Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 March 8

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March 8

Japanese help: Kanji for Kouhei Asoh, pilot of Japan Airlines Flight 2

I was looking for the kanji of Kouhei Asoh, pilot of Japan Airlines Flight 2. This site http://longtailworld.blogspot.com/2013/07/asoh-defense-and-jal-2-water-landing-sfo.html gives a last name of Kanji but the first name is in hiragana, probably because the author doesn't know the kanji.

Does anyone know what the kanji for Kouhei Asoh is? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I tried to find out the kanji, but nothing came out. The pilot's name is only found in the blog you provided. Oda Mari (talk) 15:08, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

That's very interesting. Do Japanese sources that talk about his crash refuse to print his kanji? I know he had public hearings in front of the NTSB. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:34, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The blog actually has 漢字不詳 written after his hiragana given name. 漢字不詳 means 'kanji unknown'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think they refuse to print his name. The incident can be found in some lists with a short description without personal names. As it was an old incident and nobody died, probably they think the details are not needed. I think the name cannot be found only on the web, but the name should be in the newspaper articles then, if you search it in the library. Oda Mari (talk) 10:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, ok. In the US, even if nobody died, there are still efforts to uncover what happened to prevent it from happening again, so they held full hearings on the accident. There are people in Japan who may know, so I might send the question to the Chatsubo and to Ichiro Kikuchi (a Japanese Wikipedian who has been a big help with writing Japanese articles) WhisperToMe (talk) 14:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Etymology of Bandurki, Rusyn for Potato

Given the recent discussion of potato, I was curious if anyone could offer an explanation of the Rusyn language term for potatoes, bandurki? I assume the singular is bandurka, and the first vowel may be an o since I have trouble distinguishing between unstressed o and a. (I get five ghits for bondurki.)

The Slovak and Polish words for potato come from the root zem- for "earth" and the Ukrainian and Russian words come from the German Kartoffel, which seems to be a mutation of truffle, influenced by Erdapfel, "earth-apple". The Hungarian is burgonya, so no luck there either. Thanksμηδείς (talk) 05:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Many other European languages, where they don't use a variation of "potato", have some variation of "Earth". Like your alternative German word above, the preferred French term for potato is "wikt:pomme de terre" lit "apple of earth" (except in Canadian French, where it is "patate"). In Dutch, it is likewise "aardappel". In Greek, it is a γεώμηλο, "geomilo" or "earth apple". Maybe the Rusyn word comes from that tradition. What is apple or ground/earth/dirt in Rusyn? --Jayron32 06:01, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Got a lead. The word "дырка" or "dyrka" means "hole" in Russian, according to "Google Translate"[1]; which also offers "potato" as an alternative possibility. So the "-durka" part in Rusyn may come from "hole" What is Rusyn for "hole"? --Jayron32 06:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The Ukrainian etymological dictionary (V. I, 1982, p. 133) gives: Ukr bandura, bandurka "potato" came from Pol bandurki. Also Slk bandurka, Cz [bandor, bandur], brambor. All came from the name of the German land of Brandenburg. The connection (by Machek) of Cz brambor with Latvian bimbulis, bumbulis "potato" is not convincing. See also barabol’a (also came from Brandenburg).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:38, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks, everyone. Ruysn is a typical Slavic language, and for the most part intermediate between Eastern Slovak, Southern Polish, and Western Ukraine, all of which it is mutually intelligible with. There are lots of words for hole, but the most common would probably be jama or dup, which I have heard. ("Earth would be zemya.) But once again Ljuboslov comes to the rescue with the Ukrainian etymological dictionary giving the word as also found in Polish and Slovak. And given the hint I do recall hearing the Brandenberg etymology a long time ago, but had forgotten it. My thanks to all. μηδείς (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
  Resolved

So then, User:Любослов Езыкин, and the rest, what about sibulja for onion?

Does that come from Sevilla? μηδείς (talk) 18:14, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's "cebolla" in spanish, which comes latin "cepulla", diminutive of "cepa" DRAE. Cfmarenostrum (talk) 23:26, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

In the UED: Ukr tsybul’a "onion" came from Pol cybula from HGer zibolle, zebulle from Lat caepula from caepa from Gr *κήπη/*κήπια "garlic". Also Rus dialect tsibul’a, Bel tsybul’a, Cz cibule, Slk cibul’a (Rusyn got the word from the latter).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 00:40, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. So that means the Spanish and the Rusyn both come from the Greek. I always assumed it was from Seville. μηδείς (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

That greek word travelled a lot via latin. It's "cebola" in portuguese and galician, "cipolla" in italian, "ceba" in catalan and occitan, "ceapa" in romanian. French also has "ciboule" (but that refers to a different plant) and got it from provençal "cebula" (same etymology before that). Cfmarenostrum (talk) 15:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Also non-Romance languages such as German "Zwiebel" (via "zwibollo") or "sipuli" in Finnish (and Votic) . ---Sluzzelin talk 18:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Exhaustive material here. --ColinFine (talk) 17:30, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

feel a twinge in her nose

Hello! I have a question here. To describe how a woman was moved to tears, can I say "She felt a twinge in her nose and began to cry."? I wonder if the phrase "feel a twinge in her nose" can be used in this way. If it can't, how can it be revised? Is there any phrase in English involving the word "nose" which can be used in this context? Thank you so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 10:55, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I've heard "prickling/tickling in her nose " used to describe the feeling.All the links to an example I found led to fanfic porn sadly so I choose not to give an example.Hotclaws (talk) 17:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

