Paul R. wrote:
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.They’re called inuits, not eskimos - calling somebody an eskimo is
like calling them a nigger, i.e. highly offensive - but I’m aware of
what you mean by the snow/ice thing.
I never knew that Eskimos was a derogatory term. The things you learn on
the Ruby forum 
On 8/30/06, Paul R. [email protected] wrote:
That’s such a great name for a Ruby blog…
Heh, it’s not so.
Have you ever tried to learn a foriegn language?
The possible meanings you could try to convey are more or less like a
continuous space sliced into chunks - words. The slicing is different
for different languages, somewhere finer, somewhere coarser as the
speakers of various languages needed more precision in different
areas.
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.
Even in areas where the needs for precision weren’t very different the
slicing often happens at different places. So one word would be
translated as different words in different contexts, often in both
ways.
And the grammar is far from equivalent. I already found English
sentences that I can understand (or so I think) but which would need
several sentences to be explained in my native language.
And these are both Indoeuropean languages. Japanese grammar is much
more interesting 
The only correct translation can come from analyzing the meaning of a
sentence in context of the previous text, and constructing sentence(s)
in the other language with similar meaning. Of course, this is nearly
impossible to do with a computer.
Thanks
Michal
Dr Nic wrote:
Paul R. wrote:
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.
They’re called inuits, not eskimos - calling somebody an eskimo is
like calling them a nigger, i.e. highly offensive - but I’m aware of
what you mean by the snow/ice thing.I never knew that Eskimos was a derogatory term. The things you learn on
the Ruby forum
The Inuit don’t have any more words for snow than anybody else:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010202.html
That’s 10,000,000 pedantic points for me. Do I win?
Hi,
At Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:04:24 +0900,
Rick DeNatale wrote in [ruby-talk:211729]:
I wonder where the “bean jam” translation is coming from.
From “an’noka”. “An” is same as “anko”.
On 8/31/06, Paul R. [email protected] wrote:
On 31 Aug 2006, at 14:25, Michal S. wrote:
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.
They’re called inuits, not eskimos - calling somebody an eskimo is
like calling them a nigger, i.e. highly offensive - but I’m aware of
what you mean by the snow/ice thing.
And it was the other first nation tribes that called the Innu
“Eskimo”. It means “raw meat eater”, IIRC (probably Iroquois). The
things you learn having a teacher as a partner.
-austin
Dr Nic [email protected] wrote:
Paul R. wrote:
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.They’re called inuits, not eskimos - calling somebody an eskimo is
like calling them a nigger, i.e. highly offensive - but I’m aware of
what you mean by the snow/ice thing.I never knew that Eskimos was a derogatory term. The things you learn on
the Ruby forum
It would help a great deal if what you learned were true though,
and none of the above is.
There are two Eskimo languages, and each of them has just about
the same number of terms for snow that English does. Swedish,
Norwegian, Danish and Russian all most certainly have an equal
number too.
As for “Inuit”, keep in mind that not all Eskimos are Inuit, and
the others (not to mention some who actually are Inuit),
distinctly do not like to be called Inuit.
The Inuit in Canada and Greenland would prefer to be called
Inuit, and since there are no Yupik Eskimos there, it makes
sense. But in Siberia all Eskimos are Yupik. And in Alaska
there are both Inuit and Yupik, so we use the term Eskimo with
regularity. In particular because the Inuit Eskimos in Alaska
do not like the term Inuit, and call themselves Inupiat!
Regardless, the term Eskimo is not derogatory, and happens to
be the one an the only term in the English language which
encompasses all Eskimo cultures, languages, or peoples.
On 8/31/06, Paul R. [email protected] wrote:
On 31 Aug 2006, at 14:25, Michal S. wrote:
Heh, it’s not so.
Have you ever tried to learn a foriegn language?
Only romance languages - French is particularly easy if you’re
natively English and know a little about construction of sentences
from latin.
Well French is, of course one of the main mother languages of English,
particularly the King’s English. Starting in 1066 and for quite
awhile, the language spoken in the English court was French.
That’s why we commonly have two words for the same thing which come
from either French or Anglo-Saxon. Pork and Pig, Beef and Cow… In
the case of these food terms the word which has more affinity to the
food being on the table is French in origin, while the English word
has more affinity to it being on the farm. Wonder why!
Kent Beck told me while he was working in Zurich as a consultant, that
he had the best results in talking to his Swiss clients if he used
fancy vocabulary and simple grammar, since most Swiss (oops I typed
Suisse a first) speak French as, at least, a second language.
I used to say that I was Swiss, because my Mother was German, my
Father was Italian and je parle un peu de francais.
On 31 Aug 2006, at 14:25, Michal S. wrote:
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.
This old wives tale, is the basis of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that
our language constrains our thought. As others have pointed out the
Eskimo snow vocabulary doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, it’s not that
speakers of other languages can’t express the same ideas, but that
they different or less jargon for some subject areas.
