Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 October 30

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October 30

Are there computers that exist in West Africa with a keyboard with any African languages?

Are there computers that exist in West Africa with a keyboard with any African languages? Neptunekh94 (talk) 01:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

There are hardware keyboards by Nigerian Konyin and by Soligsoft.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 03:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Do note that the vast majority of computer users in W. Africa use English and French as their interface language. Senegal might be somewhat different, were Wollof is used in newspapers, etc.. But experiments like N'ko is virtually unheard of on the ground. --Soman (talk) 15:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Why 12:00 noon is 12 p.m.?

--Scoooooorpio（留言） 02:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, technically, it should be 12 m., since the "m" in "p.m." and "a.m." stands for "meridian": i.e., noon. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:08, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Then how to say 24:00. --Scoooooorpio（留言） 04:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

See 12-hour clock#Confusion at noon and midnight. Lesgles (talk) 03:48, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

First, it's ultimately arbitrary. If you are going to split up the day in two halves it has to be the one or the other. Second, absolute noon is a point moment of no duration. The time 12:00 lasts on the clock for one minute after that instantaneous point of no duration. Time mnoves through and past noon. There is never any length of time over which it is noon. 12:00 is not noon. It is the minute that begins at noon. 12:00:00 is not noon. It is the second that begins at noon. So PM does make perfect sense. μηδείς (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem stems from starting with 1 rather than the more natural 0. If we started with 0, then midnight would be simultaneously 0 AM of the day that's starting or 12 PM of the day that's ending, and noon would be simultaneously 0 PM and 12 AM. Then things would make sense.

But because we still use the unfortunate one-based convention, we have the conundrum that 12:01 is clearly post meridiem, after noon, so we call it PM. Then it's hard to explain why we would write 12:00 AM and then a minute later 12:01 PM, so when times are given to the minute, 12:00 PM for noon seems to work more smoothly.

On the other hand, when times are given just to the hour, 12 AM for noon makes more sense, because it's an hour after 11 AM.

So the bottom line is -- never write "12 PM" or "12 AM". Never never never never never. But if someone else writes "12 PM" (the heathen), 95% plus of the time, you can count on that meaning "noon". --Trovatore (talk) 18:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

You're still going to run into the fact that there is no period of time which corresponds to noon. Minutes and seconds are periods of time; line segments of the timeline with varying length. Noon is a point. To specify noon as a point you'd have to say 00:00:00..... with the zeros stretching to infinity. But mere 00:00;00 is not a point, it is a second that lasts a second long. μηδείς (talk) 18:58, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The repeating zeroes are assumed, just as if I say "the real number 3", it's assumed that I mean three point zero repeating. I don't see what the fact that it's a point has to do with anything. Sure, an arbitrarily short time after noon is PM, but by the same token an arbitrarily short time before noon is AM. There's no clear reason to privilege the former over the latter. --Trovatore (talk) 19:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if you need to, you can certainly stipulate that by noon you mean the point of time at which 11:59:59 changes over to 12:00:00. But that still doesn't do away with the fact that the clock characters 12:00:00 signify a second that occurs beginning with and lasting for one second after noon. You could even stipulate that by "M" you mean that point in time. Bven with an arbitrarily precise clock there would never be any actual length of time during which it isn't either AM or PM. And obviously there is no sense in which 12:00:00 could be described as before noon. μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It's just not so that "12:00" means "the minute starting at noon". If you want to account for finite precision and make it a minute, then it would more naturally be the minute where you would round off to noon; that is, from 11:59:30 to 12:00:30. --Trovatore (talk) 19:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting, but then you are defining noon as that minute, rather than defining noon as the point at which the sun is directly overhead. That's putting the measure above the thing being measured. The essence of clocks is to measure periods and intervals and the passage of time. Static instantaneous moments of time are an abstraction. If we stick to the OP's question, we still run into the fact that unless we want arbitrarily to say that that whole minute will be called noon, all of its seconds will either be before or after the point half-way through the sun's course. μηδείς (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I meant "noon" as a single exact instant. I was saying that, if you intend the expression "12:00" as a one-minute interval, that's not entirely outside the range of plausibility, but in that case the range has to be from 11:59:30 to 12:00:30, not from 12:00:00 to 12:00:60. Otherwise you're saying that, if you know an event happened at 11:59:59.0000 exactly, you would report it as happening at 11:59, making an error of 59 seconds, as opposed to reporting it as happening at 12:00, making an error of just one second. That's clearly not the correct thing to do.

