law apartment" or "in-law unit". I've never heard it called a "suite", but StuRat lives in the Midwest, and that could be a regional difference. Marco polo (talk) 13:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

"Suite" seems like the logical name for it, since it's just like the master suite, except for it's location and intended occupants. Or do you not call the master bedroom and attached master bathroom a suite either ? StuRat (talk) 04:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Seems we have a ready-built self-contained article. How sweet. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:07, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks all. Looks like it was either "casina", meaning "little house" or "casita", as Jack stated. Or maybe the real estate agent conflated the two similar terms and called it "casina" when he meant a "casita". StuRat (talk) 14:13, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

But I bet he or she made it sound wonderful... and really spacious! Martinevans123 (talk) 14:21, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Gaelic translation

Can someone please translate this little quote from Alexander Carmichael's notebook: "Clan ioc Aulai a Lochlan, Be siud toiseach ar seorsa".[1] Another transcription gives: Cean ioc Aulai a Lochlan, Be siud Toiseach ar seorsa.[2]--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 23:43, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the first part is supposed to be "Clann mhic Amhlaigh from Lochlann" and then something like "that one yonder was a kind of beginning", but I'm really uncertain of the second part. I know more about Irish than Scottish Gaelic anyway. Maybe one of our Gàidhlig-speaking editors like An Siarach, Akerbeltz, or MacRusgail can help. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:56, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

It's Carmichael's usual idiosyncratic spelling for Clann 'Ic Amhlaigh á Lochlann, b' e siud toiseach ar seòrsa and yes, Aɴɢʀ was close, it means "the Macaulays from Scandinavia, it was them who were the beginning of our kind" Akerbeltz (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Aɴɢʀ. Thanks Akerbeltz.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 23:06, 27 September 2014 (UTC)