Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 April 27

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April 27

Holocaust survivor

Is it appropriate to use the term 'holocaust survivor' for someone who survived internment but isn't Jewish? Anchoress 01:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on the terms of your definition. The use of the word Holocaust is most often taken to mean the wholesale extermination of the Jews by the Nazis-though the preferred term among Jewish people themselves is Shoah-, and there are some people on that page you have linked, like Tadeusz Borowski, who were not Jewish, and conceivably might not belong there. But we tend to forget that the Holocaust was all-embracing: Poles, Russians and other Slavs were also victims. The very first gassings at Auschwitz were of Russian prisoners-of-war. But the one group of people consistently overlooked are the Sinti and the Roma, who were major targets of Nazi racial policy, as you will discover if you read the page on the Porajmos. There are indeed Holocaust survivors who are not Jewish. Clio the Muse 03:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Clio. Anyone else have anything to add? Anchoress 06:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think the phrase combines two ambiguous terms, but you disambiguated one of them by specifying the survival of internment (and not other forms of persecution). The article on Holocaust states that scholars are divided in whether to include non-Jewish groups that were systemically persecuted and killed during the Nazi regime in their definition of Holocaust. I'm sure some people find one of the definitions inappropriate, but it's a debate I'm uncomfortable with. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

According to the article here, almost the same number of non-Jews died as Jews. Not very well known that though (I wonder what holocaust deniers make of that part of the numbers). I think it's entirely appropriate to use the phrase for non-Jews, provided they were persecuted in the same way, i.e. had a deliberate policy of extermination to survive, not just hard labour or whatever. I couldn't tell you what the politically correct term is though137.138.46.155 07:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Even if it's correct, I think the usage should be avoided unless you have room to explain it, because it will mislead people. --Anonymous, April 27, 2007, 13:55 (UTC).

This is an interesting question. I tend to agree with the sentiment that any person who survived systematic persecution by the Nazis during the Holocaust can be considered a Holocaust survivor, regardless of their religion. Recall that under the Nuremburg laws, a person's race was based on their grandparents; some were considered Jewish even if that is not how they identified themselves. On a related note, I have wondered if someone can be considered a Holocaust survivor if they managed to escape from the Nazis before being interned. For example, my (Jewish) father-in-law's family fled Germany after Kristallnacht and took refuge in Holland. Following the German invasion in May 1940, they escaped again, to England. His father missed the boat and spent the war interned in various camps, making him clearly a Holocaust survivor. But what of the rest of his family? - Eron ^Talk 14:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

"Surviving the Holocaust" would logically involve (a) having been a target of its systematic persecutions while (b) living in a Nazi-occupied or Axis country during WWII. Otherwise, there are expressions such as "Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany/occupied Netherlands" to describe the situation of Eron's father-in-law's relatives. -- Deborahjay 19:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

"if everyone who claims to be a Holocaust survivor actually is one, who did Hitler kill?"--Kirby♥time 14:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The ones who didn't survive? Bielle 02:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the replies, that clears it up a lot. Anchoress 22:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a very difficult question. If the person is neither Jewish nor Gypsy, I would say the person "survived a concentration camp." The term Holocaust is generally thought of as referring to genocide along and not other forms of Nazi barbarity. That said, if a Polish Catholic who survived Auschwitz referred to himself as a Holocaust survivor, I certainly would not question his choice of words. -- Mwalcoff 07:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't the word 'Holocaust' intended to relate specifically to a Jewish experience because of the tie to the offering of holocausts (burning of sacrificial animals, food grains, incense) in Old Testament times? The Germans certainly didn't use it, nor the liberating powers. I think this was a term used by Jews to describe what they went through as a people, thus strictly only applicable to Jewish victims, others were victims of the Nazi death camps/concentration camps, whatever. I think this is a case of imprecision of language to refer to all death camp victims as victims of the Holocaust. The word is a easy shorthand term for the totality of what happened and is therefore applied indiscriminantly but incorrectly to non-Jews. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Killing sparrows (talk • contribs) 04:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC).Jeez I'm always so embarrassed when that bot signs for me!--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 04:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

List of non-digraph English words with "ph" in them?

For instance, in the word "hogshead", the "sh" is not a digraph because it is prounounced "hogs head", not "hog shead". So what I'm looking for is something equivalent to ph, like:

foo-ph-bar would be pronounced foop-hbar, not foo-phbar.--Kirby♥time 14:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

well, you have shepherd. Gets pronounced sheferd by most people in Kenya (imagine what happens to warthog). Drmaik 14:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

There is also 'haphazard'. 'Hiphop' is another one (sometimes, but not always, spelt 'hip-hop'). Skumbag - 酢薫バッグ 14:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