Therefore even if you mean "12:00" as a one-minute interval, that interval is still both before and after the midpoint of the day. --Trovatore (talk) 22:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am not exactly sure that (30 sec before to 30 sec after) is common usage. Indeed, with my last employer, if it weren't specified in the contract it wouldn't be accepted as such. You seem to fully understand my point that noon independent of clocks and taken astronomically is a point, and that at least a digital clock with an XX:XX:XX display will necessarily read some number during some span of time, depending on what its smallest display unit is. One can stipulate points, but not mark them with infinite accuracy. If noon is defined as the point at which 11:59:59 the clock transitions to 12:00:00 I think it is also clear why 12:00:00 has to be called PM if AM and PM are the only options. μηδείς (talk) 01:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you're trying to infer too much from what the clock does. You know about 0.999... equals 1, right? Similarly, 11:59:59.999... is the same exact instant in time as 12:00:00.000.... --Trovatore (talk) 01:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, as to what is common usage: I would assert that the common usage is that, in principle though of course not in practice, 12:00 is understood as an exact instant, not an interval of one minute. --02:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Noon is noon, a point in time, that (or at least the word midday) would exist even if we didn't have clocks. 12:00 exists only because we have clocks. The indication 12:00 on a clock (assuming it doesn't show seconds) indicates a period that ideally starts at noon and lasts for a minute. You've got it backwards treating 12:00 as if it has some inherent meaning. It is a question of what is more concrete, and what is more abstract. Timetelling didn't start with the notion of 12pm, and then look for something in reality to correspond to that sign. Regarldess of your opinion, I trust what I am saying is clear? μηδείς (talk) 03:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm not the one guilty of overemphasizing the representation. That's actually precisely what you are doing, not me. I'm talking about time as a measured quantity, with no particular preference for errors in measurement forward or backward. You on the other hand are preferring an upper semicontinous function to a lower semicontinuous function, with no sound justification. --Trovatore (talk) 03:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I just want to reassure μηδείς that what she says about (digital) clocks showing periods rather than points in time makes perfect sense, while I have absolutely no idea what Trovatore is talking about. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I regret that the discussion has focused on this tiny point, not very important. My main point is up higher in my very first response: 12:00 PM for noon makes sense because 12:01 PM is one minute later, but 12 AM for noon makes sense because it's one hour after 11 AM. It would be weird to go from 12:00 AM to 12:01 PM in one minute, but it is also weird to go from 11 AM to 12 PM in one hour. The problem would be resolved very naturally and satisfactorily if only we called it 0 PM instead (and it could also be 12 AM; there is no reason you can't have more than one representation for a single instant).

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. So the best that can be done with the current scheme is just not to use the locutions "12 PM" (or even "12:00 PM") at all, and use 24-hour time whenever possible. 24-hour time is not inherently better than 12-hour time, except that it uses 0 and therefore does not have this problem. --Trovatore (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean to suggest (in the non-24 hour clock system, which does do away with AM and PM altogether) using 0 for both noon and midnight? μηδείς (talk) 18:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, first of all, let me be clear that I have no actual reform project along these lines. Not because it wouldn't be an improvement, but because it's hopeless and I'm not going to waste my effort.

