Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 December 3

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December 3

Cursive letterforms

I was wondering about the origins of some cursive letterforms.

I wonder how the shape of lowercase "r" came about. It looks nothing at all like capital "R"! The cursive form of this letter (at least as used in the USA) does not even resemble either of these two. I was also wondering about cursive lowercase "s" and capital "G", which also look nothing like their print forms.

The Cyrillic alphabet seems a bit humorous to me in this respect. For example, a letterform looking like Latin "g" is actually a form of "д", and a letter looking like "m" is a form of "т", so the word "redaktor" comes out looking like "pegakmop"!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.37.236.70 (talk) 07:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The two shapes of the letter R, as they exist in modern Latin-based alphabets, go back to the way the Romans wrote them. It's not quite this simple, but majuscule letters come from Roman square capitals, and minuscule letters come from Roman cursive. Minuscule r in particular comes from uncial script, a late ancient/early medieval form of writing (as opposed to inscribing in stone) Roman capital letters. That form of writing had had a "half-uncial" variant where the tops of some letters were sometimes omitted, so the lowercase r is basically a majuscule r with no round part. That minuscule form survived in other medieval scripts like Carolingian and Gothic, and was eventually copied by printers in the Renaissance, which leads to our modern typefaces. But where did they Romans get the letters from? From the Etruscans, who got them from the Greeks, who got them from the Phoenicians. See Old Italic script for more about that process. I'm not sure about modern cursive, although surely it's just the regular minuscule and majuscule letters connected by fancy lines and loops. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems much more likely that the original questioner was asking about letter shapes such as those seen in File:D'Nealian Cursive.svg, rather than conventional typographic "r", "s", "G", etc. AnonMoos (talk) 20:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Obviously it was the result of the French Revolution. The Jacobins sent the aristocratic upper case/class R to visit Madame Guillotine, resulting in the headless remnant. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The chart at right may be misleading. As I recall from my youth, the miniscule script "r" has a small loop at the top left side, so, running cursive writing together, imagine coming up from the baseline, then looping counterclockwise to create the bowl of the "R," then stopping that looping when you get to where the right descender comes down, then doing the descender back to the baseline. As you write more quickly, the loop grows smaller and the spot where you stop to follow with the right descender pulls out to the right, remember "cursive" means "running hand". And so you get the sweep of the upward stroke, followed by the movement to the top of the right descender, followed by the down stroke—which results in the cursive "r" we're familiar with. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The image represents one particular semi-"simplified" form of cursive as somewhat recently taught in the U.S. (before schools here started doing away with teaching of cursive altogether). I myself remember the lower-case cursive "r" as having more of a "plateau" shape (i.e. a horizontal or only slightly-sloping line approached by curves on both sides)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

sich (German)

Hi, I'm wondering what sense, if any, "<person's name> sich" has in German (without any other words or context). I've looked up "sich" in a German dictionary, and it apparently means "him/herself". So, would "Boris sich" mean "Boris himself", for example? 86.179.6.72 (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In most cases, sich is connected to the verb, namely in reflexive verbs. An example would be sich hinlegen, i.e. "to lie down" (literally "to lay oneself down"). It can also be seen as a dative or accusative pronoun that refers to the subject of the sentence (in contrast to ihm/ihn or ihr/sie that refer to another person). The (stand-alone) combination "Boris himself" would be Boris selbst. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Much more than "Boris selbst", "Boris sich" is two words taken seriously out of context, not anything that makes any sense on it own. The only context in which just saying "Boris sich" would make sense is if you asked, "Who has done it to whom?" To which you could, in principle, respond "Boris to himself", or in German, "Boris sich". But you would be more likely to say "Boris sich selbst". Hans Adler 14:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys! 86.183.128.75 (talk) 21:38, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the construction is easier to understand if you put my, your, him/her/its whenever you encounter "mich, dich, sich" in a German sentence. So it is: Boris cuts bread - "Boris schneidet Brot", Boris cuts him - "Boris schneidet sich", Boris cuts himself -->means Boris cuts him self - means "Boris schneidet sich selbst" --> "Boris schneidet sich". Here the clauses are ordered SVO as in English. In German, however, the word order can change, and does so regularly in questions or relative clauses. Then you find "sich" positioned after a name, still meaning him/her/its (reflexive), translated as himself/herself/itself. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Grammatical mood

What is the classification of the moods? I mean is it a tense?position? Exx8 (talk) 17:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Neither of those. Have you read the article Grammatical mood? Deor (talk) 18:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I realize that it is not a tense but it does have usually its own declension. Why by the way those mood are not define as tenses? Is negtive a mood?Exx8 (talk) 23:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In older Indo-European languages, mood is often somewhat orthogonal to tense. So in Greek, subjunctives and optatives can be formed from all three types of stem (i.e. present, aorist, and perfect), while Latin has present subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, perfect subjunctive, and pluperfect subjunctive. Negative is not generally considered to be a mood in Indo-European languages, but in some of the languages which have special negative verb inflections, these might be considered somewhat similar to mood inflections... AnonMoos (talk) 08:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

