Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 January 13

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January 13

Does modern Hebrew have any punctuation?

I have read before that biblical Hebrew has no punctuation. So, in the Bible all sentences, when translated to English in older versions, would begin with the word "And". Does modern Hebrew have any punctuation? How do Hebrew writers write in their novels if they want to make a character pause or interrupt another character? Do they use ellipses as English writers would do to mark hesitation? 140.254.70.165 (talk) 12:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes it does - see Hebrew_punctuation 196.213.35.146 (talk) 13:19, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

The beginning of sentences with "and" is, to a great extent, a different issue. See vav; in particular, the frequent appearance of the vav consecutive in Biblical Hebrew lends itself to the frequent beginning of sentences with "and". StevenJ81 (talk) 18:28, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Meaning of an obsolete Dutch word 'gom'?

The giant dolls used in processions in Flanders are called "reuzegom". The word is also used in a ditty: "Als de grote klokke luidt, de klokke luidt, de reuze komt uit / Kere weerom, reuze, reuze, kere weerom, reuzegom" etc. (Some videos of the song and the dolls: [1], [2], [3], [4], etc. Not all versions use exactly the same words but reuzegom is used in all of them). It's pretty clear "reuze" must mean "giant" ("reus"" in AN). But what does the "gom" part mean? This is surely not the current Dutch word "gom" (which means "gum") which would be nonsensical here. Could it mean "human being" and be a cognate of Latin "homo"? Would that be compatible with Grimm's law?

Contact Basemetal here 13:13, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Your theory appears to be correct: this article confirms that its meaning ("giant man") refers to the giant doll that was is carried around in Flemish processions and is related to Latin homo. The element -gom has the same meaning in the word bruidegom (bridegroom) - Lindert (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Lindert. The word "reuze" for "reus" must be dialectal. Some versions have "reuske" which literaly means "little giant" but maybe only in Flanders. The AN form is "reusje". (Cf. "manneke" vs "mannetje"). According to the paper the word "reuze" seems to also be used as an adjective. This usage I couldn't find in the standard Dutch dictionaries such as van Dale so maybe that too is dialectal. Digression: As soon as Lindert mentioned "bridegroom" I went to EO and sure enough the "-groom" part has the same origin. Actually the "r" of the English form is spurious. It oughta be "bridegoom" but beginning in the 16th c. that word was probably influenced by "groom" meaning "boy, lad" which has an entirely different origin. There are cognates of that compound throughout Germanic (from EO: Old Saxon brudigumo, Old Norse bruðgumi, Old High German brutigomo, German Bräutigam but not in Gothic, which used bruþsfaþs, literally "bride's lord"). As for using "gom" or a cognate as an independant word outside the "bridegroom" compounds there seems to only be Dutch (maybe: "reuzegom" is also a compound though) and (ironically) Gothic (from Wiktionary: "guma": "guma namin haitans Zakkaius" = "there was a man called Zacchaeus, Luke 19:2). There are also cognate words meaning "human" in the Baltic branch of IE. All those words apparently go back to a PIE word that means "earth" (thence Greek "χθών" and Sanskrit "kṣam", that have preserved the meaning "earth"). If interested you'll get a lot more here but be warned that page (gasp) ignores Dutch entirely. Contact Basemetal here 18:39, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Uncompounded guma means "man" in Old English, as well. Deor (talk) 19:07, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

My bad. Other examples (OFris, OSax, OHG, MHG) at the UT Austin link above. Contact Basemetal here 20:40, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

• "gom-" and "homo" are also related in Russian. Гомосексуалист (gomoseksualist) means a homosexual, or, if you prefer, a homo. But it's not the same homo as above. Merely an accident of etymological history. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:56, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

