Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 July 15

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July 15

Xanthias

Hello all. My (ancient) Greek teacher told me that the name Xanthias is a stereotypical 'foreign' name. Does anybody know its etymology and/or language of origin? My guess is Persian, Dacian or Thracian, possibly Anatolian, but I'd love to hear others' thoughts. Thanks.Van Gulik (talk) 03:05, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd guess pre-Islamic Persian, noting the X at the front is similar to Xerxes. StuRat (talk) 03:13, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

He's entirely correct, and referring not to Persian, (which may also have names beginning with X) but specifically to Pelasgian words which typically have -nth- (a Non-PIE sequence) in them. See Pelasgian#Pelasgian_as_pre-Indo-European. μηδείς (talk) 03:42, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Within Greek, the word Xanthias literally seems to mean "the yellow one"... AnonMoos (talk)`

Correct, but the OP should realize the word is a borrowing from outside the PIE origins of Greek, as his instructor hinted. μηδείς (talk) 04:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

So now this rases the question; is Xanthias foreign, or is it another one of those substrate words? Many other words with the -nth- (Corinth, for one) in them appear to be substrate, but with names you can't tell. By the way, μηδείς, thank you for showing me the Pelasgian page. The diversity and history of that region has always overwhelmed me.Van Gulik (talk) 12:15, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

The articles you want are Stratum (linguistics) and Pre-Greek substrate. Without supporting documentation, it is not possible to say whether describing the word as resulting from a substrate or borrowing relationship is best. But given the obvious time depth these forms imply, it would seem reasonable to guess that xanthos was retained from a substrate or borrowed early on, and Xanthias developed from it within Greek parallel to such names as Hippias which comes from the native hippos. μηδείς (talk) 17:12, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Goyan

It is the name of a Kurd tribe. Does anyone know its pronunciation in Kurdish, Turkish, or Arabic? Thanks. --Omidinist (talk) 14:09, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

What's the bad guy saying in Tagalog in this video?

I know that "Huwag kang 'X' dito!" means "Don't 'X' here!" But I can't make out or find out the word at about 0:18 in this video. Also, the last sentence the guy says, "Ito pa lang, ang 'X'!" As far as I know roughly translates to "Just this, the 'X'!" and I can't make out that last word either. Can anyone translate those two things? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 18:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Makialam (pron. mah-KEE-ah-lam) and Simula (si-moo-LAʔ)

Huwag kang makialam dito! = Don't you [dare] interfere here!

Detailed breakdown:

• Huwag = imperative "don't".
• Kang = n. singular "you"; conjunctive form from ka ("you") + linker -ng
• Makialam = v. conditional future "interfere", "meddle"; potentiative prefix ma- + -kialam, verb root of noun: pakialam = "bother", "care", "concern"
• Dito = "here"

Ito pa lang ang... simulâ! = This... is only the beginning!

Detailed breakdown:

• Ito = "this'
• Pa = "still", "yet"
• Lang = "only", "just"
• Ang = "the"
• Simulâ = "start", "beginning". Note circumflex in Filipino languages denotes a glottal stop

And as a bonus, the woman says:

Hoy, narinig mo ba yung kuwento tungkol kay Captain Zoom? = Hey, have you heard that story about Captain Zoom?

-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 20:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Teenager

Hey forum

I am watching (the excellent) Bobby Fischer documentary. During the early set-up, I noticed the archive footage of Fischer on a television programme holding up a newspaper headline. A screengrab is here - [1].

The headline says "Teen-ager" rather than "teenager", the spelling I'm used to seeing

I do know that the word must have been coined around the time of the archive footage, but does anyone know further details? When was "teenager" coined, and how did spelling change?

Thanks doktorb _words^deeds 19:56, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

See Google Ngram Viewer: "teen ager,teen-ager,teenager".

