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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 21

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November 21

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Slovenia

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Where does the name Slovenia come from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.176.214.169 (talk) 00:39, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It means 'Land of the Slavs' in Slovene, as our article List of country-name etymologies says. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Slovenia (native designation "Slovenija") should not be, but really often is, confused with Slovakia, whose native designation is "Slovensko". Lots of confusion can occur if one is dealing with the respective terms in the two languages.
Slovenia Slovakia Slovenian
(adj.)
Slovak
(adj.)
Slavic
(adj.)
Slovene
person
Slovak
person
Slav
(person)
Slovene
language
Slovak
language
in Slovene Slovenija Slovaška slovenski, -a, -o slovaški, -a, -o slovanski, -a, -o Slovenec Slovak Slovan slovenščina slovaščina
in Slovak Slovinsko Slovensko slovinský, -á, -é slovenský, -á, -é slovanský, -á, -é Slovinec Slovák Slovan slovinčina slovenčina
For the adjectives, only the nominative singular forms for the three genders are given in the table for simplicity's sake; both languages have the plural, Slovene also has the dual, and both languages have half a dozen more grammatical cases. Native designations are highlighted in blue in the table. The "-ija" is the Slovene rendition for the originally Latin/Greek/Indo-European toponymic suffix "-ia", and the Slovak and Slovene toponymic suffixes "-sko" and "-ska" respectively (in the case of "Slovaška" the latter shows up just as "-ka") look like being originally adjectival. --Theurgist (talk) 04:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You would often find "Slovenčina" and "Slovenščina" next to each other as interwiki links for Wikipedia articles. --Theurgist (talk) 04:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And then there's Slavonia. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 08:19, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And Slovincians. — Kpalion(talk) 11:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translating Chinese Proverb

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Can someone translate this Chinese Proverb into Chinese (traditional or simplified, I guess, but it really doesn't matter to me): "One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade." Thanks! 174.93.63.116 (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

前人栽树, 后人乘凉 [qián rén zāi shù, hòu rén chénɡ liánɡ] KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for Seneca translations

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  • Seneca, Ep. viii. I: nullus mihi per otium dies exit. partem noctium studiis vindico
  • Seneca, Ep. li. 5: nobis quoque militandum est, et quidem genere militiae quo numquam quies, numquam otium datur
Thanks. --Doug Coldwell talk 14:29, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Loeb translations (by Richard M. Gummere), which can be found online here, are, respectively, "I never spend a day in idleness; I appropriate even a part of the night for study" and "We too have a war to wage, a type of warfare in which there is allowed no rest or furlough". Deor (talk) 14:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great!--Doug Coldwell talk 15:58, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]