Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 August 27

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August 27

Damson Plums

What does it connote in this sentence: 'if you take away my land, you will see damson plums'? Omidinist (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Where did you see that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:37, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Google finds an essay about arson in 18th century France. From my location I only get a snippet here (calling the language "enigmatic"). Maybe from elsewhere you can see more of the book. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

It's a translation from a French source. Someone familiar with French social history may help. Omidinist (talk) 09:53, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

You probably know where it's from, but I'll just share the results of my Saturday morning research. The original French version of the article is here, the phrase is "Si on lui ôtait les terres ... l'on verrait des prunes de Damas", the source is the interrogation of one Surcy Levert, 12 January 1790. From the context, this appears to have been a threat made by the arsonist before committing the crime. There seems to be a legend (fr:Prunier de Damas, with "citation needed") that the Damson plum was brought back by the crusaders and was seen as a rather meagre result of the crusades. Whether this is the connotation looked for is of course not at all clear. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:10, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

What a great help indeed. Many thanks, Wrongfilter. Omidinist (talk) 10:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Grammatically correct

(1) "Senior Workers Registration Arrangement" (2) "Senior Worker Registration Arrangement"

Of the above, which is grammatically correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ciesse 203 (talk • contribs) 09:37, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Both are perfectly grammatical. Depending on the exact situation, there might be a very small difference in meaning between them. Wymspen (talk) 10:43, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Other possibilities:

(3) Senior Worker's Registration Arrangement

(4) Senior Workers' Registration Arrangement

Without context we can't be more specific, but if it's arrangement for registering senior workers no (4) is correct. 213.107.114.104 (talk) 11:17, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

For the plural forms (1) and (4), both can be correct with a slight difference in meaning. (1), "Senior Workers Registration Arrangement", means a registration arrangement with respect to, relevant to, or for senior workers; "workers" in this case is a noun adjunct and thus not in the possessive form. (4), "Senior Workers' Registration Arrangement", has more of an implication that the arrangement belongs to the workers (hence the possessive form). But since the two meanings are so extremely close, either one might be used without the user or reader even thinking about the subtle distinction. Loraof (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Etymology of Katowice

I can't find the etymology of the name of the Polish city of Katowice anywhere. Do you have any idea? --151.41.187.110 (talk) 11:35, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Polish Wikipedia's article on the history of Katowice has a little bit of something, and from what I gathered, the origins are unclear. It might have been derived from a first settler named "Kat", or it might come from the Polish word kąty ("corners/angles"). As I don't speak Polish, but others here do, here is the excerpt in Polish: "Trudno jednoznacznie ustalić pochodzenie nazwy miasta. Prawdopodobnie wywodzi się ona od imienia (przezwiska) pierwszego osadnika: dzierżawcy Kata, bądź od słowa „kąty” - tak nazywano kiedyś chaty zagrodników, pracujących przy wyrębie i przewożeniu drewna do kuźnicy bogucickiej." Hopefully someone else can give you a better explanation. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:26, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Consider the name of London, which seems to have had a pre-PIE origin, which would have been taken over by the Celts, then the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons. The German article says that the first written reference to the town was "Katowicze" in the 1500's. That would imply it was peopled by Western Slavs at the time.

But it could date back to the early Balto-Slavic, the Corded Ware people or to other ante-Proto-Indo-European people. Consider the huge number of city names in the US that have native Indian origins. Look up Pennsauken, which is purported to mean either "tobacco pouch" or "[William] Penn's outlet."