Which reminds me of another story (you guys are going to think of me
as the old British guy who keeps saying “It reminds me of when I was
in the Crimean.”
Back when I was working for a certain three-letter large computer
company, I found myself in a bar late one night in Budapest, with une
amie, (une belle nicoise), and a guy who worked for the same company,
who had been at the Paris office for a couple of years and refused to
learn ANY French. Somehow the conversation turned to his espousal of
the Sapir-Worff hypothesis:
UglyAmerican: You don't have to speak anything but English, because
everyone you need to do business with
speaks English.
And people don’t speak English have
thoughts they can’t
form.
Me: Oh really?!
UA: For example, there's no way to say "I Like
you" in French.
Aside - Yes, in French, the verb aimer means to love, and "Je
t’aime" means
“I love you,” but the French being subtle, will say
something like
“je t’aime bien” which would seem to intensify the
verb but really
turns off the amorous aspects of the verb. As a
Catholic priest told
my grammar school class many years ago, like is more
than love,
because I HAVE to love you even though I don’t like
you.
And now back to our story
Me: Really!
UA: And the Japanese don’t have a way to say no, because it
wouldn’t be
polite.
Me: Yes they do, in fact they have lots of ways to say it,
at various levels of
politeness, and urgency.
I guess the point is that, even compared to programming languages,
human languages are subtle, and a lot of us have misconceptions about
the languages we don’t speak or speak well. I guess that the latter
holds for programming languages as well.
Hmmmm, anyone up for a ruby quiz on machine translation?
–
Rick DeNatale
My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
On 8/31/06, Floyd L. Davidson [email protected] wrote:
There are two Eskimo languages, and each of them has just about
the same number of terms for snow that English does. Swedish,
Norwegian, Danish and Russian all most certainly have an equal
number too.As for “Inuit”, keep in mind that not all Eskimos are Inuit, and
the others (not to mention some who actually are Inuit),
distinctly do not like to be called Inuit.
However, Eskimo is a derogatory term applied by other natives first.
The Inuit in Canada and Greenland would prefer to be called
Inuit, and since there are no Yupik Eskimos there, it makes
sense. But in Siberia all Eskimos are Yupik. And in Alaska
there are both Inuit and Yupik, so we use the term Eskimo with
regularity. In particular because the Inuit Eskimos in Alaska
do not like the term Inuit, and call themselves Inupiat!
That’s because they’re not Inuit, they’re Inupiat. Different tribes,
different names. (One would not call an Ojibwe an Iroquois. You’d be
wrong.)
Regardless, the term Eskimo is not derogatory, and happens to
be the one an the only term in the English language which
encompasses all Eskimo cultures, languages, or peoples.
This is untrue. It’s a derogatory term introduced. Most people didn’t
learn it as a derogatory term, but it is no less derogatory for that
oversight.
-austin
Paul R. wrote:
Shouldn’t be - all a brain is, is a computer - and I know that gcc can
parse syntax within a context far more accurately than I can. What you
actually need is a compiler of natural languages - a very, very big
syntax parsing mechanism - and then we have all the right tools we need.
If somebody is able to write a tool that can translate ruby into C
accurately, I don’t see why somebody can’t write a tool that can
translate Japanese into English using a similar set of methods.Anyway, enough of that, we’re way off topic. Interesting discussion.
Back in the good old days, people were predicting that “artificial
intelligence”, meaning machines playing grandmaster chess, making
intelligent translations of English to Russian and back again, and being
indistinguishable from a human in an interview via teletype, was “just
around the corner.”
well, there’s Deep Blue … there’s BabalFish … and there are
“chatbots” that can at least fool a lovestruck teenager.
But … it took a lot longer than people back in the late 1950s
thought it would, didn’t it?
“Austin Z.” [email protected] wrote:
However, Eskimo is a derogatory term applied by other natives first.
There are two claimed etymologies that have a claim to being
valid. One of the, which Canadian anthropologists Jose Mailhot
supports, is that came from words meaning “People who speak a
different language”. The other is from Ives Goddard (at the
Smithsonian Institute), who thinks it means “snowshoe netter”.
The idea that it means “eaters of raw meat” is a bit silly,
since neither side would have considered that derogatory anyway.
It does fit European derived perceptions of a good insult
though, which suggests where the idea came from.
The Inuit in Canada and Greenland would prefer to be called
Inuit, and since there are no Yupik Eskimos there, it makes
sense. But in Siberia all Eskimos are Yupik. And in Alaska
there are both Inuit and Yupik, so we use the term Eskimo with
regularity. In particular because the Inuit Eskimos in Alaska
do not like the term Inuit, and call themselves Inupiat!That’s because they’re not Inuit, they’re Inupiat. Different tribes,
different names. (One would not call an Ojibwe an Iroquois. You’d be
wrong.)
Inupiat is Inuit. The words have very slightly different
connotations. The people, the language, and the culture are all
the same, with of course minor regional variations as one goes
from western Alaska all the way to eastern Greenland.