An easy way of understanding the difference between tense and mood is thinking about what they actually mean, I guess then it becomes obvious that verb mood is (generally) independent from tense:

indicative mood:

• present: something happens today
• past tense: something happened yesterday

subjunctive mood:

• present: (I believe/hope/have heard that) something might happen today
• past tense: (I believe/hope/have heard that) something might have happened yesterday

The details of usage can vary quite a bit from language to language, but that's the general idea -- Ferkelparade π 13:38, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting question, because there are several complexities and assumptions in it. The idea of "mood" is traditional in describing classical Indo-European languages, specifically, Latin, Green and Sanskrit, where it referred to a classification of inflectional endings. These categories tended to have particular kinds of meanings, to be sure (for which reason they were classified as 'indicative', 'subjunctive', 'optative' and 'imperative'), but it was the inflectional patterns which the term referred to. As AnonMoos says, this category was separate from other categories such as tense, since a mood and a tense could be combined (though not necessarily all conceivable combinations existed).

But Ferkelparade's examples above are not inflectional at all: they use auxiliary verbs to express a difference in meaning. Now it is true that the examples Ferkelparade call "subjunctive" are how we would express in English things that in some other languages are expressed with the subjunctive mood. But the actual sentences quoted are not grammatically subjunctive, because in modern English the subjunctive (insofar as it survives at all) is not used for those meanings, and only for wishes and demands, and then only in relatively formal use ("I demand that he be removed!") So Ferkelparade is using the word "mood" as a semantic category.

There is no fundamental reason why 'interrogative' should not be a mood, nor really why 'negative' should not (though 'negative' can occur with other moods, so perhaps it is useful to treat it as something separate) but they have never been treated as such, perhaps because classical European languages do not express these properties by inflection.

In many non-Indo-European languages, there is no inflectional category called "mood" at all (in fact, in some languages there is not such thing as inflection).

--ColinFine (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Christmas pickle

What is the origin of Christmas pickles? The first reference for the word "Christmas pickle" that I find is a 1966 pickles promotion: "Pick a Christmas Pickle from Crosse & Blackwell", then the word reappears again in the 1990's as a Christmas custom. Was the word or custom known before 1990? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 17:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I doubt if that Crosse & Blackwell reference is to a Christmas tree ornament in the shape of a gherkin. Rather, it is an advertisement for Crosse & Blackwell's range of chutneys and pickles popular in the UK: pickled onions, pickled red cabbage, piccalilli, Branston pickle. UK shoppers can be induced to get one or more of these in for Christmas, for example to eat on Boxing Day with cold turkey. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Never heard of it. Is a "Christmas pickle" one of those round ornaments you hang on a Christmas tree? If so, they're called "baubles" in the UK. Itsmejudith is right about Crosse & Blackwell. Alansplodge (talk) 02:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

A Christmas pickle is, indeed, a gherkin-shaped ornament. It apparently represents good luck. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 05:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

For German speakers, there is a relevant thread on the de:WP (equivalent to the ref desk). --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 15:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

That links to this article: "All I can say for certain is that to this day almost no one in Germany has ever heard of the German Christmas pickle custom. So far I have found no historical or other evidence to indicate that the Weihnachtsgurke is a genuine Christmas custom from Germany." Alansplodge (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

have I used the semicolons correctly in this sentence?

I was often admonished never to grumble: firstly, because it is a sin to be ungrateful for God’s bounty, and secondly; because there is always someone worse off than oneself.

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 19:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

No. Why would the semicolon be correct after secondly if it's not correct after firstly?

The most usual place to use a semicolon is to make one sentence out of two related complete sentences; you show a greater connection between them than you would if you wrote them as separate sentences. --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Reversing the comma and semicolon would make more logical sense (though it still might not be considered fully correct by punctuation arbiters). AnonMoos (talk) 19:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm leaning towards AnonMoos's answer - these days, it's less usual to use them as I have, but I feel I've seen them used similarly in 19th Century writing; wasn't sure if my memory was off, though. Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think AnonMoos means the comma after "bounty" rather than the one after "firstly". Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering why you ask about the "semicolons" (pl.) when you use only one of them, Adam. The colon after grumble does not count as a semicolon. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Woops, yes, I should have used the singular, Jack. And what I mean when I say I'm leaning towards AnonMoos is that punctuation arbiters might see my way of doing it here as correct, though Anon didn't actually say that - woops again. (The reason for this whole question is because I'm writing something in an antique voice, and was wondering if this was a legit olde worlde style of punctuation) Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:18, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The sentence doesn't look right to me even as old-fashioned style. 86.183.128.75 (talk) 21:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Better: I was often admonished never to grumble: first, because it is a sin to be ungrateful for God’s bounty; second, because there is always someone worse off than oneself. (Note that I have dropped the and, and changed firstly and secondly to first and second.) Looie496 (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, all, for the answers - I'm pretty sure I've used the semicolons incorrectly, as you all say; just wish I could find an example of what I'm vaguely thinking of - thanks for the suggestion, too, Looie - I used it, with the difference that I stuck in a "for two reasons: the first whereof is" - can't resist a whereof, whereupon, whoeversoever, etc etc Adambrowne666 (talk) 03:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