μηδείς (talk) 16:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

on "seems to have had a pre-PIE origin", Medeis. Etymology of London correctly states that Coates derives it from Krahe's Old European, but a note in the latter article specifically warns: "'Old European' in this sense is not to be confused with the term as used by Marija Gimbutas who applies it to non-Indo-European or pre-Indo-European Neolithic Europe.". Not that this affects your argument significantly. --ColinFine (talk) 17:32, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Seriously, Colin? Just google "origin of the name of London". Neither did I bring up Gimbutas, nor does it even matter to my example. The name was kept by the Celts, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxons. (I am not sure if the Normans changed any place names, but you can add them to my list.) I have no horse in the Royal Ascot, and if you have a reference for a PIE or Celtic etymology, I am not stopping you. μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

The Normans preserved most Old English place-names as best they could. Some have c /s/ because the Normans couldn't handle /tʃ/. —Tamfang (talk) 06:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Coates proposes IE but not Celtic *plowonida, Medeis. I assumed your reference to pre-PIE was assuming that 'Old European' meant Gimbutas' pre-PIE. --ColinFine (talk) 12:40, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I should have said "old (lower case) European" or better "a language spoken before the arrival of the IE." I realize that by capitalizing it, one could assume I was making a Gimbutean claim. I agree with her homeland theory, and that it is likely that the trope of princes going off to marry a princess to rule her land is probably a vestige of a transition from a sedentary matrolineal system to a patriarchical system. But I don't throw in with this peaches and cream matriarchical fantasy.

This *plowinda idea seems a bit far fetched. Is he talking about the Nordwestblock? Is there an online source I can read? Thanks.

μηδείς (talk) 18:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Deleted posting from banned user Tevildo (talk) 00:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

So that Ljuboslov's point makes sense, the removed comment suggested -wice mean the same thing as "-wick" in English. μηδείς (talk) 01:53, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

No, it's an atributive suffix (or more correctly two suffixes -ow- plus -ic-), which roughly means "pertaining to". It is a subling of another well-known Polish (and Common Slavic) suffix -owicz, only that -owice is the plural form with a different consonant output (Katowice may have come from the patronymic Katowic, the plural means "the settlement of (or where live or lived) the Katowices"). Both came from Proto-Slavic *-ov-itje, the difference between -c and -cz is an internal dialectal variation within Polish (the latter is thought to be from the Kresy dialects). Some details in Polish[1].--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Could a Polish speaker translate the bit I quoted in bold? I couldn't quite understand the last part, and am not even sure I got the gist of the first part right. Kpalion? CiaPan? Piotrus? ---Sluzzelin talk 23:01, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Not a speaker and never truly learnt the language but just to show how close and understandable Slavic languages may be. The text goes: It is difficult to establish the origin of the town. Most probable is to derive it from the name of the first settler, tenant Kat, or from the word kąt "corner", such were named the houses of the tenants, who cut and transported lumber to the smithy of Bogucica. (Practically, I've used a Polish dictionary only to avoid false friends.) The latter version seems less convincing for me, due to its unexpected phonology (no reasons for the change ą > a).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 00:19, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Alexander Vovin explained on a mailing list once (back in the days when there were such things) that a Russian speaker can understand without having ever studied it any other Slavic language except Czech. Contact Basemetal here 00:42, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Assuming that's referring to the comment found here, "and a linguist" is a rather significant qualification; I'm incidentally surprised that he can deal with Slovak but not Czech. Henry^Flower 09:42, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Could be this one but as I remember it was a much smaller (unarchived) list about Indo-European linguistics going out of UT Austin somewhere and maintained there (though not moderated) by a graduate student whose name escapes me. If so then Alexander Vladimirovich made that observation on at least two occasions. Many people who were on that much smaller list were also on Histling (e.g. Miguel Carrasquer-Vidal, the "Miguel" of your link, and Alexis Manaster-Ramer, the "Alexis" of your link; though Johanna Nichols wasn't so that if I'm correct and Alexander Vladimirovich did make that observation there also then it must have been in a different context). As to why Czech should give him trouble when Slovak didn't, it could be either that the distance between Czech and Slovak, though small, is in the wrong direction as seen from Russia and puts Czech just beyond the horizon from the point of view of a Russian speaker. Or it could be something about written Czech. I've been told that even Czech speakers have trouble with written Czech. As extreme case of diglossia in Czech maybe? (Extreme at least in the context of the modern West.) In any case it is important to note Alexander Vladimirovich was talking about his ability to read the written language. That may be an important caveat, I had completely forgotten about it and it is thanks to your link that I got reminded of it. Contact Basemetal here 16:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

