Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 July 5

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July 5

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Readings of some Japanese Names

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I was wondering how the following Japanese names are read. I'm totally lost except for the first one, which I'm guessing to be Ichiro Yamaguchi...is this correct? Anyhow, they are:

山口一郎

岩寺基晴

草刈愛美

岡崎英美

江島啓一

Any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Krokke (talk) 05:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upon Googling, I found these are names of サカナクション (Sakanaction) members. According to MySpace page, they are read as:
  • Ichiro Yamaguchi
  • Motoharu Iwadera
  • Ami Kusakari
  • Emi Okazaki
  • Keiichi Ejima
--Kusunose 12:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's really helpful! ありがとう! Krokke (talk) 23:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's important to note that the answers you were given are in Western order, while your question was in Eastern order.200.42.217.61 (talk) 20:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh!

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I have wondered this for years. How is the stereotypical Native American "Ugh!" as seen in Western comics supposed to be pronounced? My native Finnish language leans towards /ugh/, with a separately pronounced h sound, but surely this can't be the original pronunciation? JIP | Talk 12:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I mentally said /ʌɡ/ when reading such comics as a child. —Angr 12:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
or [ʌx] with velar fricative. – ishwar  (speak) 16:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine /ɪɡ/. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 16:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's that sound of disgust all or nearly all English speakers make — "uh" with a guttural sound at the end. There's no hard 'g' sound, just like there's no 'g' in "argh". (I'm assuming you mean "native American", and not "Native American", i.e. American Indian.) Paul Davidson (talk) 13:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think JIP is referring to American Indians, whose two most stereotypical utterances in popular culture are "How!" and "Ugh!" As for the pronunciation, I've always heard it rendered (not usually in serious contexts, but in old Warner Brothers cartoons and such) as Angr suggests above. Deor (talk) 14:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am referring to American Indians. The "Ugh!" sound they are claimed to utter is stereotypical enough to make it across to native Finnish US Western comics (see Punaniska), not merely Finnish translations of English-language ones. But I have never heard the sound spoken, so I had no idea of its pronunciation. JIP | Talk 18:52, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, then I concur with Angr's /ʌɡ/. Paul Davidson (talk) 01:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese full moon

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What does "full moon" translate to in Japanese? I know "new moon" is Mika, but I'd like to know what "full moon" is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.30.113.220 (talk) 15:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This would be 満月 (まんげつ in hiragana, mangetsu when romanized). Incidentally, "new moon" is 新月 (しんげつ in hiragana, shingetsu when romanized). --Sky Harbor (talk) 16:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And 三日月 (みかづき, mikaduki, literally "third-day moon") is "crescent moon". Originally, shingetsu ("new moon") referred to mikaduki because in the first and second days of the moon phase, the moon is hardly visible thus mikazuki is the first visible ("new") moon. --Kusunose 17:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One note: the most common romanization is "mikazuki" (which Kusunose used once). "Mikaduki" is an older romanization which isn't used as much anymore as it doesn't give an accurate representation of how to say the word. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's commonly used in Japan as part of so-called "Word Processor Romaji" (Best translation I can think of) because it's the only unambiguous way of typing it on a computer (Since zu gives you ず) I actually can't remember any other way of typing it. tu is also common for つ, di for ぢ, as unhelpful as they may be.200.42.217.61 (talk) 20:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

False to fact

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I gather the expression "false to fact" or "false-to-fact" is a somewhat common expression mainly used in the linguistics area. I have looked for a reasonable definition of this in some reference work but so far I have come up short. From context, I think it means an expression that makes linguistic sense but is contradicted by the factual evidence, but I am not sure. Can anyone help me with this expression? Do we know anything about its etymology?--Filll (talk | wpc) 15:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not a linguist, but I recall this phrase to be connected to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis and Alfred Korzysky Korzybski. He argued that the structure of language forces us to think in factoids which are structurally different to the "real" reality, i.e. they are false-to-fact.
Please take this with more than a pinch of salt and better wait until experts declare my statement to be false-to-fact. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In my few years as a linguistics major I never heard that phrase. Researchers like to come up with snappy phrases so that others will quote them in their work and that will widen the chances of someone buying their book. That's why the better portion of humanities education is learning fancy terms for obvious phenomena. -LambaJan (talk) 23:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Or perhaps the "worser" portion ? :-) StuRat (talk) 02:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arab vocalized transliteration

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Just need a vocalized Latin transliteration for افخارستيا (eucharist), as I found no appropriate web tool. Thanks in advance, --Brand спойт 19:26, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's either afkhaarastiyyaa or afkhaarstiyyaa, where the kh represents a velar fricative (a fricative, like th or s, where you'd normally pronounce the stops k or g). I don't know without the diacritics whether or not there's an 'a' after the 'r' but if there is it's short. You know, it seems more natural to omit it and go with the second pronunciation. Remember that the doubled 'aa's are actually pronounced long, so you'll put the stress on the 2nd and last syllables. -LambaJan (talk) 23:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you can have the cluster "rst" in Arabic...and it's probably "-rist-", since it's just an Arabization of the (modern!) Greek pronunciation of "eucharist". Adam Bishop (talk) 02:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Adam. Wrad (talk) 02:45, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]