Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 March 21

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March 21

Katakana characters

Is it possible that some of the Katakana characters are based on the Brahmi Script?As I have learned that the Katakana table is based on the Siddham Table.Shashanklmb (talk) 11:08, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Man'yōgana has a table showing the derivation of katakana from Chinese characters. It seeems unlikely that the characters derive from Brahmi script in any direct way. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Shashanklmb -- there seems to be a reasonably attested path between starting by writing Chinese and reading Japanese, and then using Chinese characters to specifically write Japanese, and so using them in ways that diverged more and more from how the Chinese of the time used them, until a certain number of them were commonly used to write Japanese syllables, and so became candidates for visual simplification. Alphabets were fairly esoteric knowledge in pre-modern Japan; if they had been the origin of the syllabaries, one would expect the syllabaries to be more like the Woshite of Jindai moji (apparently an 18th century forgery of alleged ancient incriptions)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:23, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Very short answer: what PalaceGuard008 and AnonMoos said.

Short answer: No. It is as so unlikely that katakana is based on Brahmi Script just as it is so unlikely that "arigato" and "obrigado" are in any way related.

--Shirt58 (talk) 11:40, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

One subject two verbs

Are sentences like "I work in <field> and am <profession>." always right? That is, two coordinated clauses with the same subject, dropping the subject of the second. Or do I have to introduce in some cases a second "I" for the second clause? --Llaanngg (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

What matters is that the meaning is clear. You do not have to repeat the subject - though if your <field> involves a fairly long phrase rather than a single word, you might find that you need to repeat the subject pronoun to make your meaning clear. Wymspen (talk) 13:35, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It's very usual in English; though such sentences may not translate well to ergative-absolutive languages. —Tamfang (talk) 07:39, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Turkish

I know a Turkish guy, whose surname is "balkir" or "balkır". I wonder if it's "balkir" or "balkır", and what it means. Btw, according to Google translate, bal is honey, kir is soil, and kır is a cease or dirt (or soil?) HOTmag (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It's Balkır, and according to this [1] online dictionary it means something like 'shining', 'glittering'. That would make it a nominal derviation of the verb balkmak. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It gives Şimşek, and Parıltılı. I think Şimşek is a noun, that means lightning, doesn't it? HOTmag (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2017 (UTC)