In the past Russian used to prefer to transcribe European (Latin) 'H' (as used in European languages) with (Cyrillic) 'Г' rather than (Cyrillic) 'Х' which would seem to make more sense phonetically speaking. I have no idea why. This seems to have stopped and now (Cyrillic) 'Х' seems to be used. Contact Basemetal here 01:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Russian words with /g/ have cognates with /h/ in various Slavic languages; and the gamma Г г itself is pronounced /ɦ/ in Ukrainian (which for /g/ uses a modified gamma Ґ ґ). So Russians might well have generalized the idea that "/h/ is how foreigners mispronounce Г". —Tamfang (talk) 01:57, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

They know better now: ru:Холден, Уильям, ru:Клинтон, Хиллари, ru:Хемингуэй, Эрнест, ru:Хайфа, ru:Хёго, ru:Хьюстон, ru:Хусейн ибн Али, ru:C/1996 B2 (Хякутакэ). I've tried to find examples with all Russian vowels (just to make sure) but I ran out of steam. (Still missing: Хы Хэ). Contact Basemetal here 21:20, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Haifa it not pronounced with a /h/ in the source languages (Arabic/Hebrew), so ru:Хайфа is a fairly accurate transcription, more so than the English one. --217.140.96.140 (talk) 20:57, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I did not claim that in any way. But I was (probably) wrong to assume Russian would transcribe from a European transcription in the Latin alphabet instead of going directly to the original script or pronunciation. Still, sometimes it does exactly that, especially it seems for learned vocabulary from Greek (as opposed to religious vocabulary from Greek it would in all likelihood have received through OCS) or it would not transcribe "Homer" as "Гомер" but as "Омирос". (In any case that means examples for Ха, Хё, Ху, Хя, Хы and Хэ are now missing. Please feel free to supply them, y'all.) Contact Basemetal here 14:39, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The Russian transliterations of Israeli toponyms certainly didn't go through a Latin script: compare Haifa→Хайфа (original /ħ/ or /χ/) with Herzliya→Герцлия (original /h/). --217.140.96.140 (talk) 18:12, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm convinced that Герцлия did go through the Latin transcription, most probably in order to harmonize it with the transcription of "Herzl" (see ru:Герцль, Теодор) which is certainly based on the Latin script version. The same thing, btw, happens in English: Mitzpe Ramon but Herzliya. The same Hebrew letter is rendered in two different ways for the same reason. Besides you surely you cannot seriously think that to Russian ears the sound of their Г is a better way to render the pronunciation [h] than Х. If you doubt that look at what they did with "Hillary". The origins of Russian transcriptions of Israeli toponyms do vary: from the Latin script version if the name is based on a non Arabic or Hebrew word or name (as in the case of Herzliya), probably the traditional Russian version originating in the Greek Septuagint or New Testament version (through OCS) for Biblical toponyms (as in the case of Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum) but not invariably: for example the traditional Russian name for the town of Safed is Сафед, but the modern version Цфат used for the modern town is based on the modern Israeli pronunciation of the name, and finally probably from the Arabic or Hebrew pronunciation of the name for non-Biblical Arabic or Hebrew toponyms (as in the case of Haifa) or for those Biblical toponyms where Russian has also adopted an updated version based on the modern vernacular pronunciation (as in the case of Safed, mentioned above). Contact Basemetal here 19:40, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I was disappointed to find that the Russian translation of Ethan of Athos is titled with a transliteration of the English. Ethan is Biblical and Athos is Greek, so I'd expect each to have a standard Russian form. —Tamfang (talk) 00:40, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• The "gom-" in Russian "homosexual" comes from the Greek homos, meaning and cognate with the English "same". It has nothing to do with the Dutch word, or the English terms "goon" and "bridegroom", the second of which comes from a confusion between OE guma "man" and groom, a male servant. The assumed PIE root is *dhghom, whence Greek chthon with an original meaning of "earth[ling]", see also humus. This all results from the complex cosmology of the PIE peoples, who believed in a world of three layers revolving about a world tree. Men lived on the earth, the dead resided below it, and the gods above. Hence the term midgard "middle-earth". μηδείς (talk) 17:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It is not clear why you mentioned "goon". Are you saying "goon" comes from guma? Contact Basemetal here 20:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, to be exact, what I am saying is that consensus is that the groom in bridegroom comes from guma with interference from groom as stable-boy, and that it is considered plausible that goon comes from guma. I suspect this is mentioned in Mallory and Adams Oxford Introduction, IIRC, but I'd have to look around. I'll be free to do that on the weekend, if you ping me. It might also be from Shipley. I see EO disagrees. μηδείς (talk) 22:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

