Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 December 2

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December 2

Use of "alter" intransitively

"The musical scene in France had altered considerably during Gounod's absence." Is this usage considered correct in any variation of English? A modification to "changed" was reverted as "unexplained". Jmar67 (talk) 11:11, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

That use of altered is perfectly acceptable per this. Altered without an object is a synonym of "changed". --Jayron32 13:08, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Origin of lunate sigma

I always thought that the lunate sigma was simply a simplified version of the more common sideways-M shaped sigma that was popular in medieval times. But Dbachmann disagrees; Dbachmann says that it comes from samekh; they got this result from a book published in 1842 that's in German. Do many people today think that this is right?? If so, then how did lunate sigma get its shape and alphabetization?? (If it were simply a variant of samekh, it would more likely be place either right after xi (the original variant of samekh the Greek alphabet had) or at the end of the alphabet (which is where new letters are usually added.) Georgia guy (talk) 12:17, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Some of the early Greek alphabets had an "M"-looking letter (usually referred to as "San") between Pi and Qoppa, but as far as I can tell, there was little or no overlap in time and space between early San and the later Hellenistic Lunate Sigma. I also really don't know why the shape of Samekh is invoked -- Samekh did NOT have any type of curved shape when the Phoenician alphabet was initially borrowed to form the Greek alphabet, and after that, the Northwest Semitic scripts did not have any ascertainable continuing influence on Greek. I'm looking at a chart of Northwest Semitic scripts starting from Phoenician down to before the dominance of Syriac, and the only one in which Samekh has any shape similarity at all to a Lunate Sigma is the Palmyrene alphabet, which certainly didn't exert any influence on Hellenistic Greek... AnonMoos (talk) 15:24, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

link to 1842 book Nesselmann, G. H. F. (1842). Die Algebra der Griechen: Versuch Einer Kritischen Geschichte der Algebra - Nach Den Quellen Bearbeitet. p. 75. -- 14:58, 2 December 2019 EricR

The text above is i think claiming origin from Hebrew?

With regard to the narrative, both Semitic books are mixed in the Greek Σιγυα, in that C, σ is derived from the Semitic samek, ס, whereas Σ, ς is derived from the sin שׁ, old Phoenician W.

— google translate, unicode approximations

just wrong, or maybe taken out of context?—eric 12:05, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

or maybe typesetting error(s)? I imagine such a text might be difficult in 1842.—eric 12:51, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the 1842 book, but I wonder if the German word buchstaben "letters" has been mistranslated as "books" in the passage above.

It's actually well-known that the names of the Greek sibilant letters are kind of mixed up with respect to the alphabetic orders and shapes. The Greek letter sigma Σ has a shape and alphabetic ordering corresponding to Phoenician šin ש, but if the name sigma derives from anything in Semitic it would be samekh. Similarly, the early Greek letter san has a shape and alphabetic ordering corresponding to Phoenician tsade צ, but if the name san derives from anything in Semitic it would be šin. (Note that the Phoenician names of the letters of the alphabet are not actually known, so the Hebrew letter names are used to stand in for them, or sometimes hypothetical Phoenician letter names are reconstructed from the attested Hebrew and Aramaic letter names.)

However, none of this has anything to do with the Hellenistic Lunate Sigma, as far as I can see... AnonMoos (talk) 17:54, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

AnonMoos, do some people disagree with the statement that the ancient Phoenician names of the letters are the same as those of Hebrew?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:58, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

They wouldn't necessarily be exactly the same as the attested Hebrew names, due to various historical sound changes -- for example, it's doubtful whether the post-vocalic spirantization of non-geminate consonants attested in Biblical Hebrew as it has come down to us would have existed in 800 B.C. Phoenician, while segholization epenthesis also might not have existed (or if it did exist, probably applied in a much more limited way than in attested Biblical Hebrew)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

