[HN Gopher] How would you say "She said goodbye too many times b... ___________________________________________________________________ How would you say "She said goodbye too many times before." in Latin? Author : micouay Score : 356 points Date : 2023-09-06 09:57 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (latin.stackexchange.com) (TXT) w3m dump (latin.stackexchange.com) | samjohnation111 wrote: | [dead] | VikingCoder wrote: | How would you translate this into Latin? | | 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD" | | 20 GOTO 10 | | ... | | X SCRIBE "SALVE MUNDI" | | XX ITE X | | or something like that? | eindiran wrote: | That reminds me of this: | https://esolangs.org/wiki/Lingua_abstrusa | schoen wrote: | You might want the vocative of "world" (MUNDE) and the singular | imperative of "go" (I). The latter is a bit easy to confuse | with the Roman numeral for the number one, though! | VikingCoder wrote: | So...? | | X SCRIBE "SALVE MUNDE" | | XX I X | neilkakkar wrote: | I'm very confused, why is this so upvoted, someone mind | explaining? | mannykannot wrote: | Aside from anything else, human language and its comprehension | is an important aspect of AI, and the sheer variety among | grammars is a salient feature that cannot be ignored. | [deleted] | baq wrote: | People found this interesting. | | People upvoted. | gpderetta wrote: | Not only that, I actually clicked to read the article! | AlecSchueler wrote: | I'm guessing other people found it intellectually stimulating. | jukea wrote: | I'm surprised myself, but I found it interesting to see how the | sentence got compressed to only 2 words in Latin. | renewiltord wrote: | Interestingly it's only one letter in the esolang Rewi: u | barbarr wrote: | It's the degree of compression that can be achieved, from 7 | words to 2. | petercooper wrote: | English can do reasonably well if you don't mind poetic | sounding language (and, to be fair, Shakespeare compressed | down a lot of things into shorter, poetic idioms we use | today). Something like _her farewells overran_ , perhaps. | surgical_fire wrote: | The mystery of internet points is both fascinating and | inscrutable. | BoxFour wrote: | It's a fascinating bit of information that demands minimal time | to absorb and comprehend. It's a refreshing break from the | usual content seen here while still being intellectually | stimulating. | talkingtab wrote: | I am not sure why I upvoted this. Perhaps because I have dealt | with C, C++, Java, JavaScript and some Python. I know a | smattering of French, German, Dutch, Japanese and Czech. So | perhaps that too. Or perhaps because of the Sapir-Whorf | hypothesis. | defrost wrote: | It directly relates to the recent ETL (Extract - Transform - | Load) thread patterns. | | Here someone seeks to do for Maroon 5's _This Love_ what has | been done for Greenday 's _Boulevard of Broken Dreams_ | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mip30YF1iuo | | I look forward to near future efforts with the Sleaford Mods' | _Blog Maggot_. | bitdivision wrote: | Mostly unrelated, but there was a study [0] some time ago which | said that the information rate of all languages was roughly the | same. So if a language had more data conveyed per syllable, then | it might be spoken slower for instance. | | 0: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594 | avgcorrection wrote: | Spanish (Spain) is often spoken faster than English. And in my | experience if you translate something from English to Spanish | the text becomes 20%-30% longer. | bitdivision wrote: | Yes, I agree, Spanish is generally more verbose. | | The weird one is that Latin American Spanish is spoken much | slower, but with the same information per syllable | (presumably). I always wondered if the information rate would | actually be the same for Spanish (LATAM) and Spanish (Spain) | - my suspicion is that it's lower in LATAM. Perhaps pauses | and connective words could account for the difference though? | ihm wrote: | There's huge variation in Latin American dialects, there's | definitely no universal speed of speech. | asveikau wrote: | Not only that, but a lot of features of various forms of | Latin American Spanish also occur in Spain, especially | southern Spain which is the "root" of much of it. | bitdivision wrote: | There's definitely differences between countries and | regions, and I don't have data for it, but the stereotype | of Latin American Spanish being slower than Spain has by | and large been true in my experience. | | Do you think on average Latin American Spanish is spoken | at the same speed as Spain? | | Edit: And regardless of regional variations I am certain | that there are Latin American regions which have a | generally slower speed of speech than regions in Spain. | So the thing that interests me is whether in that case | the Spain Spanish has more pauses etc. | rigoleto wrote: | > Do you think on average Latin American Spanish is | spoken at the same speed as Spain? | | Faster in the Caribbean, slower in the Andes | dmoy wrote: | > always wondered if the information rate would actually be | the same | | As a general rule of thumb, human spoken languages all | communicate about 5 