The difference between Inupiat, Inuit and Inupik is the same as
between Yup’ik, Yupik and Yupiaq.
Regardless, the term Eskimo is not derogatory, and happens to
be the one an the only term in the English language which
encompasses all Eskimo cultures, languages, or peoples.This is untrue. It’s a derogatory term introduced. Most people didn’t
learn it as a derogatory term, but it is no less derogatory for that
oversight.
What you are stating has no basis in reality. Where did you
learn about Eskimos? I know a few thousands of Eskimos, all of
whom call themselves Eskimos.
On 8/31/06, Paul R. [email protected] wrote:
On 31 Aug 2006, at 14:25, Michal S. wrote:
For one, I heared that Eskimos use some tens of various words for
different kinds of snow and ice. You get the idea.They’re called inuits, not eskimos - calling somebody an eskimo is
like calling them a nigger, i.e. highly offensive - but I’m aware of
what you mean by the snow/ice thing.
I hereby apologize to any Inuits frequenting this list. To my defence
I’d like to say that the word Eskimo was adopted into Czech probably
more than half a century ago, and sice there are no Inuits around the
nationality designation could not collect any negative racist or
pejorative connotations.
However we also have to develop new designations for nationalities
that are around because the designations that are used too long become
somewhat rasistic or pejorative, just like in English speaking
countries.
However, this is just social slang, all cultures have it, and there
is more slang for those things that culture is obsessed by. Think how
many different terms there are in western culture for genitals and
having sex and getting drunk (yes, I know this is a sad statement on
western culture) - it’s exactly the same thing. A big enough
dictionary takes care of it.
Slang or not it creates many words with different meanings, at least
in the snow case these should be different kinds of snow I beleive.
However the drunk case is interesting as well. As far as I am aware in
Czech there are two words widely used that mean ‘get drunk by wine’,
‘and get drunk by beer’, and the rest of the slang is just a synonym
for ‘get drunk’. Though some are probably used for ‘get drunk much’
and others for ‘get drunk slightly’. I do not have detailed knowledge
of English in this regard.
This reflects that wine and beer are two historically most widely used
drugs in Europe so one needs to talk about the consequences of using
them.
Thanks
Michal
On 2 Sep 2006, at 12:55, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
But that is unrelated to the error others make in thinking that
“Inuit” is a direct replacement for the term “Eskimo”.
See, now I feel bad.
Sorry.
“Michal S.” [email protected] wrote:
I hereby apologize to any Inuits frequenting this list. To my defence
I’d like to say that the word Eskimo was adopted into Czech probably
more than half a century ago, and sice there are no Inuits around the
nationality designation could not collect any negative racist or
pejorative connotations.
Your usage was entirely correct. You did not specify which
Eskimo language you were referencing, and by using the all
inclusive term you indicate (quite correctly) that both Yupik
and Inuit languages are claimed by some to have some large
number of words for snow.
The fact is they don’t. But that is unrelated to the error
others make in thinking that “Inuit” is a direct replacement for
the term “Eskimo”.
On 8/29/06, William C. [email protected] wrote:
Yeah, that works great. Thanks for sharing!
I’m just kidding. Thanks for that link. I already had a firefox
plugin, but the bookmarklet is nice for whole pages.–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Hi,
I am wondering how many people are genuinely interested in what is
going on at the Japanese mailing list.
On 1/15/07, Harry [email protected] wrote:
Hi,
I am wondering how many people are genuinely interested in what is
going on at the Japanese mailing list.
I am, if only so that I can have another source of ruby info.
On 1/15/07, Jason M. [email protected] wrote:
I am, if only so that I can have another source of ruby info.
I speak Japanese and I can translate from Japanese to English but I
want to see how much interest there is before I even consider doing
anything about it.
On 1/15/07, Harry [email protected] wrote:
I speak Japanese and I can translate from Japanese to English but I
want to see how much interest there is before I even consider doing
anything about it.
Could we get Eskimo and Inuit translations as well please?
Sorry
On 1/16/07, John W. Long [email protected] wrote:
One person interested in the list and one person interested in Matz’s
blog. Hmmm…
Translating takes a lot of time. Something I don’t have much of right
now.
But, I wanted to see what interest there was and if I get some time in
the near future I could translate something like that if the interest
was there.
Would you post a link to that blog? I would like to look at it.
Thank you.
On 1/16/07, Harry [email protected] wrote:
Translating takes a lot of time. Something I don’t have much of right now.
But, I wanted to see what interest there was and if I get some time in
the near future I could translate something like that if the interest
was there.
You could translate the subject lines and then only the posts people
express an interest in.
martin
Harry wrote:
I speak Japanese and I can translate from Japanese to English but I
want to see how much interest there is before I even consider doing
anything about it.
Wow. I’m not sure about the mailing list, but I would love to see
someone translate Matz’s blog.
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