User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 10

New ref template

I don't know if you've noticed, but An Foclóir Beag is now at teanglann.ie, so I've added {{R:ga:FB}} for it. It's a trivial tweak from the Ó Dónaill template, with the same usage. I'm not sure it adds much value over referencing FGB alone. So it goes. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 06:18, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

@Catsidhe Yeah, I noticed, but I'm not sure what value it adds, especially since the entries are defined in Irish, meaning it isn't much use to English speakers. Does FB have any entries that Ó Dónaill doesn't? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:58, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know of any, but I could be wrong. Does it add anything? I don't know. Besides another point of attestation, but then it's not really independent of FGB because it shares an editor. There's another version of An Foclóir Beag which I like because it puts the full declension tables inline for easy checking, but there's the Grammar tab now on Teanglann. As for the "it's not in English" objection, that's not a fatal flaw: we on the English Wiktionary use French/Latin dictionaries, not to mention Le Trésor de la Langue Française and similar official dictionaries in their own languages. (There must be a better term for a dictionary entirely in the language it's describing, as opposed to one designed for speakers of another language.) I'm philosophically attracted to at least mentioning a words meaning in a dictionary in its own language: it's like the Computer Science idea that a computer language isn't really ready until its compiler can be written in that language. I "was bold", and it's not particularly harmful, and it can be easily deleted, and I've had a brain made of cheese recently, so it's entirely possible I simply screwed up by including it. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 08:35, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply you had screwed up by adding it or that it's harmful or should be deleted. I was just explaining why I hadn't already made a template for FB myself! :) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:40, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I guess the other reason I didn't make a template myself is that if you click on the template for the Irish-English dictionary, the Foclóir Beag tab is right there, easy enough to click on. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:09, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

pśigótowaś

"pśigót ‎(“preparation”) +‎ -owaś" - i mean this is error. I mean, that right is pśi- + adjective gótow + -owaś. --Palu (talk) 10:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

@Palu, wouldn't that be pśigótowowaś then? One "ow" from gótowy and one from -owaś? Anyway, this isn't Wikipedia and we don't use the "fact" tag. If you want to bring up the possibility of an error in an etymology, the place to do it is the Etymology scriptorium; for everything else related to a specific word the place to go is the Tea room. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

pśigótowaś reminds of Czech přihotovit, which I would spontaneously parse as při- + hotovit, in part since "hotovit" also means prepare; in Czech; *přihot is not anything, AFAIK. Not terribly conclusive; just a remark. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Lower Sorbian really does have a noun pśigót, though, as well as a verb gótowaś, so it's hard to tell the difference between pśi + gótowaś and pśigót + owaś. I suppose it's possible that pśigót is a back-formation from pśigótowaś; I just don't know enough about the history of the terms to be sure. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Compare przygotować - it is from gotować with przi- and gotować is not from gotow. Maybe pśigótowaś is not from gotowy, but i mean that it is neither from pśigót. I mean that pśigót is from pśigótowaś not reversely. --Palu (talk) 15:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I've changed it to be from pśi + gótowaś but for the life of me I don't see how anyone can tell the difference. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Laster etymology

I see that you've got pretty solid knowledge of German yourself. This was my (unprovided) source http://www.dwds.de/?qu=Laster. --ReordCræft (talk) 20:38, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; that says exactly the same thing as Kluge. What neither of them says, but which seems likely to me, is that *lahstrą is a conflation of *lahtrą (> leahtor) with *lahstuz (> lǫstr). 20:42, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

pastor and priest

You're Irish, aren't you? :) Well, anyway, maybe you know: Our English definition for pastor says it is a "minister or priest in a Christian church". The German words Pfarrer / Pastor mean a "minister or priest who heads a parish". The distinction might be somewhat less obvious in Protestantism, that's why I'm asking you about the Catholic usage. I'd suppose that, as in German, a priest is a member of the clergy, while a pastor is a priest who heads a parish. Is that correct? Kolmiel (talk) 22:54, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The definition in the Catholic encyclopedia is: "Pastor - A priest who has the cure of souls, that is, who is bound in virtue of his office to promote the spiritual welfare of the faithful by preaching, administering the sacraments, and exercising certain powers of external government".