(Being a fan of semicolons and long sentences myself, Looie496 would be correct. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 18:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC))

I think it's important to avoid terms of judgement, here. The question is what is most likely to be understood in the way you want it understood by an ordinary reader in a particular time and place. The full colon, for example, was customarily used in British English contexts to separate complete independent clauses, where modern American usage commands the use of semi-colons, e.g.,

John plans in English: Maria dreams in Italian.

There are only a limited set of commonly used and understood punctuation marks (points or stops), so their usage has stretched and shifted with time and need. It was also common when quotation marks (inverted commas) were less frequently used, to set off titles with directly preceding commas (as in quotations in the 1611 Authorised King James Version of the Bible, which uses no quotation marks). Were Shakespeare being published for the first time today, we'd most likely print Twelfth Night, or What You Will, or "Twelfth Night" or "What You Will" or Twelfth Night or What You Will, whereas the editions of four centuries ago (which should govern how to format this particular play title today) were entitled Twelfth Night or, What You Will. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the informative answer, Shakescene; still, my curiosity remains - I'm less interested in clarity now than to see how the sentence would have looked were it written in 1650... Adambrowne666 (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

For the German experts out there

I speak German pretty well, but I've always been dumbfounded when it comes to country names in German: why Indonesien, Rumänien, Albanien, but Malaysia, Nigeria, Somalia? 80.122.178.68 (talk) 21:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I've wondered that too (other examples of the second group are Namibia and Tansania) and don't have an answer for you. I've also wondered why it's Indones-isch, Rumän-isch, and Alban-isch, but Italien-isch and Brasilian-isch (cf. Italien and Brasilien). Angr (talk) 22:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

(Not an expert here, but a native speaker and pretty good at introspection.) I think these things depend a lot on where we got the names from, and when. I think Malaysia, Nigeria and Somalia simply have the English ending because we got the names via English and they are not sufficiently important within German-speaking contexts to change them in any way. French likely brought us Indonesien (from Indonésie, colonial influences?) and Rumänien (language of diplomacy when the national state was formed?). Note that the adjective for Roumanie is Roumain, likely explaining why it is Rumanien. There are also a number of countries that oddly end in -ei rather than -ien or -ia. This is an odd bunch including Tschechoslowakei, Türkei, Mongolei, Mandschurei, Tatarei, Walachei. After the split of Czechoslovakia, the Czechs felt that they weren't in particularly good company and officially made the German version of their country's name Tschechien rather than the previously used Tschechei. But Slovakia is still Slowakei in German.

The difference between Italien/Italienisch and Brasilien/brasilianisch isn't so surprising if you keep in mind that the former word must have existed in German for far over a thousand years and had plenty of time to undergo a vowel shift italianisch(?) -> italiänisch -> italienisch. (Not sure if there is any vowel shift rule that actually explains this, though.) Whereas Brasil is a very recent country. A fairer comparison would be Italien/italienisch and Spanien/spanisch. But I guess spanisch is the result of dropping the weird "ol" which we got from Spanish/French: español/espagnol -> spaniolisch? -> spanisch. (Nowadays, spaniolisch means Judaeo-Spanish. This makes sense, because Judaeo-Spanish for Judaeo-Spanish is probably something like "espagnolo", and any foreign weirdness is more likely to survive in the rarer and more recently acquired word.)

Added after edit conflict with Angr's clarification: I think the main difference between Xien/xienisch and Xien/xisch is that in the first case the adjective is derived from the country, and in the second the country is derived from the adjective. As in Italy/Italian vs. Germany/German. You don't speak of Itals or Germanians in English, either. Hans Adler 23:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

An interesting example concerns Pennsylvania, which formerly used to be refered to as Pennsylvanien; nowadays the latter form is considered obsolete and it's always Pennsylvania in German. On the other hand, California is still exclusively called Kalifornien. Frequency of use may be the dominant factor here: we speak about CA more often than about PA. Hawaiian is an example for a language where the two forms Hawaiisch and Hawaiianisch are roughtly equally current nowadays; there is a tendency to consider Hawaiisch more "correct". There have been long discussions on the German WP. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

