Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 April 16

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April 16

elektricität vs elektrizität

It looks like in the 1930s it was usual to write in Germany the word elektricität for electricity. But nowadays it is written Elektrizität. I am interested when and why it was changed. Famous for the word "elektricität" is the company AEG, the E stands for "elektricität" until today... the official page duden.de doesn't even know that --Saegen zeugen des sofas jehovas (talk) 01:08, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

What is a sofa of Jehovah? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

And what is US94111A1060 ? I asked something else. --Saegen zeugen des sofas jehovas (talk) 02:37, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Something to do with Watchtower, apparently. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:21, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Google-Ngram shows that the modern spelling has dominated since around 1880, with the old spelling going extinct shortly after 1900. This suggests a connection with the spelling reform of 1901. Companies kept the traditional spelling of their names. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:05, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it is useful to mention the reason: actual German pronunciation of written "ci" and "ce" has always been "tzi" resp "tze", in turn written "zi" resp "ze". The spelling reform at the beginning of the 1900s probably decided that everybody should write what everybody was already saying all the time. It is funny that one of the several spelling reforms coming after 1996 stated that many such Roman "z" should be written again as "c", like "azeton" > "aceton" (ah tzeh ton), "zembalo" > "cembalo", "zentrum" > "centrum" 194.174.76.21 (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

The article on German orthography reform of 1996 doesn't mention any actual changes to the spelling of c vs. z. --194.213.3.4 (talk) 14:19, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

This is not surprising, as I was explicitly talking of one of the reforms coming after the one of 1996. Sorry, I cannot give you a more precise reference, but after the reform of 1996 there have been several reforms of the reform, for example in 2004, 2006 and 2011. 194.174.76.21 (talk) 16:35, 16 April 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

PS I don't find references to the reform any more but on the contrary someone stating that the c-spelling was still alive in the 1970es and had a resurgence after 2000, with many people beginning again to write centrum, citrone and cigarettes possibly as a form of snobism independently from the reform (or as a reaction to it).

I'm sorry, I have never heard of this (native German) and I will not believe it without reference. Your example "zembalo" is rather funny — cembalo is pronounced the Italian way and was never spelt with a z... --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:09, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

"Macceronchini" belongs as well to the Italian way, but you are right, with no sources I must withdraw my statement. Which herewith takes place 194.174.76.21 (talk) 16:31, 17 April 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

In the German WP article on the spelling reform of 1901, it says that "foreign" words were to be integrated into the German spelling system. But instead of this leading to a global substitution of k or z for c, both spellings continued to be used. Herbivore (talk) 03:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Hebrew: Is there a WP standard?

Is there a WP standard for the pronunciation of Hebrew? For example Jesus#Etymology gives the pronunciation "moschiach" for משיח. Basemetal 14:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Help:IPA/Hebrew says: "Since Modern Hebrew has both non-Oriental and Oriental pronunciations in Israel, certain letters may be transcribed differently depending on the background of the speaker." --194.213.3.4 (talk) 15:03, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Are you certain by "background of the speaker" they mean "background of the WP editor"? Basemetal 15:16, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to have two general transcriptions of Hebrew, for "Tiberian" and modern Israeli, and other types of transcriptions may be appropriate in certain specific cases. However, "moshiach" is inappropriate to the Jesus article, since it's not based on any systematic transcription conventions, and it's also completely anachronistic -- the "ch" spelling is a rather ambiguous way of indicating IPA [x] (a velar fricative), but this word did not start to be pronounced with [x] until many centuries after Jesus' time (and is still not uniformly [x] in all Jewish pronunciation traditions today).

Much more appropriate would be māšīaḥ (Semitological) or [maːʃiːaħ] (IPA). Of course, the pronunciation during Jesus' own lifetime would have been more likely mašīḥ / [maʃiːħ] (but that's another issue)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:03, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

That would be the best option from a purely logical and scholarly point of view. But this is Wikipedia. Incidentally I've also found WP:HEBREW. That article (Jesus) also makes the debatable statement that Χριστός is a translation of Hebrew משיח. It is at least as likely that it is a translation of Aramaic משיחא‎. (Of course if Χριστός is used in the Septuagint, long before Jesus, and Χριστός was already a Greek word by the time of Jesus, then the case would be different, but the article doesn't even mention the Septuagint). In any case the Greek borrowing is Μεσσίας, clearly derived from the Aramaic not the Hebrew word. Btw, is it known when the patah gnuva appeared in Hebrew? I've got like an eerie sense of déjà vu here. Have I already asked this question here? Basemetal 18:22, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

You were just asking about the patah gnuva last month :) Adam Bishop (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