bytes per second of info. The limit | seems to be not because of auditory processing or verbal | issues, but rather how fast someone can process thoughts. | | I don't know about latam vs Spain specifically, that would | be interesting. Seems unlikely that it would be more varied | than e.g. English, Italian, and Japanese, which all tend | towards the same ~5Bps limit. | [deleted] | [deleted] | mytailorisrich wrote: | [flagged] | phendrenad2 wrote: | If we're just trying to translate the literal meaning of this | sentence from English to Latin, these are good answers. But I | suspect that if we went back to ancient Rome and found someone | experiencing the _meaning_ behind these words (a guy talking | about a girl who has said goodbye too many time, and he doesn 't | believe that it's going to be final this time either), the actual | phrase he says may be completely different. Because while English | speakers (specifically, American English speakers, or even more | specifically wherever the songwriter is from, looks like it's Los | Angeles) reach for this particular phrase to convey this meaning, | this is very idiomatic when you think about it. | pizzafeelsright wrote: | Her goodbye's a lie. | | She lies goodbye. | | Oft repeated, her exits depleted. | lr4444lr wrote: | Eh... this is a really idiomatic expression in English. Maybe if | you rummage Plautus or Terrence, perhaps even the epistolary | corpus of Pliny or Cicero, you could chance upon something | sentimentally accurate, but I wouldn't hold your breath. | Grammatically accurate word for word reconstructions aren't | really going to convey it. | galangalalgol wrote: | Idiomatic enough that I, as a native speaker, didn't understand | what was intended by the phrase outside of context. | fillipvt wrote: | In Spanish this would look like "dijo adios demasiado". Although | unsure how to fit the "before" without being too literal. | JTbane wrote: | Maroon V? | nickspacek wrote: | The ability to express thoughts more concisely in various | languages is kind of sort of a plot point in the science fiction | novel Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany, published in 1966. Picked up | a few of his novels to read and I've been enjoying them. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel-17 | dTal wrote: | People wondering why this is on Hacker News - probably the | fascinating part is how a relatively complex 7 word phrase in | English translates idiomatically into a 2 word phrase in Latin. | [deleted] | ChrisRR wrote: | I wondered what google translate would make of a dead language | so I tried those phrases. Neither of them seem even close, so | (as I don't speak Latin) I don't know whether the issue lies in | google translate, the complexity of what's being portrayed, | whether the phrases are too idiomatic, or whether these idioms | would require context around them to translate correctly. | | "nimium valedixit": He got too sick | | "totiens valedixit": He was always well | | Edit: Playing around with google translate, "nim valedixit" | translates to He said goodbye. But "valedixit" translates to | Said goodbye. "Nimium" translates to Too many | | So somewhere in that complexity it does seem to be that those | two words have a meaning that build off eachother for their | meaning, but google is considering it literally | | If anyone has an explanation for these phrases rather than my | guess work, I'd love to hear them! | messe wrote: | ChatGPT does well (I gave it the additional info that the | subject was female, but that will only change whether it | chooses the pronoun he or she): | | totiens valedixit: She said goodbye so many times. | | nimium valedixit: She said goodbye too much | | https://chat.openai.com/share/6d564b0a-c613-4411-a656-735cd9. | .. | hoseja wrote: | The subject is encoded in the verb, as stated. | messe wrote: | The number (singular) and person (3rd) are conjugated for | in Latin, but not the gender (feminine). | mort96 wrote: | That seems like a google translate issue, the word "valedico" | seems to unambiguously mean bidding farewell (or giving a | farewell speech): | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valedico#Latin, and valedixit | is unambiguously the "third-person singular perfect active | indicative" of valedico | (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valedixit). | coliveira wrote: | Latin is dramatically efficient in expressing meaning because | it has a grammar that is several times more complex than | english. On the other hand, most of latin grammar can be | thought as adding prefixes and suffixes to root words. | nashashmi wrote: | I think what makes Latin so succinct are the 48 forms of a | verb. And the 5 forms a of a noun just in singular form. | wink wrote: | Only with context! As is seen in one comment, the pronoun is | left out and just the 2 words would only say "[third person] | did something". My Latin lessons were very long ago, but yeah. | You'd probably declare it once per paragraph, then shorten. But | in isolation this information is lost. | raverbashing wrote: | So it seems this is why "classical Latin" died out and "vulgar | Latin" became the romance languages of today | | Because