—Wavelength (talk) 20:22, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Which says teenager was coined about 1721 in that form; all three forms took off about 1938, and teen-ager dominated from 1942 to 1948, but the variants plunged after 1956. —Tamfang (talk) 23:17, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Fazer"

The article Fazer says that the company's name is pronounced (copy-paste from the article) Finnish pronunciation: [ˈfɑtser], which I am well aware of as a native Finnish speaker. But then there's this English rapper dude Fazer (rapper). How is his name pronounced? I would think it's like someone who fazes, whatever fazing means. Sort of like "fay-zer", with the "z" being a voiced "s" sound instead of the "ts" that Finns usually associate with the letter. Is this correct? JIP | Talk 20:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It's a homonym of Phaser. To faze is, roughly, to frighten - if you say 'public speaking doesn't faze me' it means you are comfortable speaking in front of an audience. As far as I'm aware fazer is not a word ever used in English other than by Richard Rawson. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

It's clearly sensational spelling for phaser becauZe Xs and Zs makeZ rappaZ kewl, not a German/Austrian/Finnish/Italian surname. On a related note, I also found this instance of a German American originally named Veeser who changed his surname to Fazer after people kept mispronouncing it.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 21:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

It's Portuguese for "to do". μηδείς (talk) 23:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

And in Portuguese, it is pronounced a few different ways (depending on the region you're from and whatnot); I've always pronounced it something like [faˈzɛʁ], which is likely a Brazilian pronunciation (given the kind of Portuguese I hear most often). This, of course, has no bearing on the pronunciation of a Finnish salmiakki-making company. That stuff's delicious, by the way.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 02:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Shape of Persian/Arabic number ۵ (five)

Does anyone know why the number ۵ in persian/arabic script has this specific shape. Numbers 1-4 are quite obviously based on the number of "strokes"/separate lines contained in them. But number 5 seems different and specific. Are there any historical tracings on the shape throughout history? --helohe (talk) 22:22, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Off the top of my head I'd say its shape is like an open hand. پنج (panj) reminds me of the word پنجه (panje) in Persian. --Omidinist (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

The relationship of the word for 'five' with words to do with the hand (eg 'finger') is well-known in Indo-European languages, which include Persian. I don't think that this tells us anything about the origin of the symbol. Eastern Arabic numerals seems to show that the symbol is a stylised variant of a simpler symbol. But really only 1-3 have obvious graphical symbolism: everything beyond 3 is arbitrary as far as is known. --ColinFine (talk) 14:20, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

The Arabic numerals ultimately come from the Brahmi numerals (via the Hindu-Arabic numeral system), so the symbol for five is still Indo-European. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

One of those things that they tell you at school, which may or may not be true, is that the Roman numeral V is a stylised representation of an open hand and X is two hands vertically opposed. While I was typing this, I followed my own link and found it described as a "false etymology... that the V represented the angle between thumb and forefinger of an open hand ("5"), and that the X was made by placing two Vs on top of each other, one inverted." What do teachers know anyway? Alansplodge (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find any images of the development of the Arab-Persian numerals, but my guess would be that at some point, they adopted a set of numerals from India, which over time have developed to get the shapes they have today. Of course, looking at the shapes Indian numerals have today isn't going to be that useful, as I reckon that they have also developed from the point in time when they were borrowed into Arabic writing, and, as such, any link might be difficult to ascertain when comparing the modern Arab-Persian numeral to the corresponding Indian numeral. My guess would be the Eastern Nagari script script whose numeral 5 is ৫. Or, you could have a look at the other Indian writing systems' numerals here: Brahmic family of scripts#Numerals. Many of these seem more closely related to the early European numbers than do their modern counterparts (especially numbers 4 & 5). V85 (talk) 18:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a helpful diagram in Arabic numbers. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

But those diagrams skip the Arab-Persian numerals completely: It has the earliest known Indic numerals, from the Bakhshali manuscript (and I can imagine how that 5 over time was simplified to a ٥), and the Brahmi numerals and then goes on to the development of the European numerals. There is no information on the numerals that the Arabs used and how they might have developed. V85 (talk) 09:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Adam Bishop -- languages or words can be characterized as "Indo-European", but this is much harder to do with abstract numerical digit symbols which don't stand for any one specific number word in any particular language (e.g. the symbol "5" as used in English writing can stand for "five", "fifty", "five-hundred", "one half", etc., depending on context...). AnonMoos (talk) 18:40, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

On a related note: Urdu is written using the Persian Nastlaiq script, do they also use the Persian numerals? V85 (talk) 13:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)