My grandmother from Uzhgorod (formerly of Austro-Hungary, then Czechoslovakia, now annexed by Ukraine) spoke the Rusyn language which is geographically intermediate between Slovak, Polish, and Ukrainian. She had no problem with Russian, the biggest difference being Russian's free stress. Her stress was pretty much fixed on the penult, while Russian stress could be anywhere, and even move around depending on the word's declension, including moving to added suffixes. For example, in Russian, язык, (jazyk) "tongue" is approximately yuhZIHK when it is the subject of the sentence, but it can change to ihzihKYEH when it is the object of various prepositions.

I never asked her about Czech, which has some strong phonetic changes from proto-Slavic and "three", tri, which is pronounced pretty much like "tree" (or better, the way you would say "tri" in Spanish) sounds like "chih", (one to ten in Czech) and out of context I would never have guessed that. Also, the verb systems for the past have been greatly simplified, except in the south, where Bulgarian keeps a rather complex system. A Russian speaker might figure it out, like we can figure out Shakespeare, without being able to produce it without study. μηδείς (talk) 17:47, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@Basemetal: much depends on the background, the experience, the text and the language. People like me who have seriously studied linguistics and Slavistics in particular know quite well how words in one Slavic language correspond to words in another Slavic language, hence they have no great problems in recognizing cognates. Also outside the East Slavic languages I have encountered Polish more often than other Slavic languages. Short texts with a lot of simple words are easier to decipher and to recognize cognates. And after the East Slavic languages Polish seems to be one of the easiest Slavic languages for Russians. Bulgarian has the biggest number of cognates, but the Bulgarian grammar is very unusual and causes much difficulty: even if one may recognize all the words, sometimes it is difficult to put them together and make a sense out of the entire sentence. Serb-Croatian is more distant and less intelligible, Macedonian is in between. Slovenian and Czech are indeed most distant and most unintelligible. The case with Slovak is it's a bridge between the East and West Slavic languages, so being obviously foreign it has much more shared and recognizable elements with Russian than Czech has.
But the majority of common Russians with an average education, who have had problems even with learning English or German in school, could hardly understand anything but Russian. Also the majority of Russians have never been outside of Russia or the FSU, not to mention West or South Slavic countries. Most Russians has virtually had no experience with and never encountered other non East Slavic languages. Simply put, even if a Russian encounter Polish or Czech, s/he might not even be able to read the text as s/he most probably does not know the reading rules.
So in conclusion of my speech, the true answer is: the Russian linguistically savvy people indeed easily understand other Slavic languages, but the commoners Russian common people don't. However, it is a common knowledge that if a Russian, linguistically-savvy or not, come to a Slavic country s/he picks up the local language much more easily than it might be with non-Slavic languages.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:05, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Just a friendly note, @Любослов Езыкин: the word "commoners" as used here is incorrect, if understandable. The proper word is layman, (pl. laymen) which means someone who has not studied a subject. "commoner" means "without rank or title", not a nobleman, unmannered, perhaps a serf or a peasant, and it may be taken as offensive in the wrong context. Einstein was a commoner, Queen Elizabeth is a layman in so far as many sciences are concerned. μηδείς (talk) 19:46, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Medeis: I was hesitating what term to use. I thought that the word "layman" has religious connotations, but right now I've rechecked dictionaries where the second meaning is "non-professional". It wasn't exactly what I wanted to say. The point was not only that such people are not trained in linguistics (but, of course, it is a part of their characteristics), but simply "people from the street", your average "Joe Doe". Maybe, I must've used word combinations like "common people" (hence I thought that the shorter word "commoner" might have a similar meaning; I like shorter words, you know) or "average person". In Russian there is a very good word for that, obyvatel`, which hasn't an exact one-word equivalent in English (though one of its older Russian meanings is exactly "not noble", "commoner"). "Layman" is usually translated into Russian as miryanin that is not a clergyman. "Layman" as "non-professional" is chaynik or diletant (but again, I didn't mean only that). So, as usual, it is often difficult to correlate words and, most importantly, meanings between two languages.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:29, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Любослов Езыкин: Well, what you said is perfectly understandable, the problem is you wouldn't want to go to a conference and say to someone in English, "As a commoner, I wouldn't expect you to understand this," since at best it would be taken as a malapropism, and it might cause offense if the other person didn't know English wasn't your native tongue. Layman (etymology) does originally mean as opposed to the clergy, but it has long come to mean non-specialist, and it would never cause offence. (The Catholic Church refers to the non-clergy as the laity (LAY-ih-tee) "Average" would be acceptible, although not as accurate as what you meant. "Common" by itself just doesn't work at all. The "common man" has a lot of politically correct baggage that makes it best avoided nowadays. μηδείς (talk) 23:16, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