So does the UT Austin page. It doesn't claim to be exhaustive but it wouldn't have overlooked such an interesting example. The -m > -n change is not very usual in English and the first attestation is late. The contamination by groom I wasn't questioning (I'd mentioned it myself) as there doesn't seem to be any other explanation for that 'r', even though it does seem a little disrespectful to the *bridegoom. From Shipley? Kidding. What Shipley? Contact Basemetal here 15:20, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not in Calvert Watkins or Adams and Mallory either. I do remember being surprised when I came across the suggestion, since groom is usually given as the only surviving reflex. μηδείς (talk) 18:14, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Now I'm confused. We were talking about "goon". Correct? Not "groom". Contact Basemetal here 19:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, the original question was about the obsolescent Dutch word Gom which has a known cognate in OE guma and NE (bride)groom. I asserted that I had read speculation that NE goon (E,g., "He and his goons kneecapped the guy") may also be a reflex of the same root (or even a back-borrowing from trade-Dutch!), which the Oxford Introduction to PIE... Mallory and Adams give as PIE *dhegh-, see p 120:

"The word for ‘earth’ (*dhe´gˆho¯m) also underlies the many formations for designating humans, either in the sense that they are ‘earthly’ (and not immortals) or that they were fashioned from the earth itself. Thus for ‘earth’ itself we find OIr du¯ ‘place, spot’, Lat humus ‘earth’, Lith zˇe~me_ ‘earth’, OCS zemlja ‘earth’, Alb dhe ‘earth’, Grk khtho¯´n ‘earth’, Hit te¯kan ‘earth’, Skt ks_am- ‘earth’, Toch A tkam _‘earth’. In the meaning ‘human being’ we have OIr duine ‘human being’, Latin homo¯ ‘human being’ (and the adjective huma¯nus ‘human’), Lith zˇmuo˜ ‘human being’, Phrygian zemelo¯ ‘human being’ and ‘earthly’; it survives also in NE bridegroom where groom < OE guma ‘man’ which was remodelled after folk etymology."

The problem is that I cannot remember where I heard the speculation of "goon" coming from the same source. In English it is only recently attested according to EO and the sources others have given. μηδείς (talk) 04:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Why are there no feminine versions for certain names?

"Peter" does not seem to have a feminine version. I would think the feminine form is "Petra" or "Pedra" or "Pedrita", but I've never really heard of them before. Same goes for "Samuel". The commonly associated feminine form seems to be "Samantha", not "Samuella". Where does the "antha" ending come from? Can "antha" be applied to "Pedr" to make "Pedrantha"? Likewise, why are there no masculine versions for names like Ruth or Esther or Dolores or Ophelia? 140.254.136.179 (talk) 16:24, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

FEMININE FORMS: Peta (English (Australian)), Petra, Petrina (English), Petra (German), Petra (Dutch), Petra (Swedish), Petra (Danish), Petra (Slovene), Petra (Slovak) [5]. --Viennese Waltz 16:30, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. "Peter" means "rock" (Greek petros), and "Petra" would be the feminized version of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:30, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

• Petros is a masculized version of πετρα petra ('rock'). (Jesus called his buddy something like Kephas, Aramaic for 'rock', and the publicity guys put it into Greek. I don't know what gender rocks had in Aramaic.) —Tamfang (talk) 01:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

wikt:ܟܐܦܐ states that Aramaic rocks are feminine --217.140.96.140 (talk) 20:46, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Samuel(l)a exists as a name, just google it [6]. Most of these "why not" questions come down to "that's the way it is". Why would you think that every name would have a masculine and feminine form? Many do, but not all. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:37, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, the Wikipedia article Samantha discusses likely origins and connections to Samantha. --Jayron32 21:10, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The main answer is "chance, and custom". In some languages (eg Latin and Russian) many nouns and adjctives have endings which show their gender; and when one of these is used as a name, it tends to have the ending which matches the gender of the person. Ophelia is one such, and I would expect a male Ophelia to be called Ophelius. (Shakespeare puts an Antigonus in The Winter's Tale, which is presumably intended as a male form of "Antigone".)

