Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 15

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January 15

Romaji

I was reading the romaji article and I was a little confused as to the extent that it can render Japanese. Is it just a poor substitute for foreigners or can it write Japanese with all the same nuances as kanji/hiragana? Hypothetically could romaji completely replace kanji/hiragana in all written Japanese without much problems? I am not asking for predictions on if it will, just if it is technically possible. Voidvoidvoidvoidvoidvoid (talk) 11:48, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Romaji could be used hypothetically as a substitute for the local writing system - this is why it exists. However, the reader would need to know the context in order to read it, which for Japanese speakers such as myself, would not be difficult. Many Japanese words do have the same pronunciation, but that also happens in every language. Romaji is perfect enough for transliterating Japanese. Romaji is very often used in Japan, anyway, and not just for foreigners. Learning to read Japanese is not difficult, by the way. Think about it - even their children can. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

KageTora -- Japan has an admirable literacy rate, but that doesn't change the fact that the Japanese writing system is one of the most complex currently used to write a living language... AnonMoos (talk) 18:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I was not talking about its complexity, I was talking about this foreign learners' point of view that it's apparently difficult. Complexity and difficulty are two different concepts, I believe. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:15, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Voidvoidvoidvoidvoidvoid -- Romaji can be made an exact reversible transliteration of the Hiragana/Katakana syllabaries if all long vowels are marked clearly, it's never ambiguous as to whether "n" begins and ends a syllable, etc. However, using only katakana and hiragana to write Japanese can be problematic, since there are a large number of homophones in the Sino-Japanese vocabulary. AnonMoos (talk) 18:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

But then presumably, these ambiguities exist when you speak, also? If a Japanese person were to read a text written in Kanji+Kana to other people, and they cannot see the text and the punctuation, they would still understand the text, right, so, Romaji is not more ambiguous than Japanese being read aloud? --Lgriot (talk) 19:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Not at all. If the person you are talking to understands the context behind what you are talking about, it is generally guaranteed that the person you are talking to will know what you are saying - this is why the language still exists. If it was incomprehensible, it would be changed. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:15, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. The same goes for English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, French etc. I never understand this fallacious "ambiguity argument". Speakers perfectly resolve language ambiguities while hearing, they'll do this no less perfectly while reading (if we imagine phonemic spelling for the languages mentioned). We just are so greatly accustomed to the current writing system so we think that we could not live without it as it is.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the homophony in Japanese or Korean to the full extent. Those words borrowed from Chinese had tones which are non-existent in Japanese nor Korean. In addition to that many sounds also merged when borrowing. This is not like European languages where a written word can only have about two meanings. You see why Vietnamese, which uses Latin letters nowadays, are full of diacritics. A Latin alphabet doesn't make it easier. I generally think it's good to make the language easier, but look at Chinese simplification. On one hand, foreigners want Chinese to be easier (I once read a blog where someone complained that there are no spaces in Chinese, but the author didn't consider that Chinese doesn't have clear word boundaries; if you add spaces, you would add rules when to put one too which would make it even more difficult), but on the other hand, anti-Chinese government people cry all the time because culture is lost and that the Chinese language has been "raped". And suddenly it's okay to keep the language complicated because it's against Communists. However, what the large anti-Chinese propaganda community on Youtube (I know the organization behind all this and they even admitted to me what they are doing, so please don't believe their biased reports without knowing the background) doesn't tell you is that simplification was already planned even before the Communists seized power and that the Nationalists on Taiwan just couldn't follow what their enemies did after they lost the war. So either way, you can't make people happy. --2.245.154.64 (talk) 01:36, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Japanese does actually differentiate between words in intonation, by the way. I've been speaking the language for more than 20 years. Words will be understood by context. This is what I am saying. If someone said to me (or even wrote in romaji) 'sora wo mite! ano dekkai kumo ga kuroi yo! kowai! ame ga furisou....!" I wouldn't take it as "Look at the sky! That huge spider is black! I'm worried! It looks like it will be dropping candy on us....". It's obvious from the context that the person is talking about a cloud, not a spider, and rain, not candy. As for spaces, in Euro languages, the spaces are in fact a recent innovation. Classical Latin never used spaces, Ancient Egyptian never used spaces. Cuneiform never used spaces. EveninEnglishwedon'tactuallyneedthemtobeabletoread. People didn't seem to have any trouble understanding in those days. As for the simplification of the writing system of Chinese, the Japanese actually adopted in (in part). Korean doesn't even use Chinese characters - their writing system is phonetic - and they find it perfectly easy to read even homophonic words in context. Also, in English, the word 'lead' has two pronunciations: one is for the metal, and one is a verb (same pronunciation also used for the line that attaches you to your dog's neck when you go for a walk). The past tense of that verb ('led') is pronounced the same as the metal, but in context we can easily understand what is meant. I don't see what the problem is. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 04:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Guys -- obviously ordinary basic spoken colloquial Japanese is not excessively plagued with ambiguities (since the nature of human language as a communicative system would not allow this). However, there are scholarly or technical styles of writing which are densely-packed with Sino-Japanese vocabulary (some Japanese book titles consist only of kanji, with no kana at all), and Japanese speakers without special expertise in the particular subject-matter area would probably often have little chance of understanding such works if they were written in kana only. For some explanation, see Chapter 9 in Writing Systems by Geoffrey Sampson ISBN 0-8047-1756-7.