while "classical Latin" was capable of doing those | antics, it was limited for day to day use. Phrasal and noun | endings were complicated and wouldn't play well with day to day | usage | tragomaskhalos wrote: | Yes it seems certain that classical Latin - and Greek - have | come down to us in a written form that was fairly artificial; | in Bodmer's wonderful phrasing, we can assume that "the | crossword puzzles of Cicero" (ie the complex juggling about | of words by relying on inflections) were eschewed in favour | of a fixed word order when he was bawling out one of his | slaves. | Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: | "she farewelled excessively" | pavlov wrote: | The same translation logic works in Finnish: "liikaa hyvasteli" | is the equivalent of the Latin "nimium valedixit". | | Finnish doesn't have gender pronouns so you can't distinguish | between he and she in most contexts. Adding that distinction in | an idiomatic way would make the translation quite a bit longer. | qwerty456127 wrote: | I would also like to ask the HN folks how comes we have so | smart LLMs nowadays yet still no really good machine | translation to Latin. | nashashmi wrote: | Few tackled the problem of AI with logic. Most used lots of | electricity and computation hardware to analyze everything | analytical, without actually doing any analysis. | | The ancient languages like Old Arabic, Old Hebrew, and Latin | was the key to understanding language in general. I think | Esperante might also be key to deducing language. | irrational wrote: | There is a word used frequently in the Hebrew Bible that is | four letters long vyhy that is typically translated into | English using 5 words or 19 letters "and it came to pass". See, | for example, the beginning of Genesis 4:3. | | This makes me wonder, what is the largest difference between | letter count in two different languages? | | This example has a 4:19 ratio. Depending on what translation | you go with (I think the consensus is actually the three word | answer "nimium saepe valedixit"), the Latin example has a 22:38 | (11:19) ratio. | | Of course, this is just considering alphabetic languages. If we | look at SE Asian languages we will find more extreme examples. | For instance, a google search led me to: | | "If we're going the other way, it could be "Chang ", which | Pleco gives as | | the ghost of a man who fell a victim to a tiger, yet helps the | tiger to devour others" | | https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/6ijiuw/lon... | Chris2048 wrote: | Couldn't you use "thus"? | irrational wrote: | I don't think so. The first letter means "and" and the rest | is the verb "to be". In this case, the verb is in the Qal | Sequential imperfect 3rd Person Masculine Singular form. | Thus doesn't have the same connotation. | | Other translations are: | | So it happened in the course of time | | So it came about in the course of time | | And in the process of time it came to pass | | And it cometh to pass at the end of days | thaumasiotes wrote: | Letter count is meaningless. You can change it by just | changing the way you spell things, which was already | arbitrary. (For example, there is a very real question of | whether that final _m_ in _nimium_ is pronounced at all.) | | _Nimium saepe valedixit_ is 9 syllables and, as frequently | noted on the page, does not attempt to translate the entire | English source text, which is 10 syllables. It was kind of | surreal reading the answers, since none of them attempt to | determine what the English lyric means, and it can 't be | considered fluent English when seen as an isolated sentence. | You need to determine what it means _before_ you try to | translate it into another language. | | I just listened to the song (well, the first three verses, | which is all of the verses) while looking at a printout of | the lyrics, and I can't determine what that line in the | chorus is supposed to mean. It's very strange grammar: | | _This love has taken its toll on me_ | | _She said goodbye too many times before_ | | _Her heart is breaking in front of me_ | | _And I have no choice_ | | _' Cause I won't say goodbye anymore_ | | The line in question, _She said goodbye too many times | before_ , stands out like a sore thumb for being preceded | _and followed_ by sentences that, unlike it, are both in the | present tense. There is no indication anywhere in the song, | as far as I can see, of what "before" refers to. | | So my instinct is to essentially write off the possibility of | translating the lyric with the aphorism "garbage in, garbage | out". | irrational wrote: | > There is no indication anywhere in the song, as far as I | can see, of what "before" refers to. | | Is English your native language? I'm asking because it is | my native language and the entire phrase, including | "before", is clear to me. | | "Before" is a temporal indicator. You could replace it with | another temporal indicator and the phrase would still make | sense, For example, "She said goodbye too many times | today". You wouldn't ask what the antecedent is for | "today". Same with "before". | thaumasiotes wrote: | Yes, English is my native language. USA, California and | New Mexico. For what it's worth, I qualified for SET by | scoring 710 on the SAT verbal section at age 12. | | > I'm asking because it is my native language and the | entire phrase, including "before", is clear to me. | | It is a common phenomenon for people to claim that | sentences are perfectly clear to them when, objectively, | those sentences do not have a meaning at all. On Language | Log they occasionally discuss "Escher sentences", with | the prototype example being "More people have been to | France than I have". | | > "Before" is a temporal indicator. You could replace it | with another temporal indicator and the phrase would | still make sense, For example, "She said goodbye too many | times today". You wouldn't ask what the antecedent is for | "today". Same with "before". | | Except I can see what's happening with "She said goodbye | too many times today." That sentence will be followed up | with some explanation of the consequences of having said | goodbye too many times. | | In the chorus, the intent might have been that the line | "she said goodbye too many times before" is an | explanation of the preceding line (that's how people are | interpreting it here). Or the line might just have been | thrown in with no rhyme or reason, completely | disconnected from the rest of the song. But regardless of | the intent, the line has failed to connect to the | sentence before it or the sentence after it, which means | that we cannot determine what it's trying to say. | | > You wouldn't ask what the antecedent is for "today". | Same with "before". | | Moving back to this, it's necessary to ask what exactly | "before" is referring to because the question came up of | whether and how it should be represented in the Latin | translation. It might conceivably refer to "before now" | (in which case the suggestion of Latin perfect tense is | fine), "before some point identified by the context" | (you'd want pluperfect, if the point was in the past, or | future perfect if the point was in the future [or of | course perfect if the point is "now"]), or "before some | specific event" (you'd want the preposition _ante_ , and | you'd also need to mention the event). | [deleted] | irrational wrote: | You are reading way too much into this. It's just a pop | song. This isn't high literature. "Before now" makes the | most sense to me, but, like poetry, you interpret it | however you want. There is no right answer. | ragazzina wrote: | I am not a native speaker, but doesn't "before" just mean | "in the past" here? It sounds clear to me: the girl has | previously tried to break up many times, so now he is | breaking up with her. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > I am not a native speaker, but doesn't "before" just | mean "in the past" here? | | That is a strong possibility. It doesn't solve the | problem with the line; to make sense, it should say _she | 's said goodbye too many times before_. | | > It sounds clear to me: the girl has previously tried to | break up many times, so now he is breaking up with her. | | That is not so strong; the first verse is phrased in a | way that suggests she is leaving him, not the other way | around: | | _I was so high, I did not recognize_ | | _The fire burning in her eyes_ | | _The chaos that controlled my mind_ | | _Whispered goodbye as she got on a plane_ | | _Never to return again but always in my heart, oh_ | | (On first impression, I assumed this verse meant that the | girl was dead, but she could just be leaving.) | ChrisRR wrote: | I don't think it's that complex. The implication seems to | be that they have broken up/argued so many times before, | and this time they're breaking up for good | | And the first line is past tense, just like the second. | | Edit: Reading all of the lyrics they were sleeping | together, she fell in love with him so he broke it off | thaumasiotes wrote: | > And the first line is past tense, just like the second. | | This is a somewhat complex issue, so please bear with me. | | First, we can dispense with the idea that the tense of | the first line is "just like the second". They are | different and the difference is quite significant. | | Whether the first line should be called "past tense" or | "present tense" is more of a fussy terminological issue. | There are two concepts in linguistics which have to do | with how the verb relates to a timeline: | | - "Tense" has to do with whether the action takes place | before, during, or after whatever time would be referred | to by the word "now". | | - "Aspect" has to do with the temporal structure of the | action itself, rather than its position relative to a | "camera" placed at "now": maybe the action occurs at an | indivisible point in time ("That's when I _noticed_ the | rabbit "); maybe it takes place continuously over an | extended duration ("I've been _reading_ for thirty | minutes "); maybe it occurs at a large number of separate | points within a continuous window ("I used to _visit_ the | donut shop every day after school ") | | Except I used the wrong words just now. "Tense" and | "aspect" are terms from syntax, and you can determine | them purely by looking at the form of the verb. The | definitions