And most people pronounce "diphtheria" with "ph" as "p" rather than "f". - Nunh-huh 14:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

amphitheatre, haphazard, hemphill, loophole, ophthalmology, shepherd, shipholding, upheaval, upheld, uphill, uphaf, uphold, upholstery --TotoBaggins 16:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure about amphitheatre and ophthalmology? I've never heard them without ph=f digraphs, nor do your links mention such a possibility. Is this a regional thing or something? Algebraist 16:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The dictionary does give an "op-" pronunciation for ophthalmology, and in my corner of the world (southeastern USA), most people do say "ampitheatre" (of course, we also write with a pin and drink warter). That said, I think these cases are digraphs in origin, so not what the original poster wanted. My list was mechanically generated. --TotoBaggins 17:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Just as an aside, why not ampitheater? Algebraist 18:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

More grep results: alphorn, chophouse, cupholder, flophouse, Bophuthatswana, Deephaven, hiphuggers, hophead, Imphal, loophole, mophead, saphead, sheephead, straphanger, taphouse, triphammer, vamphorn. Also pH.jnestorius^(talk) 21:28, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the standard pronunciation of 'ophthalmologist' in England is definitely 'op-thalmologist' (I've just tried it here in the office with consistent results). You might hear 'off-thalmologist' but it will sound pedantic. (And, slightly off-topic, what about the non-digraph that is every sub-editor's potential nightmare line-break: 'mishit'.) - RA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.66.229.8 (talk) 11:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Here in Germany a popular word in advertising is Preishit, i.e. "price-hit", but it contains a sequence of letters guaranteed to catch the eye of every English speaker who sees it displayed. —Angr 08:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems most all the 'non-f' pronunciations are for compound words intersecting at an original 'p' and 'h', whereas the 'f' sounds are not--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 04:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Mother Wit

What does this expression mean exactly? Who came up with this term? Can you give examples? --Doug ^talk 14:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

A quick request of Google leads to Ask.com, and, specifically to this: [1]. Bielle 20:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Great! Do you know of specific "mother" wits? I assume quotes by a mother. Maybe something like my mother said

God helps those that help themselves.--Doug ^talk 21:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that "mother wit" is more like having the sense to come in out of the rain than it is about proverbs. I don't think it has much to do with mother's themselves, though they may be the first ones in your life who called you on not having any "mother wit". If it is innate, then we are all supposed to have it, taking it in with mother's milk, perhaps, though that is pure speculation on my part. Surely you have been on the receiving end of "What were you thinking when you . . .?" My grandmother's saying, when we did really idiotic things, was that we did not seem to have been born with the "sense god gave a goose". Bielle 02:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines "mother-wit" as "Native wit, a ready reply; the wit which “our mother gave us.” In ancient authors the term is used to express a ready reply, courteous but not profound." Shakespeare used the expression in The Taming of the Shrew; after much banter between Petruchio and Kate, she asks him "Where did you study all this goodly speech?" Petruchio replies "It is extempore, from my mother-wit." - Eron ^Talk 03:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Motherwit is an old expression for "common sense", which was used by Charles Dickens among others, but which apparently fell out of common use in "standard" English in the 20th century (while still being used in some dialects). AnonMoos 03:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Varieties of certain languages

I'd like to, particularly, focus on Spanish and Portuguese for this question. Actually, I'm not planning to learn them, but I'm just curious. Which variant to choose if I come across languages whose varieties can be very different? It seems that Brazilian Portuguese is quite different. There are a dozen of Spanish accents (?), too.

Are there any factors for considering picking one variant, besides personal preference? I'm most concerned about spelling and pronunciation. I'm worried that the differences would cause a lot of confusion when I even try to learn to speak a few sentences.--61.92.239.192 15:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

As for Spanish, which I know more about, speakers of the Latin American standard varieties can easily understand speakers of standard Peninsular (European) Spanish, and vice versa. I suspect that speakers of Brazilian and European Portuguese can understand each other as well. So you don't need to worry about not being understood by speakers of one variety if you learn another. Your choice of which variety to learn would ideally depend on how and where you plan to use the language. For example, if you plan to speak mainly to Latin Americans, then you would learn a Latin American variety of Spanish. If you plan to speak mainly to Spaniards, you would learn the Peninsular variety. In practice, you typically end up learning whichever variety your teacher speaks, or the variety spoken on the tapes or broadcasts that you use to learn the language. If you are in the United States, this would typically be a Latin American variety. If you are in Europe, you might be more likely to learn a European variety. Marco polo 16:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

As a follow up, I looked up your IP address and saw that you are probably from Hong Kong. The differences between varieties of Spanish or varieties of Portuguese are not nearly as large as the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin, or even between Cantonese and Southern Min (Fujianese) or Hakka. The differences might be more comparable to the differences between different subdialects of Cantonese. Marco polo 19:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The Greek name Ihsous