Not all priests have pastoral duties (assignments, offices), but a junior priest in a parish could, I think be called pastor. I think also that some terms in the definition would probably have to be read in the special sense in Catholicism rather than more ordinary meanings, eg, priest, cure or cure of souls and government or external government. DCDuring TALK 23:07, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm neither Irish (I'm just interested in the language) nor Roman Catholic (I'm Episcopalian/Anglican), but my understanding is that referring to an RC parish priest as pastor is more common in some English-speaking countries than others. I'm sure I've heard American Catholics refer to their parish priest that way, but other Catholics rejected the term, saying only Protestants use it. Protestants (including Low Church Anglicans) generally reject the term priest as they consider it part of the Catholic approach to Holy Communion that treats it as a form of sacrifice, including terminology like priest and altar that can be associated with pagan animal sacrifices, so they prefer terms like pastor and Lord's table. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:44, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Cure of Souls - Technically, the exercise of a clerical office involving the instruction, by sermons and admonitions, and the sanctification, through the sacraments, of the faithful in a determined district, by a person legitimately appointed for the purpose. DCDuring TALK 11:53, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, okay, I was a bit imprecise. It's true that there are also "junior pastors", who do not head a parish, but they are appointed to one. The main idea is that priests who work, for example, in the administration of a diocese aren't pastors. So, I guess the use is roughly the same as in German.

Among German Catholics, Pastor is not a very common word either. It's used only in some regions and sounds a bit Protestant; so that's the same, too. The normal word is "Pfarrer". What do those English-speaking Catholics who reject the word "pastor", call their parish priests? Just "priest"? Kolmiel (talk) 17:58, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

PS: Interestingly, Dutch pastoor is a markedly Catholic-sounding word, as I've been told. The Protestant word is dominee. Kolmiel (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, not having engaged in conversations about priests as an insider for a long time. I suspect they use circumlocutions. After all, people talk more about individual priests than about the generalization. DCDuring TALK 18:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I suspect they'd just call him their priest or, if necessary, their parish priest. I knew a Protestant German theology student once who used "parish priest" as his go-to English translation of Pfarrer until I told him that him that English-speaking Lutherans don't call themselves that. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:17, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Last question: When you say "individual priests", do you mean that people will say something like "Father + name"? I think I've heard that more than once in films. Because in German it is more common to say "der Pfarrer (/Pastor)" and, as an address, "Herr Pfarrer (/Pastor)", instead of using a name. Kolmiel (talk) 19:58, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

When I was young it was "Father [last name]"; now it is often "Father [first name]", at least in the US, probably since Vatican II. DCDuring TALK 21:09, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again. Kolmiel (talk) 22:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

iron

Is there a reason for the *h₁ésh₂r̥ etymology being favoured on Wiktionary? Or is the explanation self-explanatory enough? Hillcrest98 (talk) 05:05, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

• Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/īsarnom lists both possibilities. Both have difficulty accounting for the long vowel. Semantically I'm not super convinced by either one. Iron isn't red until it rusts—there's a reason they're called blacksmiths and not redsmiths; and it's too ordinary and everyday a material to be holy or supernatural. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:42, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I don't think any satisfactory answer will ever be found. Hillcrest98 (talk) 00:50, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

hope

What would be a modern/current example of the sense you edited? It does seem obsolete to me. Equinox ◑ 18:54, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I found some modern usages at b.g.c, though they do tend to be religious in nature, e.g. [1], [2], [3]. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:12, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Recent etymologies

@angr Further to your recent edits, I have downgraded my edit on nant's talk page, regarding its possible link with Spanish NANSA, since you have come up with a relevant Gallic lexeme, since I know of no connection between Gallic and Iberian. However, regarding RUD and RUDDY, there does need to be Germanic lexemes containing an initial 'u' to substantiate the proposed root of RUDJANA. It is important not to set aside the possibility of hybrid origins of Old English words, considering that the Celtic population was not completely wiped out. The 'u' in the phonology is not Germanic but Celtic as in the comparisons! The strong verb RĒODAN (to be red) is Germanic, however. Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 12:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)Andrew

OE rudian is in Bosworth-Toller. The u vocalism is straightforward zero grade in Germanic as well, as in rudu and *rudjaną. The Celtic words, on the other hand, don't show zero grade at all; they go back to Proto-Celtic *roudos, which can be from either the full grade *h₁rewdʰ- or the o-grade *h₁rowdʰ-. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

@angr Thank you for replying so promptly. What has concerned me is the number of assumed Germanic roots where their supposed derivatives do not even exist, apart from in OE. I shall use Bosworth-Toller for comparisons in future! Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 13:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)Andrew