LOL. Yes, but no. I was asking about the patah gnuva but not this very same question Basemetal 00:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Basemetal -- Whatever the logic or illogic of Wikipedia conventions, I really can't see how a Yiddish-based transcription that could have been included in a Leo Rosten book is suitable for our Jesus article. It's been a while since I looked at early Greek transcriptions of Hebrew, but I'm pretty sure there's no evidence for pataḥ gnuva there (e.g. ישוע = Ιησους), though there is some general deflection of vowel qualities next to a guttural consonant in various contexts. The word משיח occurs in the Hebrew Bible (though not in its later apocalyptic meaning) and is translated Χριστος in the Septuagint of Isaiah 45:1, as far as I can see from searching on-line.[1] Greek Μεσσίας would only have appeared after the Hebrew word acquired its post-Biblical meaning... AnonMoos (talk) 07:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I didn't mean that representing the pronunciation of משיח as "Moschiach" was suitable at the Jesus article. Of course it isn't. It's almost a caricature. What I meant is this: getting into an argument at that article (looking through various versions I noticed the pronunciation was changed at least twice) and settling it requires (on Wikipedia) something else than arguing from logic and common sense. If you want to try, and have nothing better to do, be my guest, but I'd have thought you've been here long enough to know how those things work here. Basemetal 10:22, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:HEBREW explicitly disclaims its applicability to transcriptions and pronunciations, in its very first paragraph. As far as the Jesus article is concerned, I'd go for IPA [maːʃiːaħ], citing MOS:PRON: "Pronunciation in Wikipedia should be transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), except in the particular cases noted below." --194.213.3.4 (talk) 14:21, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Jesus is the kind of top-level article that I normally strictly avoid editing. If the issue was raised at Talk:Jesus, I might comment there... AnonMoos (talk) 16:59, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm looking for a language, other than English, that has a word which means both the opposite of soft and the opposite of easy.

(English has "hard"). HOTmag (talk) 20:10, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Not hard: French dur, Hebrew קשה, Portuguese (not Spanish though, apparently) duro. Basemetal 20:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Afrikaans hard. Die lewe is hard. (Life is hard (not easy)). Die klip is hard. (The stone is hard (not soft)). Hy praat hard. (He speaks loudly.) 196.213.35.147 (talk) 06:27, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems Dutch hard can also have both meanings (the following example is given: een harde strijd (= a difficult fight)) and also (as in Afrikaans) the meaning of loud. I don't know if in Dutch the meanings of moeilijk, lastig, hard (in the meaning of difficult) are all equivalent. Can you say (in Dutch) een hard woord (a difficult word, hard to pronounce, use, or understand) or een hard examen (a difficult examination)? Btw, English has a second word like that: tough. Basemetal 10:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

No, in standard Dutch, people don't say een hard examen or een hard woord, they use the word moeilijk (or lastig) instead. Hard in the sense of 'difficult' is really rather archaic. In fact, I think the Wiktionary example of een een harde strijd would more likely be understood as referring to a heavy or intense fight/battle, rather than a difficult one (though the two often coincide of course). I don't know about Afrikaans, but saying het leven is hard in Dutch doesn't exactly mean that 'life is difficult', but rather 'life is harsh/cruel'. - Lindert (talk) 11:51, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

In German, hart works. "Eine harte Prüfung" (a hard exam) would be minimally colloquial (as opposed to "eine schwierige Prüfung"/a difficult exam), but "ein hartes Schicksal" oder "ein hartes Leben" is completely mainstream. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I loved the way you used the German word "oder" in an English sentence ("but...oder... is..."), as if you were talking to German speakers. This is what happens when a person is talking in one language about another language which makes them think in that language without them noticing that... HOTmag (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Brains are frail things ;-). If I'm not careful, I now spell some words phonetically that I used to spell correctly - I take that to be a good sign for my ability to think in English as if it were my native language. Of course, it also could be beginning dementia... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, branes are frale things. Basemetal 18:33, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Stephan's native language being German, it's actually the equivalent of moving to the right after turning a corner while driving in England. 92.19.169.232 (talk) 18:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Persian has "hamvār", which means both soft and easy. And its opposite, "nā-hamvār", means both hard and difficult.You can listen to its pronunciation here. Omidinist (talk) 04:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Not exaclty an answer to your question, but you may find it interesting that in some Slavic languages (including Belorusian, Croatian, Polish, Russian, Slovak and Sorbian) it is the word for 'heavy' (rather than 'hard') that has the secondary meaning of 'difficult'. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:02, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Not exactly the same property you've indicated , but you may find it interesting that Hebrew has an analogous property, for the opposite of 'heavy' and for the opposite of 'difficult': Both of them are expressed by the same word ( /qal/ spelled קל). Actually, the situation in Hebrew is even more weird and more complex: The opposite of 'heavy' is expressed by a word expressing also 'easy', while the opposite of 'easy' is expressed by a word expressing also the opposite of 'soft' (as indicated by User:Basemetal). 185.46.78.4 (talk) 15:34, 18 April 2018 (UTC)