translation from Hebrew to English

I am having great difficulty in translating coherently the following into English. I would therefore be grateful if a user can please assist me. Thank you וכל חבר מחויב לקבל ע"ע שילמוד בכל יום דף גמרא בעת הזאת, בלי שום וסת הפלגה, ומאליו מובן שיועילו תשלומים ביומו. כנים הדברים, כי כמה מפריעים ומשטינים ישנם לו לאדם בכל דבר טוב, ביחוד לסוחר בטלטולא דגברי דקשה, או למי שהנו בדרך רחוקה, אבל עכ"פ בעת ועונה שיבוא לשפוך שיחו בין הערבים, בביהמ"ד או ביהכנ"ס, ימצא שם מקום שנזדמנה חבורה שילמדו אותו דף הגמרא הקבוע, וממילא יהיה נקל לו להתאחד עמהם גם עתה בדף שפסק אתמול בביתו ואל יחסר המזג. ומה נהדר ויפה היה לקבוע שכל המכתבים וחלופי דברים השונים, שנשלחם מעיר לעיר, וממקום למקום, יוסמנו בדף גמרא של יומו הקבוע לו, ובזה תהא הבקורת, שחברינו לדעה, לומדים כסדר בלי העלמה ואחור. מהנכון ש"צעירי אמוני ישראל" שיחיו יקבלו עליהם טכוס והתארגנות דבר זה בסדר ובמשטר, ולפרסם מקודם במכתב עת [בעיתון] "דער יוד" באיזה יום נחוג התחלה וכדומה...." Simonschaim (talk) 18:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Deborahjay ---Sluzzelin talk 18:06, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

While my Hebrew is a bit rusty, I believe this is an extract from a larger or longer text and reads thus: "…Every member is required to receive a Gemara every day without exception and will of course benefit from this everyday too. Despite negative rumours, this can be beneficial to trade, especially those who are not nearby. We will discuss this with the Arabs but plan to; in every court and high school there will be a place for gathering and to teach and learn a page of the Gemara, a place where it will be easy for them to reunite. A page was discussed and dissected just yesterday in this house without tempers being raised. In fact, great and beautiful where the statements made in the various exchanges between city to city and place to place. Your argument states that they will be made to study as an order without restraint or reservation. It is true that the “young people of Israel’s faith” who will benefit from this will also be those who will organise it, but this is not illegal. We will publish firstly in the journal “Der Iod” which is in today’s edition…". Thanks. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 10:10, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

My Hebrew's rusty, too, but I can see some errors just in the first few words, which I'd translate "And every member must take on themselves the obligation to learn a page of Gemara every day at this time..." The "at this time" has the same ambiguity as English - it could mean time of day, or an undefined period of weeks or months. The word for "member" is chaber, which doesn't translate easily, carrying connotations of friend and colleague, or even (rarely) status in learning. If this was posted in a Yeshiva, I'd colloquially translate it as "student". In a Kollel, "member". I'd leave this to a specialist like Deborah unless you're fine with rough and ready. And context will help her with ambiguities like those I mention above. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:56, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

(Also, I'll defer to Deborah, but I very much doubt that "בין הערבים" refers to Arabs.) --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:18, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

My clarifications, in order of appearance in the text:

• "mehuyav lekabel 'al-'atzmo" (מחויב לקבל- ע"ע) is as User:Dweller states, literally "is obligated to take upon himself"
• "she-yilmod" (שילמוד), "that he will study" - in Hebrew, "study" and "learn" are essentially the same word and context dependent: no matter how much and how long you study a page of Gemara (part of the Talmud), there's always more to teach and learn.
• While the words for "evening" (erev) and "Arab" do share the triliteral root ayin-resh-beth, the common, poetic expression bein ha'arba'ayim simply means "twilight" (literally, between evening and evening). Source: Exodus 29:39.
• "be-beit midrash u-be-beit knesset" (בביהמ"ד או ביהכנ"ס), "in a study hall or in a synagogue"
• "tse'irei emuneh yisrael" ("צעירי אמוני ישראל" ) are the "young people of the Jewish faith" (as in several languages, "Israel" in this context is the Jewish people or religion)
• "Der Yod" ("דער יוד") - possibly the newspaper is named for the Torah pointer; the Germanic pronoun indicates Yiddish language

-- Deborahjay (talk) 19:09, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

-- Expanded by Deborahjay (talk) 20:10, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

While the Hebrew is as Deborah says ambiguous, English-speaking Orthodox Jews will almist always refer to "learning" not "studying" Torah (in the broad sense of Torah), presumably in a throwback to the days of yore when it was literally learned off by heart, a tradition that persists in some dermographies. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 23:13, 7 December 2019 (UTC)