Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 November 19

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November 19

Polyglots

The article Polyglotism says

Individuals calling themselves "polyglot" generally speak, read, or otherwise use five or more languages, in some cases several dozen.

The article seems pretty uncritical to me, and the references in it seem kind of weak. Are there really people who have even a basic ability in a dozen, or dozens of, languages? Or is it just hype? Loraof (talk) 04:12, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

It's more of a matter how we define "to know a language" (CEFRL is a good start to evaluate). So it is possible that there may be people with the level A1 or A0+, who can know some hundred words and use and understand basic expressions in dozens of languages. It is not an impossible feat especially if a person has good memory. But hardly there are many people who know many foreign languages on the level of Nabokov. Though I never understood what is the use of knowing scores of languages but very badly, as I always favoured knowing only a couple of languages but well. Mostly because to learn a language you should spend many hours on it, but it is more reasonable to spend 1000 hours on one language and know it well, than to spend 100 or 50 hours on each of ten or twenty languages and know each of them badly. Moreover to spend hours on learning is not enough, you should constantly practise otherwise you'll forget the learnt language easily; so I can easily imagine how one may practise one, two or three languages, but I hardly have an idea how one is going to practise dozens of languages everyday. Also note that many people like to boast and tend to overestimate their or other's achievements (the latter is due to simple politeness, not many will say to one's face "your language skills are awful, your accent is terrible and you constantly make dozens of mistakes" - unless it is your examiner).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 06:48, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I made this edit to address what I think are valid concerns expressed here. Bus stop (talk) 14:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Normally, many people claiming to be polyglot are more than suspect to me.

• Someone claiming in YouTube to be a polyglot. Proof is a video of him speaking some sentences in said languages.
• Someone claiming to be polyglot, and is trying to sell a language teaching method, that will teach you a language really fast.

However, it would be difficult to call these people liar. The point is that it's not very well defined what means to speak a language. And the prefix "poly" is as well defined as the words "much/many" or "a lot". They are actually letting people believe that they know an amazing number of language. Indeed, their knowledge of the n language is quite basic or even not existing anymore. Llaanngg (talk) 14:46, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Bizarre Bazaar

We have an article at bazaar. Where I live (SW Ontario) it seems to be used mostly in religious or quasi-religious contexts (church bazaars, Christmas bazaars, etc.) Anyway, what I'm curious about is how this word became adopted into English. I don't have anything against it, but we already have several terms that could be used in its place (market, rummage sale, yard sale, etc.) - and indeed the article suggests that market would be the NA/UK equivalent. Why would "we" adopt a word from Arabic/Persian, particularly one with a spelling that looks unusual in English and already sounds very similar to an existing word ('bizarre') when we had native options? Matt Deres (talk) 15:51, 19 November 2016 (UTC) I hope you can help; not knowing the answer would really stick in my craw.

According to this it entered English in the 1580s from the Italian "bazarra", and ultimately has its origins in the Pahlavi (Middle Persian, or Parthian) language. It is a false cousin of the word "bizarre", which as noted here entered English a half century later (the 1640s) through the French from a 13th century Italian word "bizza" meaning "fits of anger". --Jayron32 16:36, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I think the word bazaar primarily implies impermanence in distinction from a "market" that exists year-round, at least in my limited experience in the eastern USA. Bus stop (talk) 16:51, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, but there are plenty of synonyms that also imply that - rummage sale, for example. Though for that matter, I suppose I'd be more inclined to see those as only dealing with used goods, while a bazaar might include food or new-made crafts or clothes. TBH, I wasn't expecting Jayron to provide a ref that the word had been in English that long - I guess I assumed it was Victorian era at the earliest. What still strikes me as odd is the connection. Like, was there some dude throwing a sale back in the 1500s who decided "market" was a little too normal - and a Persian passing through provided a hipper name for it? There are tons of Arabic and Persian words in English but they're mostly loaners that came over with the thing they describe (algebra, alcohol, etc.). Matt Deres (talk) 01:54, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

In UK usage the idea is more about the range of things on offer, rather than the impermanence of the set-up. We have long lasting chains of shops which use the word, simply because they sell a wide range of items. See Hawkin's Bazaar Wymspen (talk) 19:17, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

And then there's Harper's Bazaar magazine, which strikes me as a bizarre name. Loraof (talk) 22:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Also in the UK, a fund-raising event for a church, school or community group with various stalls indoors (bearing a plausible resemblance to a bazaar in the Middle East) is a bazaar, while a similar event held outdoors in the summer is a fête, bearing no similarity at all to a French festival. Alansplodge (talk) 15:07, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

See Harpers Bizarre. Some of these events are called "a fête worse than death". 90.196.176.27 (talk) 16:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

WP:WHAAOE: see A Fête Worse Than Death. Alansplodge (talk) 20:16, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

That's a latecomer. The pun has been around since at least as far back as the 1970s; former Australian politician Bill Hayden was famous for using it whenever he was required to open a fête. But I suspect it was used by punning sub-editors long before then. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:01, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I can beat that; it was the title of an episode of the BBC sitcom Hugh and I which was shown on 14 August 1962. But I expect somebody thought of it on the day that the first ever village fête opened its gates to the public. Alansplodge (talk) 23:05, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

"Harper's Bazaar magazine, which strikes me as a bizarre name." -- both "Bazaar" and "magazine" meant "place where various things are stored" before they meant "periodical covering a variety of topics". jnestorius^(talk) 13:06, 21 November 2016 (UTC)