KageTora -- Korean preserves much more of the pronunciation contrasts of Chinese in its pronunciation than Japanese does (in fact, sometimes Korean preserves contrasts of older Chinese which have been merged in modern Mandarin), so its situation is not very parallel with that of Japanese. Also, I'm not too sure what you mean by "intonation". The standard Tokyo dialect of Japanese has a kind of pitch-accent system, but this has a low "functional load" in lexical contrasts, and many other dialects of Japanese have a different system, or omit pitches altogether, without creating much difficulty of comprehension. It's not at all similar to tones in Chinese. AnonMoos (talk) 15:23, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

It wasn't me who brought those subjects up - I was replying to an IP, and what you have just said actually agrees with what I said. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 16:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

A discussion of romaji wouldn't be complete with out mention of the "ローマ字日記" (rōmaji nikki - "Romaji Diary") of poet Takuboku Ishikawa. He wrote his diary in romaji so his wife wouldn't be able to find out what he was really thinking. That was over 9,000 more than 100 years ago; it wouldn't happen today. (Yes, yes, the obligatory "that's the sort of thing I was reading instead of studying the Tōyō Kanji", etc, etc.)--Shirt58 (talk) 04:00, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

So would these "scholarly or technical styles of writing", when read aloud, be harder to understand in Japanese due to ambiguity compared to the corresponding English? (for native speakers of the respective languages, I mean) 81.132.196.237 (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

The audience would generally have a reason to be at the lecture (e.g. academics), and therefore would know the context, so, no. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 01:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Then again we see the fallacy of the "ambiguity argument". If anyone with previous experience and knowledge can understand Japanese technical writing while it is being read aloud, there is no reason that s/he couldn't understand the very same texts while simply reading in phonemic spelling. We think it is impossible because we (they) never did this and got stuck to traditional writing. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:05, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily follow. There could be more clues to phrase and word boundaries in spoken Japanese than in all-kana writing. Indeed, I have been told that native speakers do find it difficult or tiresome to read complex texts in kana only. 109.151.61.151 (talk) 01:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Bear in mind, many government texts have always been, and still are, written entirely in katakana. This is important stuff, and people who know about what the text is supposed to be about can understand it with no problem, beacause it is intended for them, and not some random guy off the street. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

It's a fallacy that is also joked about in Japan, but joked about because it is not really a serious problem. For example, a guy goes to an interview, and is asked "kagyou wa nan desu ka?", and he replies "ka ki ku ke ko." 'Kagyou' in this context is 稼業, which means 'occupation' (he is asking 'what is your occupation?'), but the guy in the joke mistakenly thinks it is か行 which is the line of syllables in hiragana/katakana beginning with 'k'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Can "invention" and "discovery" be used interchangeably in this situation?