"Twinge" is a poor choice of word in this context. It indicates a sudden sharp, spasmodic pain, usually muscular. Is this what you feel in your nose just before you weep? Probably not. A "prickling" in the nose would be better. However, noses are not generally a good thing to mention in a description of being moved to tears, to be honest. The image of someone's nose dribbling in sympathy with the tears flowing from their eyes is not an attractive one. - Karenjc (talk) 00:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Arabic help: Finding Arabic names of Dearborn city institutions and Dearborn Public Schools campuses

Is anyone skilled at Arabic willing to find the Arabic names of the following?

• The city institutions of Dearborn, such as: (you can do a Google site search of cityofdearborn.org )
  • Dearborn Public Library
    • Henry Ford Centennial Library
    • Bryant Branch
    • Esper Branch (this is the main Arabic collection branch) - former name is the Warren Branch
• The schools of Dearborn Public Schools? (you can do a Google site search of dearbornschools.org/)

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 12:08, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

According to this document, the Dearborn Public Library code of conduct, "Dearborn Public Library" is "مكتبة ديربورن العامّة". That seems weird, shouldn't it be " المكتبة العامة ديربورن"? Oh well.

Henry Ford Library is "مكتبة هنري فورد في ديربورن". I can't find anything including "Centennial".

I assume Bryant Library would be "مكتبة بريانت في ديربورن" but I don't see any results for that.

Esper Library is "مكتبة أسبر في ديربورن".

You want all the Dearborn schools? There seems to be 36 of them...that would take some more time :) Adam Bishop (talk) 14:48, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes please. What you found is very helpful! Thanks! I'll note the Arabic on the talk pages: Talk:Dearborn, Michigan and Talk:Dearborn Public Schools.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:55, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Now see: File:Henry Ford Library.JPG and ar:ديربورن، ميشيغان - Your Arabic is now there :) WhisperToMe (talk) 16:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Chinese characters and radicals

In Chinese writing, is there a difference between a radical and a character that consists only of that radical? 86.176.208.60 (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Think of it like the difference between the letter A and the word 'a' as in 'there is a pencil on the table'. It's not 100% exactly the same but I think it's a good analogy. Duomillia (talk) 21:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

However, the word "a" does not mean "letter a", and yet the radical does actually mean the same as the character (maybe ignoring a few quibbles where meanings have shifted). 86.176.208.60 (talk) 00:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

What kind of difference do you mean? If you mean a difference in appearance, then certainly. Compare 足 and 跟: the second character's radical is the first character, but they look different in size and shape. If you mean a difference in meaning, then a character is the smallest semantic unit (morpheme) of Chinese. You can't ask what the radical in a character means, because it doesn't have a meaning on its own. You might as well ask whether "the" has the same meaning in the words "the" and "their". --Bowlhover (talk) 05:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, maybe it wasn't the best-thought-through question ever; actually it was prompted by my misunderstanding of something I read elsewhere, which I have now corrected. However, I don't agree much with the "the/their" analogy either. Most often the radical does have a meaning within a character, so I think it is more like the "water" in "waterfall" than the "the" in "their". 86.176.208.60 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Chinese characters containing multiple elements are not the same as linguistic compound words. Most often, one element indicates a broad semantic area while another element provides some indication of pronunciation (according to which words sounded similar in the language of many centuries ago, which may or may not still hold true in the language of today). Chinese characters are definitely not words of aUI... -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

However, the radical is not always a good indication of a character's meaning. For example, the character 跟 can mean "with". That has nothing to do with 足, meaning "foot". It's true that another meaning of 跟, "follow", has a loose connection with "foot". But there are many characters whose semantic connection to their radicals is obscure or confined to archaic readings of the character. For example, 很 [2] is usually translated "very" or "quite", though it is also a particle marking a predicative adjective (stative verb). Its radical, 彳[3], as a character means "step with the left foot". In ancient Chinese, the glyph that evolved into 很 may have had a meaning connected with stepping, but the semantic connection with the character's radical has been lost, as it has for many other characters. Marco polo (talk) 14:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

When you refer to "archaic readings" above, do you mean archaic meanings/interpretations? I just got a bit confused there because I think of "readings" as meaning pronunciations, perhaps because I am more used to the Japanese context. 86.160.86.139 (talk) 20:35, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I meant archaic meanings. 67.132.19.18 (talk) 17:27, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. By the way, at Radical (Chinese characters) (lead section) it says "This component [i.e. the radical] is often semantic, but may sometimes be a phonetic or even artificially extracted portion of the character." Do you think that "often" in this sentence should be changed to "usually"? 86.160.86.139 (talk) 02:19, 12 March 2014 (UTC)