As a general rule of thumb, inheritance from Proto-Germanic is usually more likely than a borrowing from Celtic. The fact that Old English is the most widely attested of the old Germanic languages means that sometimes it's hard to find cognates in other Germanic languages. And even Celtic loanwords (e.g. brock) may have been borrowed into other Germanic languages. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Your initial sentence is completely essential to realise. When you refer to 'loanword', I understand you to mean words drawn in from a Celtic vocabulary into Anglo-Saxon, because brock is about the most notable lexeme that via Old English has been handed down from the Celts. Relating to similar words being handed down in other Germanic languages, that is quite obvious, and down and also dun are familiar examples of these; Danish tudse (toad) is also an example of a lexeme, except here it is carried through from pre-Celtic. There are still a significant number of words that have not been assimulated into the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, as used merely among the servants' classes. Am not sure whether most etymologists take this into account. Kind Regards. Andrew H. Gray 15:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)Andrew

Ogórek vs ogurek

Read here for Polish: http://obcyjezykpolski.pl/jak-ogurek-stal-sie-ogorkiem/: the ó in this language is non-historic. I guess ditto for Sorbian. Also the German etymology dicos claim it came from Polish into German. Not important, just FYI.

Zezen (talk) 16:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I can't read Polish, but I do know that Polish ó and Lower Sorbian ó have totally different origins. Polish ó comes from an o that was previously long in certain environments, while Lower Sorbian ó comes from an o that occurs after a noncoronal consonant and before a coronal consonant. I'm aware that German Gurke comes from Slavic, but the point is that the Lower Sorbian word pretty much has to come through the intermediary of German in order for the phonology to work out. If Proto-Slavic *ogurъkъ had been inherited into Lower Sorbian directly, it would have become *wogurk, not górka. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It makes sense, thank you. So possibly Greek -> Old Polish -> German -> Sorbian. Zezen (talk) 13:03, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, something along those lines. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

wholly

How exactly does the distinct pronunciation work for this? Does it indeed sound almost like "haw-ull-lee" or something like that? Tharthan (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

In wholly, as in (w)hole and any number of other words where the GOAT vowel is followed by a tautosyllabic /l/, the diphthong begins at /ɒ/, i.e. in the same place as the RP vowel of hot. In holy, and most other GOAT words not followed by tautosyllabic /l/, the diphthong begins at /ə/. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:42, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

So the distinction is be something like wholly /ˈhɔəl.li/ almost? Tharthan (talk) 14:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The transcription Wells uses for wholly is /ˈhɒʊli/. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I see, so it's a purely vowel-based distinction, then. See, I thought that there was some change in the quality of the l in that it would go from dark to clear in such a case. So that it would be something like [ˈhɒʊl.ɫi]. Perhaps I was mistaken. Tharthan (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

As I understand it, the l is light in both words. There's no geminate [l]. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

"Square" vowel

Listen, Angr, there is a reason why the Received Pronunciation transcription for the vowel of Mary and the vowel of square are the same. If you had come from a dialect which didn't have the merry, Mary, marry merger, you would understand the ridiculousness of transcribing any word final /ɛɚ/ as /ɛɹ/. The latter is an impossibility in the English language, at least in dialects which lack the merry, Mary, marry merger. I have, previously, demonstrated the literal sound that that transcription would entail, and it simply is not one which ever ends a word in the English language. The fact that you don't recognise what a literal word final [ɛɹ] would sound like, and how it is not a sound that ends any English language word, is not my fault. And if you do recognise that [ɛɹ] (that is, the "bet" vowel with an r at the end") is not a possible final sound for English language words, then please don't try to claim that /ɛɹ/ is a "loose" and "fair enough" transcription of the sound, when the actual sound ranges from [ɛɚ] to [eɚ] to [eɹ] of all things. /ɛɚ/ is the loosest transcription, and is the transcription used for the vowel in "Mary"-vowel words already. Tharthan (talk) 15:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm writing on your talk page right now. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

*h₃okʷ-

Hi Angr. I requested the Proto-Indo-European *h₃okʷ- (the "o-grade" of *h₃ekʷ-?) because the dual form *h₃okʷih₁ is supposedly the etymon of the Ancient Greek ὄσσε (ósse). Since the entry for *h₃ekʷ- currently lacks a declension table, can you explain to me how all these forms fit together, please? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:35, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I never really learned all the details of PIE nominal inflection and where which grade shows up. In this root, life isn't made any easier by the fact that not one daughter language shows different reflexes for *h₃okʷ- and *h₃ekʷ-; they're indistinguishable. Formally, ὄσσε (ósse) could just as easily come from *h₃ékʷih₁ as from *h₃ókʷih₁. CodeCat knows much more about where to expect which grade in declension paradigms than I do. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:58, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Well, can *h₃ékʷih₁ and/or *h₃ókʷih₁ be given an entry or entries? (Also pinging CodeCat.) — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:16, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Since *h₃ekʷ- already has a Noun section, my inclination would be to redirect them there. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:44, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

