Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 May 8

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May 8

Polyglot?

On the internet (mainly on YouTube and Quora), I've seen some people brag about their ability to use many languages. The funny thing is that most (if not all) of those langs are Latin-based: English, French, Spanish, etc... I mean, is it really impressive? They are similar and can be seen as dialects! I'm Algerian and I might claim to know: Standard and Classical Arabic, Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan, Egyptian, Palestinian, Gulf's, and basically all Arabic variations, in addition to (my poor) English and French. Am I wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.110.188.195 (talk) 09:29, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

You're right, really. The distance between "languages" can be smaller than the distance between "dialects". This is often discussed in regard to Chinese. By the way, English is a Germanic language, not a Latin one, but it has so much borrowing from French and Latin that vocabulary learning becomes quite easy. I found French much easier to learn than German. But knowing both English and a bit of German learning Dutch or the Scandinavian languages is relatively easy. Another thing to watch out for is whether people claiming to be polyglot can speak and listen as well as read and write. Since I speak some Spanish and have worked through Portuguese on Duolingo, I can read Portuguese without much difficulty, but I wouldn't be able to follow a radio broadcast. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:26, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

The concept is (somewhat jocularly) known by the phrase "a language is a dialect with an army and navy" Which is to say that factors entirely unrelated to linguistics are often used to identify distinctions between varieties of speech; as noted there are varieties of some languages (such as Chinese languages and Arabic), which in common terms are treated as a single language, whereby other more closely related varieties of speech (such as, for example, the North Germanic languages of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian) are treated as distinct languages. --Jayron32 10:33, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Let alone the 'languages' of former Yugoslavia... --KnightMove (talk) 10:46, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

KnightMove, see Serbo-Croatian; aside from the alphabets used, it's basically all the same. Write a Serbo-Croatian text in IPA, and unless the text itself gives hints (i.e. it's something you could learn from a translation), the reader won't know whether the author's a Bosniak, a Croat, a Montenegrin, or a Serb. Nyttend (talk) 00:32, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this was exactly my point. --KnightMove (talk) 04:52, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Hindi and Urdu are another case of a single language split by writing system (and politics/religion). Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:41, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

In everyday use, the distinction relates to mutual comprehensibility. While I (an Englishman) might not understand every word spoken by someone speaking broad Scots, or even broad American, I should be able to understand roughly what is being said. However, having never studied Spanish or Italian I would not be able to understand, even though I might recognise some words because of shared etymologies with English or French (which I have learned). I would call myself polyglot, not because I can understand the Scots and the Americans, but because I have learned several languages which I could not have understood without making the effort to study them. Wymspen (talk) 11:54, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but the Scots language is treated (at least at Wikipedia) as a distinct language, while American English is treated as a dialect of English. So.... --Jayron32 12:02, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I think Wymspen may have been referring to Scots English rather than Scots language. Loraof (talk) 14:58, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Right, and if you or he had read the article, it mentions that Scots, Scots English, and other related varieties of speech, are on a dialect continuum. Which was the point I was making; the word (language, dialect, etc.) used to categorize these things is less interesting than understanding their nature and relationships. --Jayron32 15:13, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Jayron, I've read the article. Again, please be nice. Loraof (talk) 15:58, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

• The issue is mutual comprehension, and this is not always symmetrical. Portuguese have no problem reading or understanding spoken Spanish, while they may not be able to speak it. I can read and understand basic Italian as a French and Spanish speaker, and can produce some terms. But while I can read it at a very high level, I can't understand spoken Portuguese at all. I can read Dutch with ease, knowing German and being a native English speaker. I could never understand or produce it in spoken form.

One should count the number of languages one knows only if one finds they are mutually unintelligible in all aspects. Yugoslavia basically had three major languages, Slovene, Serbo-Croatian (with a huge amount of dialect variation) and Macedonian, which is basically a dialect of Bulgarian, no offense. I managed to speak clearly enough in Rusyn (an East Slavic language) with a Croatian speaker (South Slavic language) to conduct a basic business transaction. Thank God he understood when I told him I was Rusyn, and did not understand Croatian, since once he thought I knew his language he started a long monologue I found inscrutable. I would not claim to speak any Slavic language fluently, although I and my now deceased relatives did use Rusyn as a cant and from affection.

See also Standard Average European. μηδείς (talk) 02:31, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Previous discussion. In short, two things must be noticed: 1) There is no consensus of what is "to know a language". Some think it's enough for them to know 100 words and basic phrases to brag about being polyglots, others may be more modest and self-critical and may say they know "not enough" even after many years of studying and a pretty advanced level. 2) There is no consensus for the definitions of "language" and "dialect". Though, this has been discussed thousands of times before, so there is no point to repeat banalities.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:48, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Pan (Genus), origin of the word

The question above on the Arabic word for chimps made me wonder: where the genus word "Pan" come from? Wiktionary does not list this meaning of the word, just the cooking pans and other similar-shaped objects and the figurative uses.

Was it just made up by a European naturalist out of nowhere, or is there a Latin root that it comes from? --Lgriot (talk) 13:36, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

The genus name is from Πάν, the Greek god of nature and wilderness. —Stephen (talk) 14:24, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Amazing, Steve, thanks a lot. Anyone knows who named it so? (The genus I mean, not the god) --Lgriot (talk) 14:27, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Pan was first used as the genus name in 1816, in the book Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte by Lorenz Oken. —Stephen (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

But the synonyms listed in the Common chimpanzee infobox include Pan niger in 1812 by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, which is odd if he coined Troglodytes niger the same year. jnestorius^(talk) 16:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Note that Wiktionary entries are case sensitive. The word you were looking for is at Pan. DTLHS (talk) 00:45, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

This is great work, thank you all --Lgriot (talk) 13:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

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