I understand the transliteration of Ihsous is Iesous (Ιήσους) which is pronounced EE-AY-SOOS. Is the "EE" like a long "eeeee" and the "AY" like the English letter "I" or is it closer to "AH" (like in: Ah, now I get it!)? I understand the Latin pronunciation however was still identical to the Greek "ee-ay-soos" or "Ee-ay-sous." Would the pronunciation then of this be like that of E-I-SOOS even though the English spelling by Wycliffe was IESUS? I understand the letters "ous" they turned into "SOOS" because of it's similarity to the name Zeus. --Doug ^talk 23:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The article Koine Greek phonology gives a good explanation of the pronunciation of the Greek used in the Old Testament. The section on the phonology of Egyptian Greek in the early 1st century explains the pronunciation of Greek around the time of Jesus. Per this section, Ιήσους would have been pronounced /iesu:s/ in IPA, or roughly eeaysoos (in which the "ay" is pronounced as in "say", but without the "y" offglide), though the initial "ee" could have been so brief that the word would have sounded like "yaysoos". By the 4th century, the pronunciation would have been closer to "yeesoos" in English. In Latin, "i" before another vowel was regularly pronounced like the consonant "y" in English. So the Latin "Jesus" would have been pronounced like "yaysoos" in English (again, "ay" is pronounced as in "say", but without the "y" offglide). By the way, neither the Greek nor the Latin pronunciation would have rhymed with the pronunciation of Zeus, which would have been pronounced in 1st-century Greek as /zews/ in IPA, which would have rhymed with something between the upper-class English pronunciations of "close" and "house". Marco polo 02:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

There's an apparent belief among some recent obscurer religious trends that the English name "Jesus" (crude pronounciation indication DZHEE-zuhs) was maliciously altered from the original source (Hebrew/Aramaic Yēšū`) in order to rhyme with "Zeus" and introduce a "J" unknown to antiquity, but that is actually most definitely not the case.

To start with, ancient Greek Ιησους or Iēsous was actually the closest possible adaptation or borrowing of the ancient Hebrew/Aramaic name Yēšū` (yod-shin-waw-`ayin ישוע) into Greek which the rules of the sound-system and morphology of Greek would allow, since the ancient Greek language did not have any voiced pharyngeal `Ayin consonant or palatal sibilant [š] ("sh") sound, and insofar as a [y] consonant sound existed, it was just a non-phonemic variant of the [i] vowel. So there were simply no separate Greek letters for `Ayin, "sh", or "y". And in late Hellenistic Greek, omicron-ypsilon was pronounced as a simple long [u] vowel (the [u] in Yēšū` is also long). And finally, if a noun or name was to be "declined" in Greek (i.e. have distinct forms for at least some of the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative morphological cases), then it needed to have appropriate Greek grammatical endings added on at the end -- and "s" was an extreemly common nominative singular ending for masculine signular nouns. So Iēsous (crude prononunciation indication "yayssooss") was the nearest that ancient Greek could get to Hebrew and/or Aramaic Yēšū` while obeying the rules of ancient Greek grammar. (As "Marco Polo" said above, Iēsous did not in fact rhyme with Zeus in ancient Greek.)

Then Latin Iesus or Jesus (5th declension) was a perfectly normal transcription of Greek Ιησους (with the same basic pronunciation "yayssoos"; note that "I" and "J" were not distinguished as separate letters in the Latin alphabet until around the 18th century). The Latin form would have appeared in a monumental stone inscription as IESVS, but is usually transcribed as "Jesus" in modern use, in accordance with normal conventions. The changes from Latin IESVS to the modern English pronunciation ("y" to "dzh", "s" to "z" indervocalically etc.) are in accordance with the usual historical sound changes affecting words borrowed from Latin through old French to Middle English. - AnonMoos 02:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, just a side remark - Iesus isn't 5th declension, or really any normal declension in Latin, it's kind of a strange 4th declension with only 3 forms (Iesus, accusative Iesum, and Iesu for for genitive, dative, and ablative). Adam Bishop 15:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I meant 4th declension (always get the 4th and 5th confused). It's a Greek-inflected noun, but most resembles the 4th declension among the native Latin inflection patterns. AnonMoos 18:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Appreciate the very detailed answers. Read over carefully and will be studing this further. As an observation I see Zeus of Greek has a genitive: "Dios." This then looks to me combined as E-I-DIOS. Isn't there a Greek word EIDOS? It has something to do with the Theory of forms. This is something like the word nous which also has something to do with the Theory of Forms as well as The Form of the Good. Is there (or could there be) a relationship or connection here? It so happens that the word "Nous" is pronounced to rhyme with "house" (as well as other English languages close to upper-class English of "close"), similar to how Marco polo pointed out of /zews/.--Doug ^talk 12:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Nous didn't rhyme with Zeus in ancient Greek. Zeus/Dios comes from an Indo-European root Dyew- or Deiw- (meaning "sky, heavens, god"), while Eidos comes from an Indo European root Wid- / Weid- (meaning "to see", or in perfect verb stem, "to know"). AnonMoos 14:30, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Doug, you can't just go adding in letters as you feel like, and then saying "Isn't there a connection?" The similarity between 'dios' and 'eidos' is 'd', which isn't much! (The '-os' in 'eidos' is grammatical ending). In some circumstances metathesis can play a role, so two sounds are swapped between related words (such as 'three' and 'third'), but not usually a vowel and a stop consonant. --ColinFine 23:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. There's an article Dyeus... AnonMoos 13:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)