Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 November 10

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November 10

other languages that can understand Romani

Could a speaker of Panjabi or Hindi or Gujarati or Rajasthani be able to carry on a conversation with a speaker of Romani? Or at least be able to figure out some basic words and communicate a bit better than other people could? Because the languages are related. Thank you. Sign your posts on talk pages: 174.92.105.240 (talk) 00:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article Romani language says: "Romani and Punjabi share some words and similar grammatical systems." That suggests to me that they aren't mutually intelligible, if they were they would share a lot of words. List of Indo-Aryan languages puts Romani, Gujarati and Rajasthani all in the "Western Zone" so they must have more in common, but I don't know if they are similar enough to be mutually intelligible. --Tango (talk) 00:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Romani also states that the ancestors of the Roma probably left India by the year 1000 at the latest. If the Roma had been isolated after their departure, we could expect a degree of divergence between Romani and Punjabi similar to that between Norwegian and Icelandic, which diverged around the same time. Those two languages are not mutually intelligible. However, Romani was not isolated. Instead, it borrowed heavily from the languages of the peoples among whom the Roma lived. So Romani has a large vocabulary of words unrelated (or only very distantly related) to the language of the Roma homeland. Taken together, these two facts make it virtually impossible that Romani and any western Indian language could be mutually intelligible. Marco polo (talk) 01:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

When the Iron Curtain was first breached, there was an article in our local (London) newspaper about a meeting between Romanian Roma and English Romanies. Although both fluent in their own Romany dialects they were quite unable to understand each other, although they could see similarities in the written forms. Alansplodge (talk) 09:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Translate this word

Hi-I wanted to translate this word

εΕΦΙΛΕΩ

to English. I think it's in Greek, possibly Ancient Greek. Any help would be much appreciated. Cuban Cigar (talk) 11:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it has a meaning, although it may be a proper name ("Efileo"). HOOTmag (talk) 11:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What's with the lowercase then uppercase epsilons? —Akrabbim^talk 11:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A wild guess is that the OP may have confused ε with spiritus asper: ῾ΕΦΙΛΕΩ. Not that it would make any more sense to me that way. — Emil J. 12:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, ἐφιλεω could be some form of the verb φιλέω. My Ancient Greek grammar is next to nonexistent, but I observe that an ἐ- prefix features prominently in its conjugation, though I couldn't find this particular form there. — Emil J. 12:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

When adding the "augment" prefix to indicate past tense, you also have to change the ending from "primary" to "secondary" (so the imperfect forms ephileon and ephiloun in the table, but not ephileō). AnonMoos (talk) 02:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Or it's ΣΕΦΙΛΕΩ. "I like/love you."?Bazza (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm I think Bazza is right because the first letter was giving me a bit of trouble to type up, and given the context, his translation seems the most appropriate. Thanks to all who helped=)Cuban Cigar (talk) 08:57, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity...

Is "relatability" in the OED? :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 11:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Not as a lemma, but it's mentioned in the relatable entry. The three citations of its use are from 1937, 1956, and 1964. Deor (talk) 12:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. And if you actually own a copy, give yourself a pat on the back. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The Blower's Daughter

What is a blower? I heard this word in the song The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice:

And so it is Just like you said it should be We'll both forget the breeze Most of the time And so it is The colder water The blower's daughter The pupil in denial

I could speculate about a dirty interpretation (about the mother of said daughter), someone how plays a brass instrument, or a glass-blower. Since the singer is Irish, perhaps "blower" has a clear meaning there. --Mr.K. (talk) 16:16, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

