LINGUIST List 9.1174

Fri Aug 21 1998

Qs: Nomenclature, Turkish, Corpora, Computing Terms

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. cochise, Nomenclature
2. Larry Trask, Q: Turkish <chatma> `velvet'
3. Trond Trosterud, Corpora for lgs with Dual or/and an Objective Conjugation
4. Larry Trask, Q: Computing Terminology

I am writing a paper for a criminal justice issue, this will also be a
chapter in a book. I want to find out about the history of the word
nomenclature and how once we give a label to something what effect
that has on the topic. For example I am suggestinhg in my paper that
by calling domestic violence , domestic violence we diminsh it's
impact in society. I will be suggesting in my paper that the title be
changed to assault and battery and I will argue that by doing this we
will have a better effect of changing attitudes. What I would like to
know of is more about this history of using names or labels and if
their are any articles about this I could use in my chapter discussion
that would refer to the origins of certain labels and their lasting
effects on society or culture. If you have any way I could trace the
earliest history of the term domestic violence or simililar labels
like wife battering etc. please let me know. I will be happy to
reference you in my work. Sincerely, Judith M. Sgarzi Ph. D. Program
Director Criminal Justice e-mail at drjudieadelphia.net Thanks for
any help.

I'm passing on a query from a friend who is a specialist in old
textiles. It concerns the Turkish word `chatma' (<ch> = <c-cedilla>
in the modern orthography). This is the name of a costly Ottoman
fabric, as explained below. Can anyone explain why an extraordinarily
costly and painstakingly woven fabric should have a name that means
literally `something thrown together roughly or hastily'?

If you can help, please reply to me personally. Thanks.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk

****************

The question:

Now I have an etymological question for you. When I was living in
Istanbul (1984-89 or thereabouts), I was doing research on Ottoman
velvets, the most important of which are called chatma. They were
among the most costly and prestigious of all Ottoman textiles, woven
in silk and patterned in part by the contrast between areas of pile
and areas where only the ground weave was visible and by the use of
wefts of precious metal that formed brocaded motifs. In 19th century
dictionaries, `chatma' means `to strike or hit', etc., or some sort of
thrown together shack or framework. Neither of these seems to have
any particular connection to the velvets. Certainly, the weft was
struck or beaten in the course of weaving, but so it is with any other
textile; it might have been beaten sligtly harder in the case of
velvets, but not enough, I should think, that the cloth would derive
its name from the process. And they certainly weren't thrown together
- weaving them was a slow process. Any idea if the word `chatma' had
a different meaning in the 15th century?

I ma doing research on the principles that govern the paradigm
structure of (Uralic) objective conjugation and possessive suffix
forms.

At the moment I am testing whether and in what way usage frequency of
the different cells in the paradigm are relevant. There are coded
corpora available for appr. half of the lgs I am studying (address
below), but unfortunately most of them are rather small, and have a
narrow genre base.

In order to check the validity of my generalizations I would like to
run through some corpora to get cross-linguistic data of the usage of
Dual (modulo verbs, Px and pronouns) and of the different cells in
Objective conjugation systems (both person/numberxperson/number
(potawatomi/inuit/georgian-type); person/numberxnumber (samoyed-type)
and person/numberx2 (hungarian-type))

The corpora must be coded or the relevant strings unique enough to do
a string-search.

I will make a summery of the answers, in the usual way.

The corpora I have used so far are at
http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/uhlcs/index.html and
http://www.utu.fi/hum/suomi/kokoelma.htm)

Greetings,

- --------------------------------------------------------------
Trond Trosterud t +47 7764 4763
Lingvistisk institutt, Det humanistiske fakultet h +47 7767 3639
N-9037 Universitetet i Troms, Noreg f +47 7764 4239
mailto:trondisl.uit.no http://www2.isl.uit.no/trond/index.html
- --------------------------------------------------------------

My colleague Geoffrey Allen is preparing a new edition of his
well-known librarians' guide to the languages of Europe. For this
purpose, he requires some computing terminology. Most of this he has
already obtained, but the equivalents of some terms remain outstanding
in the following languages: Albanian, Danish, Estonian, Finnish,
Hungarian, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Romanian and
Turkish. If you can provide any of the outstanding terms listed
below, we would be very grateful if you could pass them on to him at
the following address:

	barbara.davidsoncableol.co.uk

I'm sorry; I have no idea what to do about the Cyrillic script of
Macedonian.

In case of difficulty, you can e-mail me. Thanks in advance.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk

__________________________________________________________ ALBANIAN

backspace key
browse
button
clear (the screen)
click
cursor
delete key
directory
enter key
escape key
exit
fax
function key
help
icon
keyword
login
logout
monitor
press (key)
return key
save
window
__________________________________________________________
DANISH

button
delete key
enter key
escape key
function key
icon
__________________________________________________________
ESTONIAN

audio-
browse
button
escape key
function key
press (key)
__________________________________________________________
FINNISH

click
delete key
enter key
escape key
save
__________________________________________________________
HUNGARIAN

browse
button
cursor
help
RAM
CD-ROM
save
__________________________________________________________
ICELANDIC

browse
click
CD-ROM
delete key
directory
enter key
escape key
function key
hard disk
icon
multimedia
return key
space-bar
standalone
__________________________________________________________
LATVIAN

backspace key
browse
button
clear
click
directory
(disk) drive
enter key
escape key
exit
fax
function key
hard disk
login
logout
monitor
multimedia
press (key)
return key
ROM
save
search
space-bar
standalone
__________________________________________________________
LITHUANIAN

browse enter key
escape key
function key
icon
login
logout
multimedia
press (key)
save
standalone
__________________________________________________________
MACEDONIAN

backspace key
browse
button
CD-ROM
clear
click
cursor
delete key
diskette
directory
(disk) drive
escape key
enter key
fax
file
function key
hard disk
help
icon
login
logout
mouse
multimedia
network
press (key)
processor
RAM
return key
save search
space-bar
standalone
__________________________________________________________
ROMANIAN

browse
clear
click
CD-ROM
delete key
directory
(disk) drive
enter key
escape key
function key
icon
login
logout
monitor
mouse
multimedia
return key
__________________________________________________________
TURKISH

escape key
function key
help
icon
multimedia
processor
return key
standalone