Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 February 24

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February 24

Written varieties of Chinese

What's the difference between the inscriptions on these two maps? To my foreign eyes, most of the characters appear to be identical, and most of the exceptions are different in not-simpler ways, so I'm guessing that it's not merely a simplified-versus-traditional issue. Both files are currently in use at zh:缅因州行政区划. Nyttend (talk) 03:25, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

User:WhisperToMe has contributed to that article, and can possibly answer your question.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The only differences that I can see are indeed simplified/traditional. (hans is simplified, hant traditional). Are there any particular differences that look strange to you? Henry^Flower 05:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

There are many characters that are the same between Simplified and Traditional Chinese, but some are different. A U.S. county would be 县 in Mainland and Singapore/Malaysia, and 縣 in Hong Kong/Macau. In some Wikipedia articles on California Counties using "Taiwan" as the character set renders a county as "郡" - "Los Angeles County" displays as "洛杉磯郡" for Taiwan, "洛杉磯縣" for Hong Kong and Macau, and "洛杉矶县" for Mainland and Singapore/Malaysia WhisperToMe (talk) 12:01, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Look at the Aroostook County label for example; some of the characters aren't simple (in a general sense), and I didn't realise that Simplified Chinese could still be not-simple in some ways. My mental example is 国 versus 國 (a huge difference), with which I'm familiar because it appears on postage stamps; I figured that most Simplified characters had undergone a similar degree of change. Nyttend (talk) 17:30, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Simple is relative here; if you compare the characters for Aroostoock County, for example, you'll see that the where they differ, the simplified ones all use fewer strokes. But there's no arbitrary upper limit to the number of strokes (to take the most likely measure of simplicity). Henry^Flower 19:48, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Youku video menu

Could you, please, translate the video menu (in the format "character string - meaning").--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Also at the start of a video what do they say to me, wait for a few secs, why?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes They Come Back: sea and sunsets

Hello. Here again to solve Commons categories issues.

We have mega-tons of sunset pictures and a little used commons:Category:Sunsets by subject with this not standard subcategory commons:Category:Sunsets taken out at sea

1. Sea at sunset or seas at sunset or seascapes at sunset are so awful expressions?
2. Which is better? Which are correct (for creating redirect)?
3. (for a redirect too) Sunsets on seas? Sunsets on the sea?
4. Other comments?

Thanks--Pierpao (talk) 15:34, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Purely out of personal preference, I would vote for "seascapes at sunset". Alansplodge (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

How about "sunset seascapes", for more brevity? --76.71.6.254 (talk) 22:41, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

"Sunsets taken out at sea" would be something very specific - and not every picture of the sun setting over the sea would count, as many would be taken from land, looking out to sea. If you want to include every sunset where the horizon is the sea, then try "marine sunsets" Wymspen (talk) 18:28, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Although I've heard "seas" used to refer to a single body of water, as in "heavy seas on the English Channel today", the use of the plural form "seas" here, to me, implies we are viewing two or more seas. This would be possible if the picture has multiple images, each of a different sea, or if the single pic is of a location where two seas meet. StuRat (talk) 01:56, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

In the phrase "heavy seas", "seas" refers to the sea state, not the body of water. It is an approximate synonym for "waves". Other sea states are "calm seas", "moderate seas", etc. -Arch dude (talk) 04:47, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all so much. --Pierpao (talk) 21:53, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

semantic primes

what is the italian term for semantic primes?--2001:B07:6463:31EE:3D99:2A16:2AB3:ABFA (talk) 16:11, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Primitivi semantici. Anyway you can answer questions about Italy at it:wp:Oracolo too. A lot of people speaks English--Pierpao (talk) 17:26, 24 February 2017 (UTC)