How often do Germans still speak of Virginien, Westvirginien, Nordkarolinien, Südkarolinien, and Neumexiko? Angr (talk) 12:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Neumexiko is common alongside New Mexico, the others are completely uncommon in modern writing and speech. If you would use the word Nordkarolinien people would immediately start to suspect that you have some kind of weird agenda (e.g. anti-foreign language purism or nationalist). --::Slomox:: >< 12:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Nordkarolinien and Südkarolinien sound really outdated with only ten google book search hits, the usual German names (now obsolete) Nordkarolina, or Nordcarolina, get ten thousands. The th is not a native German consonant, so Nord-Dakota, Süd-Dakota, Nord-Karolina, Süd-Karolina are easier to pronounce. Pennsylvanien is used in historical contexts, and most speakers will use Neufundland or Kalifornien. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Indonesia was a Dutch colony and the Dutch word for Indonesia is "Indonesië". S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 15:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The situation with German country names is, interestingly enough, very similar to that in Swedish. Most of the well-known and long-established country names end in "-ien" in Swedish, while non-European countries often take "-ia". And the "-iet" ending in Swedish seems to be a correspondence for the German "-ei": Turkiet, Mongoliet, Manchuriet, Tatariet, Valakiet (= dt. Türkei, Mongolei, Mandschurei, Tatarei, Walachei). I checked sv:Tjeckoslovakien, where the alternative form Tjeckoslovakiet (= dt. Tschechoslowakei) is given, citing a publication by Mikael Reuter, a Finnish Swede, author, philologist and linguist. The material begins with what looks like a letter or a note by a resident of Helsinki (Helsingforsbo) enquiring why a country is called "Somalia" in Swedish when he or she feels it more correct and natural to say "Somalien", like "Spanien" and "Sardinien". The text tells that there is a strong tradition to use the "-ien" ending for country names in Swedish, following the German practice, and contrasting with the "-ia" practice in English and other languages. It then discusses that all Swedish "-ia" country names refer to overseas countries (Bolivia, Malaysia, Gambia, etc), which are most often independent since relatively recently, and suggests that Swedish has adopted the "international" names for those nations; and the "-ien" group includes countries located in Europe or around the Mediterranean region (Etiopien, Jordanien, Mauretanien, Syrien, Tunisien), as well as some older historically established names (Australien, Brasilien, Indien, Indonesien; also Arabien, Persien, Kalifornien). And then it mentions the "interesting circumstance" that the "-iet" ending (Mongoliet, Turkiet, the former parallel form Tjeckoslovakiet) is obviously understood as the neuter definite article, and a kind of neuter form for the "-ien" naming pattern. In Swedish, the definite article is postfixed, and is (usually) "-en" for the common gender and "-et" for the neuter. The last two paragraphs tell that newly independent European states (Armenien, Bosnien) take "-ien" like the rest of Europe, and that there still are some doubts regarding the names of certain states, like Moldova and the Czech Republic.

You can put it all into Google Translate to view how the machine comes up with a decent translation of the full text, although the machine does fail here and there. I only retold what is most relevant and interesting, as opposed to making a full and literal translation of the text, but my Swedish is unfortunately getting rusty these days (as it has already been visible on the RDL), and I know there are a few native and otherwise advanced Swedish speakers who frequent the RDL, so they could elaborate on my retelling if this is necessary. --Theurgist (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

As a native speaker myself, I can reveal that Theurgist's retelling is correct. To the article I can add that Tjeckien is by now the predominant way of referring to the (then newly independent) Czech Republic. An interesting note is that Georgien in present-day Swedish and German refers to Georgia (country), while Georgia refers to Georgia (U.S. state) in both Swedish and German. With regards to Wrongfilter's observation, I once encountered an 18th century Swedish text that referred to Pennsylvania as Pennsylvänien, but that would come across as very archaic today. Gabbe (talk) 11:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Occasionally, uncommon germanised forms are employed as a deliberate archaism. An example is in the title of one of my absolute favourite books, H. C. Artmann's Der aeronautische Sindtbart oder Seltsame Luftreise von Niedercalifornien nach Crain. Ein Fragment von dem autore selbst aus dem yucatekischen anno 1958 ins teutsche gebracht. It translates as: "The aeronautical Sintbard or Curious Air Journey from Lower California to Carniola. A fragment translated by the author himselfe anno 1958 from Yucatecan to German".

(I am aware that this comment was quite off-topic. I just wrote it as a plug for this fantastic work on airships, the bear as man's best friend and synthetic honey.) Hans Adler 11:52, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The following lists of country names are relevant:

• de:Liste der Staaten der Erde (-ien/-ia/-ei)
• sv:Världsgeografi (-ien/-ia/-iet)
• da:Verdens lande (-ien/-ia/-iet)
• nl:Lijst van landen in 2011 (-ië/-ije)

--Theurgist (talk) 22:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)