As a Polish speaker, I confirm Lüboslóv's translation. I'll only add that the literal meaning of Kat, the name of the supposed original tenant of the village, is "executioner". The smithy in the village of Bogucice eventually grew into a separate settlement, Kuźnica Bogucka, later merged with the younger village of Katowice. The coat of arms of Katowice still bears an image of a water-wheel-powered trip hammer that was used in the forge of Kuźnica Bogucka. — Kpalion^(talk) 08:35, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

User:Любослов Езыкин's translation above is correct. The pl wiki sentence is sadly unreferenced (I marked it as such). This topic seems to have been discussed by Polish scholars, sadly, their work is offline. I found some citations here: [2]. Google book is at [3] (snippet view, not in LibGen, so sigh. FUTON problem). Another related book would be [4], here I was able to piece together the entry from p.103 of the book: "KATOWICE, miasto wojewódzkie. Pierwszy zapis o nowej wsi Katowice pochodzi z 1598 r. (villa nova Kątowicze). Miasto zostało ustanowione dopiero w 1865 r. Zapis z -ą- z powyższej zapiski, jedyny dotąd znaleziony, i to w kopii, oryginał miał -a-, pozwolił prof. S[tanisławowi] Rospondowi wysunąć tezę, że nazwa brzmiała niegdyś Kątowice i określała pierwotnie miejsce w kącie, na uboczu położone. Więcej jednak przemawia za tym, że nazwa od początku brzmiała Katowice i że pochodzi od nazwy osobowej Kat. N[azwa] os[obowa] stanowiła zapewne przezwisko. Nazwy miejscowe typu Katowice, Kacice spotyka się w nazewnictwie słowiańskim." In summary, this entry states that the oldest mention of the village is Kątowice, which roughly translates as a "corner place" and that is the theory of Stanisław Rospond, but then the entry (presumably attributed and voiced by Kazimierz Rymut) states the more likely scenario is that it was named after somebody named or nicknamed Kat. According to this blog (https://za-staryj-piyrwy.blogspot.kr/2015/05/katowice-etymologia-nazwy.html]) the latter theory can be attributed to historian Witold Taszycki, but I don't have time to do more digging. Pretty much each source notes that there are no good answers, just speculations, based on next to no primary materials. The blog also notes that the assocition with executioner (Polish kat), while common, is almost certainly wrong, and indeed I didn't see any scholar discussing it seriously. The corner and person Kat theories were also mentioned as theories by a speech in parliament by Polish politician ([5]), who also noted the etymology is not conclusive. PS. I hope someone will use this to add some cites to the article, ping me if you need help/clarifications. PPS. Katowice is my hometown :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:30, 29 August 2016 (UTC)