But if I could wave a magic wand: Noon would be 0 PM. It would also be 12 AM. Midnight would be both 0 AM and 12 PM, but with an advantage: 12 PM Monday night would be 0 AM Tuesday morning, thereby eliminating the ambiguity of the current 12 midnight Monday, where you don't actually know whether that means the end of Monday or the beginning of Monday. --Trovatore (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that answers it very clearly. μηδείς (talk) 19:34, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

A further advantage for this admittedly hopeless dream: PM could remain post meridiem, but AM could be reinterpreted as "after midnight". Then it's easy to remember — noon is zero hours post meridiem (after the middle of the day), and it's also twelve hours after midnight. The current ante meridiem doesn't literally work correctly even with the current scheme (for example, what we call 11 AM is not eleven hours ante meridiem, but only one hour). --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Arabic question

The final page of http://yemenia.com/PDF%20Files/issue34/01.pdf has the Arabic for "Yemenia Holidays" - What is the Arabic? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It is the same just in Arabic اليمنية العطلات al-yiminiyyat al-ʿuṭlāt (not sure about vowels).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 03:59, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! WhisperToMe (talk) 04:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Correction, it says اليمنية للعطلات, al-yemeniat lil-atlat. --Soman (talk) 06:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 13:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Northumbria without h-sound

Do I understand aright that the name of Northumbria is a merger of north and humbria in which the h of humbria has been "swallowed" by the h of north and is now vanished without a trace, neither in pronunciation nor anything else? --KnightMove (talk) 20:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I have lived either in or close to the borders of the old Kingdom of Northumbria for almost all my life. I've never seen it spelt other than as above. You hear a variety of pronunciations, including /nɔːˈθʌmbrɪə/, /nɔːˈθʊmbrɪə/ or even /nəˈθʊmbrɪə/, but I've never noticed a /θh/ combination creep in anywhere. - Karenjc 21:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The sequence "hh" does not occur in ordinary modern English orthography unless at a boundary between two compounded stems, each of which retains its own stress ("bathhouse" etc.) -- and in many cases such compound words can instead be spelled with a space or hyphen between the two components. So there's really no way in conventional English orthography to write occurrences of [θh] which do not span the boundary between two compounded elements. So any possible earlier surviving [θh] pronunciation (reflecting Old English "Norþhymbre" etc.) would not have had support from spelling. Sometimes local placename pronunciations are very resistant to influence from spelling (Cholmondeley etc.), but sometimes they're very influenced by spelling, and the letter "h" is often problematic. For example, Topsham "should" be pronounced [tɒpsəm], since it comes from Top's + a reduced form of "home" (where [h] is dropped at the beginning of an internal unstressed syllable, as in "vehicle"). However, it's now often pronounced as [tɒpʃəm], based on spelling. P.S. The person who added the current transcriptions to the "Topsham" article didn't appear to be too familiar with the IPA... AnonMoos (talk) 01:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The one I wonder about, from time to time, is threshold. Personally I pronounce it "thresh-hold" not "thresh-old", and I understand it as something held, rather than something old. So by the "bathhouse" rule, it really ought to be "threshhold", but it isn't. Why not? --Trovatore (talk) 01:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Does it have a real compound word stress pattern (as in "outhouse"), or more of a primary-secondary pattern? Anyway, there's not an [h] sound in that word in Old English... -- AnonMoos (talk) 02:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You are looking at regressive assimilation which is a kind of sound change. It simply happens over time, although spelling pronunciations (off-ten for often, formerly only said /'ɔfən/) tend to counteract such changes. I say thresh-hold myself; my father, in construction, does not. μηδείς (talk) 01:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The second syllable in 'threshold' has etymologically "been altered to conform to hold". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I had assumed it was a compound, but if not then it is folk etymology and not assimilation in that case. μηδείς (talk) 18:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Osteodontokeratic

The article on osteodontokeratic culture says that the word osteodontokeratic is of mixed Latin and Greek etymology. From what I can tell ὀστέον, ὀδών and κέρας are all valid Ancient Greek words. So what makes this etymology mixed? Is there something particularly Latinate in the way those words are combined? 129.234.53.242 (talk) 20:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It's of pure Greek derivation. Somebody made a mistake. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:29, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I was going to say! μηδείς (talk) 01:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Getting used to S‐O‐V.