Say a team of scientists has fused a new atom, however unstable that may be. In such a situation, can "invention" and "discovery" be used interchangeably? It makes sense that the scientists invented it, because it did not exist before. It also makes sense that the scientists discovered it, based on empirical evidence. 140.254.136.154 (talk) 18:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Would such a thing ever occur in nature without human involvement? Would we say that grandfather clocks, birth control pills or meat pies were "discovered"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:21, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Birth control pills may take on the form of excess estrogen due to pregnancy or a genetic anomaly. 140.254.136.154 (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thus making birth control pills an invention which mimics that biological process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

(e/c) If something spontaneously happens within the body due to genetic factors, that can hardly be said to be a "birth control pill assuming a different form". The raw ingredients of birth control pills may well occur in nature, but the pills themselves do not. They need humans to manufacture them into that exact form. Same with grandfather clocks and meat pies. Even with your fused atom, it's not a discovery, not even if such a thing does sometimes occur in nature (I wouldn't know, that's why I asked the question). If it took human involvement to make a specific example of the thing happen, then it's not a discovery. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

"Invention" sounds odd to my ears. How can you invent something that almost certainly exists somewhere in the universe and can be easily postulated without any blinding insight? Can you invent a previously unnoted prime number? "Creation" seems to be a popular choice.[1] Clarityfiend (talk) 23:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The telephone, for example, was an invention. The discovery part was in hypothesizing how to make it work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:27, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• The proper verb would be synthesize. See nucleosynthesis. Discovery implies either stumbling up on a new thing or realizing a new theory. Invention implies rearranging existing materials to achieve an artificial product which is bound to a period of history. For example, incandescent lights might not have been invented if we'd gone straight from arc lights to neon and fluorescent lights. In the case of the superheavy elements we know they are there, so the work is deliberate, not stumbling, but the elements themselves don't have a degree of choice an arbitrariness that say, AC electricity has. Look at the difference between electrical appliances in Europe and the US, or various video formats. That is the result of invention. μηδείς (talk) 23:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I suppose we could say that America was 'invented' by Europeans, but 'discovered' by other people at a much earlier stage in human history, so in some ways there is a little bit of an overlap. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 05:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Hence the old line that the natives discovered Columbus. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:51, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The natives of certain Caribbean islands, that is; because he never set foot on any part of what later became the United States. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Hence the term "West Indies". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:18, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with synthesize. That totally missed the newness aspect. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

This is similar to a perennial question in math - "is math created/invented, or discovered?" - see here for analysis of that question [2], or this google search for many more discussions [3]. Reasonable people can disagree, and there is no one correct answer. In my opinion, the same is true of your question. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:03, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

That debate over mathematics tends to be a metaphysical one, where opponents might actually agree on definitions of discover and invent but then disagree over the nature of reality itself. Debates over semantics (nothing personal) really boil down to finding a useful, non-contradictory definition dealing with what is essential in the context and not equivocating later in the same argument by implicitly changing the definition. I think in both physics and lay talk, synthesis is the most useful concept.

If you want to know the "real" word to use you are committing a category mistake. On that view, that concepts are "in reality", not human tools of thought, maybe the Platonic ideal for what's going on should actually be called something else, maybe "to blave". For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

True meaning of the word Malad

12.10.219.222 (talk) 23:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Hi,

I was looking for the true meaning for the word Malad but my search in Wikipedia and Google only returns stories about the place in Mumbai and the city Malad. I was reading the book 'Good Indian' by B. M. Bower and in this book, they have a pond next to a house which is referred to as a malad. I needed to know if the word Malad actually means a lake or a pond; and in which language. From the book it seems to be English, Spanish or Native american.

Can you pls help me find the true meaning of this word? I'd greatly appreciate this help.

Thanks, Abhilash12.10.219.222 (talk) 23:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I checked out a pdf version of the book and found this: "*AUTHOR'S NOTE.—The Indians of southern Idaho spoke a somewhat mixed dialect." This lead me to Malad_River and the Malad Gorge in Idaho. The capital letter indicates it is a place name. I doubt it means pond or lake from the context. (OR - Might be a corruption of Mallard which is a type of duck). 196.213.35.146 (talk) 08:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

To my lack of amazement, George R. Stewart's A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names has: "From French malade(s) first applied to the stream, probably as Rivière aux Malades, i.e. ‘of the sick men,’ because of some illness suffered there by an early party of French-Canadian trappers." —Tamfang (talk) 10:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, Tamfang, that information was supposed to go here in order to be of more permanent value. No such user (talk) 14:16, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• The mixed dialect that was spoken in Southern Idaho was Chinook jargon, a rather famous case among linguists. μηδείς (talk) 21:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)