G**gle´s wisdom indicates this is a reference to the daughter of his clarinet teacher. Apparently, there are a few more references to this unrequited(?) love in his lyrics. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've never looked into the meaning, but I had been assuming that the lyrics refer to the daughter of a glass-blower. My inference from the significance of this is that, as the offspring of a labourer, the girl rejected the love of a poor or uneducated man, in her wish for a "better" life. The music video for the song helped establish this impression upon me, I suppose, as both Damien and Lisa look somewhat scruffy, and Lisa's long uncombed hair and knitted jumper shout "simple life" to me. The rest of the lyrics also seem to more or less confirm this; I always assumed that "no hero in her sky" suggested that no one had yet whisked her away from her chilly, grim, fishing-focused and industry-heavy port town. Then again . . . I could be reading waaaay too much into the whole thing!  :-) Maedin\^talk 19:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

English spelling

Why is the system of spelling words in English so chaotic? Just as an example, if you have ever heard about that rule I before E, why is it not applicable with the word their or heir? Googlemeister (talk) 17:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The article English orthography explains some of the reasons; see especially its Section 5. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

English orthography was much more phonetically accurate when the spellings of most words were established around the year 1400. Unfortunately, English pronunciation has changed dramatically since that time, while English spelling has not. Marco polo (talk) 18:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Specific to your example, a fuller version of the rhyme is:

"i" before "e" except after "c"

or when sounded like "a"

as in "neighbour" and "weigh"

A version which makes more sense is:

"i" before "e" except after "c" but only when the sound is "ee" and of course that doesn't get taught in schools either!--TammyMoet (talk) 19:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That assumes a standard pronunciation; as noted below, "neither" and "either" can be pronounced "ee" or "eye", but your rule doesn't work for the "ee" pronunciation. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course, some words are just weird. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

But "their" and "heir" aren't "sounded like 'a'". Adam Bishop (talk) 19:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Neither does either. Googlemeister (talk) 19:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

People can't even agree on how to pronounce "neither" and "either". Having a sensible spelling for them seems like too much to ask! --Tango (talk) 19:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How about: agencies, fallacies, legacies, policies, species, and the like? HOOTmag (talk) 00:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I've always liked this quote: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - A lot of the non-standard orthography in English is due to loanwords - words taken from French/Latin/Hebrew/Hawaiian/Tagalog/etc. Usually the word comes in with the spelling it had in that language, despite the fact that it doesn't match up with other English words. -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 00:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That's part of what makes English such a versatile language. It takes loan words from so many different sources that surprisingly fine nuances can be used - often more so than in languages which come predominantly from a single source. It takes words that should be - and are, in their originating languages - synonymous, and shades them in a myriad ways. It takes the words beer, lager, and ale from three different language terms for the same thing, for instance. Or, as one of my favourite quotations points out, "to know which loan-word to use and when to use it most appropriately requires both know-how and savoir faire." Grutness...wha? 01:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Unlike languages which have academicians obsessed with their "purity", English will gladly welcome any word that fits... and, of course, butcher the pronunciation in the process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

And there are rules, it's just that they're not universal. For example: bike, dike, hike, like, mike, nike, pike, yike! All rhyme... except "nike", which is a Greek word meaning "expensive shoe", and as Grutness said, no-how, er, know-how is needed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Do they really count as loanwords when 2/3 of your language is made up of them? --Tango (talk) 02:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

English is a hodge-podge, so it depends on what point in time you consider modern English to have begun. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Here in London, nearly everyone pronounces "Nike" to rhyme with "hike". Other pronunciations are thought to be a bit pedantic. Alansplodge (talk) 12:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Really? Do they pronounce Daphne and Phoebe as "Daf-n" and "Feeb" (or "Fobe")? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:09, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

No. I wasn't really trying to claim that it was correct, just telling you how it is. Many English people still say "Nestles" for "Nestlé" (their own advertising in the UK used to use that pronunciation, so as not to sound too foriegn). Alansplodge (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was always said like "nestles" in Australia, too, until the company changed their ads. The same people who pronounce Nike to rhyme with hike so as not to sound too toffy-nosed are probably the same ones who are now regularly saying "om-AHZH" for the English word "homage" (as if it were a French word, which it isn't - that's "hommage"), when the perfectly standard "HOM-ij" (or "HOM-əj") pronunciation has been around for centuries. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:45, 12 November 2009 (UTC)