But even in Latin, many nouns - and names - do not show their gender obviously. Most of your examples do not do so: eg Samuel is Hebrew "Name of El (i.e. God)" - there is nothing intrinsically male about it as a name. Similarly "dolores" is Latin for "pains", or "sufferings", and happens to be grammatically masculine: there is no natural connection with females. The same applies to most of them. It is nothing more than custom that says that most names are specific to males or to females: for some well known counter-examples, see Joy Morton, Shirley Crabtree and Lionel Shriver. "Robin" is a name which is nearly always male in Britain, but I believe usually female in the US.

Having said that, people sometimes do invent counterparts: I know a Richander and a Ronalda, neither of which name have I ever met anywhere else. --ColinFine (talk) 17:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I wanted to just say accident of history, and maybe soon I'll turn that link blue [7] :) SemanticMantis (talk) 17:46, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Robin Williams, Robin Yount, Robin Thicke, Robin Roberts (baseball), etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

The female version is usually - but not always - spelled with a y instead of an i.

When Evelyn Waugh was romatically involved with Evelyn Gardner they were referred to as "He-Evelyn" and "She-Evelyn". (What is with this mania for wiki-linking everything? And why do I particpate in it?) --Shirt58 (talk) 04:09, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The Spanish feminine names which are grammatically masculine (and even plural!) such as Dolores or Pilar come from a name of the Virgin, "Nuestra Señora/La Virgen de los Dolores", "Nuestra Señora/La Virgen del Pilar", etc. So there is some sort of connection to at least one woman. Other examples: (N.S. de los) Milagros, (N.S. de las) Nieves, (N.S. de las) Mercedes. Contact Basemetal here 19:27, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I assume that most of those women are baptized Maria de los Dolores and the like. —Tamfang (talk) 01:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Browsing articles like Pilar (given name) and Dolores (given name) and picking out hispanophone holders of those names would indicate that you should not probably make such assumptions without actually looking. --Jayron32 02:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect a Wikipedia article to give details of the subject's baptism unless she's royalty. For what little it's worth, those listed include four María del Pilar, one María de los Dolores, two María Dolores – as well as a Pilar Mercedes, which might be considered overdoing it a little bit. —Tamfang (talk) 10:07, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

We have Petra (given name) for a list of some women named Petra. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Good sources for audio of words

Is there a multilingual site that offers audio of words? Basically this is for students learning a foreign language, but also for curious people who would like to know, for example, how some common words sound in different languages.--Llaanngg (talk) 19:15, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried Google Translate? Contact Basemetal here 19:23, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Where does this audio come from? Is that a good source? Notice that often users would be learning the language and kind of unable to evaluate it's quality. --Llaanngg (talk) 19:24, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Its speech synthesis. The quality varies from good (e.g. English (UK), French (France), Dutch (Netherlands)) to awful (Romanian, for example) and I suppose everything in between. I suppose it depends on the quality of the speech synthesis software available for a given language. For many languages you don't get sound at all. You might be able to get more details along with other suggestions at the Computing desk. Contact Basemetal here 19:50, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

See http://forvo.com and "Forvo".—Wavelength (talk) 19:53, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

See http://www.languageguide.org and http://www.logosdictionary.org/childrendictionary.php.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:04, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Those sites are a mess, specially forvo.com. You get lots of different levels of quality. It's difficult to get a learning routine using them.Llaanngg (talk) 15:43, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Commons:Category:Pronunciation? --Terfili (talk) 06:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)