OK. I've done that. Thanks. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:35, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

rhymes

I’m curious, do you think that there are any languages that should never have rhyme pages? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 06:53, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Not really, but there are some languages that it would very difficult for, like Irish, which has multiple dialects and no standard pronunciation, so it would be a real pain keeping track of which dialects which rhyme with which in. And I wonder about the usefulness of rhyme pages for languages whose poetic tradition follows different rules for rhyme than English does. (There is such a thing as rhyme in American Sign Language, for example, but since it doesn't have spoken syllables, obviously the way its rhyme works is nothing at all like English.) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:25, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Lemma forms for Celtic languages

Could you add any rules regarding lemma forms in Celtic languages (that you know of) to Wiktionary:Lemmas? Thank you! —CodeCat 17:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

@Angr: Re your additions, unless I'm very much mistaken, the lemma for the adjective should be the absolute (singular masculine) form, the noun usually the singular but the plural in cases where the singular is a derived singulative, and the verb the first-person singular non-past form (the verbnoun isn't a true verb). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

You mean Sanskrit adjectives, Welsh nouns, and Welsh verbs? It's true that the plural is the lemma form of Welsh nouns when the singulative is derived from it. But as far as I can tell, all our Sanskrit adjectives have the bare stem as the lemma, not the nominative singular masculine, and all our Welsh verbs have the verbal noun as the lemma. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant all that to refer to Welsh. Welsh verbs shouldn't be lemmatised at the verbnoun (since it isn't a true verb), they should be lemmatised at the first-person singular non-past form (which is what Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru does). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:30, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that the verbal noun "isn't a true verb". It isn't a finite form, but neither is the infinitive in languages that have one. But it does everything that nonfinite verb forms do, such as take a direct object and get modified by an adverb rather than an adjective. And in modern spoken Welsh, it's almost the only form of non-auxiliary verbs that's ever used, since all inflectional information is carried by auxiliaries like bod and gwneud. As for Welsh adjectives, WT:Lemmas already says that the lemma of an adjective is usually the masculine singular form, so Welsh doesn't need to be explicitly added to the list. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:00, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Khmer manual transliterations

Hi,

Please don't remove manual transliterations as yet. Maybe Frank gets around and fixes it (if it's possible). Thai transliterations for defined terms may be removed, IMO, only if they use {{th-pron}}. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:46, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

@Atitarev: OK, I won't. Can you fix it so that the automatic Thai transliterations are in roman instead of italic? All other transliterations—both automatic and manual—are in roman when {{t}} and {{t+}} are used. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:11, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not running this show, just using the module. It uses the same italic romanisation everywhere. I guess, we can ask @Wyang, Octahedron80, kc_kennylau, could you try making the transliteration to appear normal in {{t}}, {{t+}}, {{l}}, please?--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Should be fixed. --kc_kennylau (talk) 13:35, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

@kc_kennylau Hi Kenny. Thanks but something else has changed. The defined terms show old manual transliteration, not the new one, from entries. Cf. บางที (th) (baang tee), บางที (th) (baang-tii). The first example shows "baang tee". Before it was using "baang-tii", which is still showing in italics in the second example. The pronunciation from {{th-pron}} in defined entries took precedence. Which module did you change? @Wyang, Octahedron80 as well. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@Atitarev: I don't think the automatic transliteration took precedence. As you can see, when you provide a manual transliteration, it uses the manual transliteration instead of the automatic transliteration. --kc_kennylau (talk) 12:05, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@kc_kennylau I mean the automatic (correct and currently standard) transliteration took precedence before your change. (It shouldn't take precedence for monosyllabic undefined terms, though, which may be incorrect). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:09, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@Atitarev: I think I might have misunderstood your request. --kc_kennylau (talk) 12:10, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@kc_kennylau Angr and I only asked to show normal (not italicised) Thai transliterations in {{t}}, {{t+}} and {{l}}, no other change. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:13, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

xéirifít, úránagrafaíocht

Is either of these a good enough ref to restore the word? - -sche (discuss) 15:43, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Probably not. One is from tearma.ie, which is the responsibility of Foras na Gaeilge, which regularly coins words for Irish that may or may not see any real-world usage. The other is from acmhainn.ie, and I have no idea who's responsible for that. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:50, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@-sche: I've restored xéirifít on the basis of its presence in a 1977 print dictionary (see References on the restored page). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:04, 17 March 2016 (UTC)