Language desk
< June 11	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 13 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 12[edit]

Hawaiian/Tahtian/Polynesian[edit]

Can the language of a culture that lacked melodic music being called "musical"? Many people described the Polynesian languages of Hawaii and Tahiti musical. Thinking of modern Hawaiian and Tahitian music with the ukulele and other instruments written in Western fashion with melodies, rhymes and etc., their language and culture does sound musical, but in pre-contact times the only vocal music mainly consisted of chants (which don't really sound "musical" to me). I just wondering why Hawaiian and Tahitian were considered musical languages?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:18, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Musical language" is not a usually classification of languages. There are tonal languages, like Mandarin, but the Polynesian languages are not tonal languages. Of course, people are allowed to speak metaphorically at times, and perhaps people call them musical languages because they find it pleasant to listen to them being spoken. --Jayron32 05:08, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what "musical" would mean in this context, but languages with maximal CV syllables, many V syllables, no guttural consonants, absence of strong stress contrasts, etc. are sometimes described as "liquid" (which seems fair)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure I would describe a language with /k/, /h/, and /ʔ/ but lacking /t/ one without gutturals. μηδείς (talk) 21:18, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What are some examples of "liquid" languages? Polynesian languages fit these criteria, except that they do have gutturals (Proto-Polynesian language#Sound correspondences). --Theurgist (talk) 01:29, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I used "guttural" informally to refer to back-of-the mouth consonants, not including an ordinary basic [k]. The glottal stop and [h] are "laryngeals"; they group together with gutturals in some phonological processes in the Semitic languages, but are not actually phonetically guttural... AnonMoos (talk) 08:36, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Musical languages would be languages like Solresol and Eaiea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk • contribs) 01:23, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Zwanenburgwal[edit]

What would be a Dutch>English translation or gloss for this place name, please? -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:13, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a Dutch speaker, but I can use a dictionary. Zwanen appears to refer to a swan - the modern Dutch seems to be zwaan, but zwanen- with single a is found in other compounds, including zwanenzang (swansong). Burg appears to be from the German Burg - castle. It's not a Dutch word, but the Dutch do have burger meaning citizen. Therefore I'd expect burg in this word to mean 'castle' or 'town'. Finally wal is a quay or a wharf - somewhere for tying up and loading boats.

Putting it all together, we get 'Swan-town-quay' or 'Swan-castle-wharf', or some combination thereof. Maybe if it was a place in England the name would have developed over the years into something like 'Swanton quay'. The name of the canal in the article appears to be taken from the Zwanenburg area of Amsterdam. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:53, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, looking into it further, I might have that final sentence the wrong way round. The name appears initially to come from the Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg, built in 1648. The canal inherited the name from the gemeenlandshuis, and the town from the canal, as far as I can work out. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Zestiende Jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodamum (1918), p. 16, the Zwanenburg (older spelling Swanenburch) was a bulwark that gave its name to a section of the city's wall (=Dutch wal) in the late 16th century. This name was preserved by the street and canal after the fortifications had been demolished. Iblardi (talk) 17:40, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OP clarifies: Sorry I neglected to specify: what the page lacks is a canonical English-language name if such exists for this historically notable locale. I'd already consulted my (abridged) Dutch-English dictionaries and found nothing conclusive. Perhaps consulting an Amsterdam municipal archives or the Dutch Ministry of Tourism would be a practical approach. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:08, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so you want the common English name, the equivalent of Elysian Fields Avenue or Heavengate Square? Surely it's not normal for places within a city to have a 'canonical' name in another language. Sussexonian (talk) 20:40, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few examples, like Krásnaya Plóshchaď, Václavské náměstí, or Piazza San Petro. AlexTiefling (talk) 07:14, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Upon consideration, it seems the place is more likely of the sort that Sussexonian suggests rather than Alex T.'s outstanding exemplars, I think Mike's take on the name will serve the purpose, so I'll extract that for the Talk:Zwanenburgwalpage (including attribution). Thanks, all! -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to point out that, (being Dutch), the interpretation of 'wal' as quay/wharf seems very unlikely to me. Iblardi's translation of wall is a far more common, but in this case, 'wal' probably means the fortified bank of a canal (as defined by Van Dale); in this sense it is also used in other street names in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities. - Lindert (talk) 22:25, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is apparently not the case for the Zwanenburgwal; according to the same article, the original name was Swanenburch-burchwal (p. 16). The term burgwal implies a military function. Iblardi (talk) 08:25, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CC-BY-SA, Example request for a portrait[edit]

Could anyone please have a look at Wikipedia talk:Example_requests_for_permission#Asking_for_a_portrait I don't want to make myself look ridiculous requesting a portrait with my poor english. Thanks -- Cherubino (talk) 14:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The English there is fine. Looie496 (talk) 14:59, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No it's not. "i" in the second sentence should be "I". In the third sentence: "provide us with a usable". The rest is fine, although I prefer "Yours sincerely" as a sign-off. Bazza (talk) 13:36, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vielen Dank! Hope the comma placement is ok. And i didn't know if its "so long as" or "as long as". Can you say "permits anyone" and then continue with "so long as _they_ provide", or does that "anyone" need to be followed by "he/she"? Sorry to be so fussy, but as you know, the first impression counts. -- Cherubino (talk) 17:28, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's fine as American English. A few tweaks would be needed to change it to British English. In the last sentence, "reserve the option" should probably be "retain the right".-Ehrenkater (talk) 15:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]