When I am trying to understand a language that uses a Subject–object–verb order, and I see fragments such as «yo me lavo» or « je me lave », it feels disjointed or confusing, especially if there exist multiple pronouns in the same fragment. I have an unfortunate tendency to re‐read the fragment as Subject-verb-object so I feel more comfortable, but this isn’t an appropriate method to learn a language. So what I am enquiring is, is there any technique I could use so it feels normal for me to read this order? Thanks in advance. --66.190.69.246 (talk) 21:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's just a matter of getting used to it. The best thing you can do is, go live in Spain or France (or Mexico or Quebec) and talk to people enough that it sinks in. If that's not really an option, then read stuff, watch stuff (lots of cable channels, especially in Spanish), listen to stuff. --Trovatore (talk) 23:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, neither Spanish nor French is SOV; they just have a few SOV constructs involving pronouns. Their basic pattern is SVO, just like English. --Trovatore (talk) 23:02, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

This. Latin is SOV; French is very much SVO. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

You could English sentences to SOV rewrite. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

There's a significant amount of SOV in Shakespeare.

“ Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,... ”

Macbeth, Act II, Scene 2

--Trovatore (talk) 00:21, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

It comes easily with practice, and I would also suggest practicing on English sentences, as Pp.paul.4 to you suggested. μηδείς (talk) 01:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Or just listen to Yoda for a while. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

No, Bugs, Yoda is OSV, not SOV. "Your father he is". --Lgriot (talk) 13:14, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect Yoda is OV constituent order with fronting of the topic (linguistics) for emphasis. I hear Disney is having Alec Guiness resurrected for Episode 7, he will know. μηδείς (talk) 15:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

There is no object after (or before) a copula, Lgriot. A better example would have been "The Force, you must use", which is actually identical word order to many forms of spoken and written Japanese (except that the pronoun would be left out, and only used for emphasis or clarification of context). This fronting, that Medeis speaks of, happens in Japanese, and also Hungarian, as well as English, in some cases. "Tea, I asked for", when brought a cup of coffee instead of what you ordered (tea), is a perfectly normal response. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

As Medeis says, it comes with practice. I am a Japanese translator by profession, and Japanese is SOV (when written - spoken word order is free in some situations). When I was a kid, I learned speed reading. There are many different ways to do this, depending on the person and one technique I chose was to read sentences backwards (and whole paragraphs). This works really well for me, because I understand the point of the paragraph more quickly. Funnily enough, this also works for me when translating Japanese at high speed, as I need to know what the verb is in a 50-word sentence, and what all the objects are, so I translate it by reading backwards. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:08, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

As for advice, there is absolutely no substitute for constant practice of saying conjugations out loud to learn the verb. Emphasizing the object when you say the conjugation will help, since English tolerates the motion of constituents more when they are stressed. I would practice both:

Yo ME lavo

Tú TE lavas

El SE lava

Nosotros NOS lavamos

Vosotros VOS laváis

Ellos SE lavan

as well as

Yo ME lavo

Yo TE lavo

Yo LO lavo

Yo NOS lavo

Yo VOS lavo

Yo LOS lavo

and

Tú ME lavas

Tú TE lavas

Tú LO lavas...

etc., for all the possible combinations and for many verbs. Point with your finger to yourself and an imaginary it, and you, and so forth to correspond with the subject and object as you say them. Use spoken emphasis on the object as a trick to learning it only until it becomes easy and natural; there would never be any stress there in normal speech, since those pronouns are clitics. μηδείς (talk) 16:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)