Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 June 25

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June 25

Spoken language identification

What language is being spoken between about 1:45 and 2:10 of this video? Red Act (talk) 03:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds a little like Hebrew to me, but I don't speak Hebrew so take that with a grain of salt. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

In the last part of the episode at about 11:20 the girl says Shukran jazilan so it seems to be a form of Arabic. Sussexonian (talk) 10:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Red Act (talk) 17:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

She says lütfen in the beginning, which is Turkish for "please". The whole thing sounds Turkish, albeit spoken with a really bad accent. Apparently lutfen or lutfan means "kindly" in Arabic too, though...80.123.210.172 (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's Turkish. I don't know Turkish itself, but I'm familiar enough with some closely related languages (Uyghur and Uzbek), but this doesn't sound similar. A lot of these languages have borrowed heavily from Semitic languages like Arabic, which might explain the familiar-sounding words. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:19, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

He says something ending "-ač", which doesn't sound like any sort of Arabic. I thought for a moment I had identified some Turkish, but I don't think so now. Farsi maybe? --ColinFine (talk) 20:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

More likely it's meant to be "-aj" with final devoicing. Also, at last he says minhummah, which is translated as "right this way" and sounds like a reasonable Semitic expression for "from here". The bit translated as "my family" also ended in "-i". So I'm guessing Arabic.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 00:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The most of the text is in Arabic, in a bad accent (mainly the cop's accent).

["Please..."] Turkish.

"Can you help me?" Arabic.

"Where do I go?" Arabic.

"Follow the people." Arabic.

"Is someone meeting you?" Sounds Turkish, but I don't speak this language.

"My Family". Arabic.

"Right this way". Arabic.

HOOTmag (talk) 13:41, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization of "but"

Resolved

 – – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 12:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the capitalization specifically for the article Anything But Ordinary and the song title "Anything But Ordinary" on the Let Go album, shouldn't "but" be lowercased? My understanding is that "but" is only capitalized as an adverb, and it's an adverb if it's synonymous with "only" (my feeble source: [1]). In this case, I believe the intended meaning is a contrasting "anything[, and not] ordinary". – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 12:42, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

The answer is that, if you don't otherwise know, you shouldn't capitalize short conjunctions or prepositions like but, and, or, etc. However, for titles of works (books, songs, etc.) always defer to what the author chose to do. That is, if the creator of the work capitalized but in titles his or her work, you should too. --Jayron32 14:13, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe there's a convention that in three word titles, the middle word gets capitalized, even if it normally wouldn't. But yea, always defer to what the author does. Hot Stop (c) 15:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Except that Wikipedia doesn't necessarily practise that preaching. See the recent discussion @ Talk:Gone with the Wind (film)#Title of the film. The studio spelled the word "with" as "With", but our film-naming guidelines override that. One might say that deference to the author's wishes is a thing of the past; yea, gone - gone with the wind. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

One of wikipedia's purposes apparently is for non-notables to correct usage mistakes made by notables. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:33, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, thank you everyone. In this particular case, I went ahead and moved the album because—and to my total surprise—the album cover shows a lowercase "but". The Lavigne album capitalizes every word of every song on the back of the CD, so I suppose it'll stay. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 12:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, many books contain the title only in all uppercase, so you can't defer to the author. In that case, you may try to look in library catalogues. (A few books are even worse, as they only contain the title in some fancy title font.) – b_jonas 17:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Spanish terms - pronunciation

How does one pronounce "Alejandro Lerroux"'s surname? Is it le-rue (as in the French for 'street') or le-row (as in 'row your boat')? Or is it something else? Also, how is the acronym CEDA pronounced - is it in fact an initialism? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:52, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

As for the name, pronounce it more like the French, but ending with a subtle Voiced glottal fricative. And the acronym, like SAY-duh. Schyler (one language) 00:54, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm no Spanish speaker, but since CEDA is of Spain and not the New World, I would have supposed it was pronounced /θeda/ (thay-da). Certainly ONCE is /onθe/. --ColinFine (talk) 20:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought the "th" thing was a regionalism within Spain. I don't have to follow any region in particular, so it might not be a problem. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

CEDA is indeed pronounced /'θeda/ and Lerroux is usually pronounced /le'ruks/ by Spaniards (and almost surely by Lerroux himself too). --Belchman (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Almost surely, for reals? :-) --Trovatore (talk) 09:24, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I said that because in my - original research warning - experience people with foreign surnames tend to (mis)pronounce their own surnames like the rest of the people in their country. That's what I meant by "almost surely" :D --Belchman (talk) 19:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)