I gave belong to semantics: when I said | "tense", I should have said "time", and I'm not sure what | the semantics-specific term for the quality related to | aspect is. Anyway, we name the verb forms, "tense" and | "aspect", according to whether they primarily correspond | with those semantic definitions. | | Except, again, there's a little more to it. We'd like to | name the verb forms according to this distinction, but | there is a long tradition in Latin scholarship of | referring to both of those distinctions by the same name, | "tense", and this bled over into English. | | So we can say the following about line 1 and line 2: | | - Line 1 is, semantically, focused on the present. It is | making a claim about "now". | | - The verb is conjugated in what would traditionally be | called the "perfect tense"; according to the tense/aspect | distinction described above, it is present tense | (reflected in the form of _have_ ), indicating that we | are talking about "now", and perfect aspect (reflected in | the fact that _have_ is used at all), indicating that the | action described ( "taking a toll") is already finished. | | - Line 2 is semantically focused on the past. It is | making a claim about some time before "now". | | - The verb in line 2 is conjugated in what would | traditionally be called the "simple past" or "preterite" | tense. The aspect is not clear, because the English | preterite tense is used for multiple different verbal | semantic aspects. | | The fact that line 2 is talking about the past when the | rest of the chorus is talking about the present is very | strange. | pwillia7 wrote: | She said goodbye too many times before doesn't seem | confusing to me. | | He's lamenting a romance that's been difficult for him. | Before now, during the difficult relationship, she said | goodbye or left him too many times, causing the difficulty | and toll it has taken on him. | dghf wrote: | > it can't be considered fluent English when seen as an | isolated sentence | | Can't it? Why not? What's wrong with it? | | > The line in question, She said goodbye too many times | before, stands out like a sore thumb for being preceded and | followed by sentences that, unlike it, are both in the | present tense. | | But it's a _song._ Prosody can 't be held to the same | strict rules of tense consistency (or other grammatical | rules) as prose. And flipping tenses between lines is | hardly an uncommon feature of songwriting. Take, for | example, Leonard Cohen's "Boogie Street": | | _A sip of wine, a cigarette,_ | | _And then it 's time to go,_ | | _I tidied up the kitchenette,_ | | _I tuned the old Banjo._ | | _I 'm wanted at the traffic jam_ | | and so on. | thaumasiotes wrote: | It is indeed quite common for poetry to violate the | normal rules of the language. But that takes one of two | forms: archaism, or a flaw in the poetry. (It's also | common for poetry to violate the rules that govern the | poetry itself. Composing poetry is very difficult!) | Compare the opening of Mark Chesnutt's _She Was_ : | | _She started her new life_ | | _Ten dollars in debt_ | | _That 's all it took to get started back then_ | | _A trip to the courthouse across the state line_ | | _No one could stop her_ | | _She 'd made up her mind_ | | _He was eighteen_ | | _And she wasn 't_ | | _But she said she was / and never thought twice_ | | _And came back home as my daddy 's wife_ | | _She just shook her head_ | | _When her mama said "Are you sure he's the one?"_ | | _But she was_ | | Here we see some fairly complex temporal structure | handled fluently, with no problems of any kind. The | writing is better. | | >> it can't be considered fluent English when seen as an | isolated sentence | | > Can't it? Why not? What's wrong with it? | | The use of the simple past tense is not compatible with | the sense of _before_ that everyone here is trying to | assign. | orangepurple wrote: | The Polish language also has an insane amount of compression. | Example, "to play": | https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/bcthjo/conjugation_o... | alcover wrote: | Oh yes! It touches language and compression, both dear subjects | to programmers. | | If the accepted answer stands, that's remarkable. I wonder how | one could measure a language efficiency. Maybe syllable count ? | But one would need a sort of assembly to translate to and | verify that a sentence computes the intended information. | jdmichal wrote: | I'm just a hobby linguist, but I believe research has | generally shown that speech information density is relatively | fixed. Languages with more complex syllabic structures end up | speaking slower, but they can also code more information. | | https://www.science.org/content/article/human-speech-may- | hav... | enkid wrote: | The problem is that there are complex concepts that translate | to a single syllable in some languages but requires a lot of | context or explanation in other languages. Would these be | "single instructions" or multiple? Then when you really break | it down, many concepts are used grammatically but are not | required based on their context. Should you count that as | extraneous or not? An example is that some languages use a | case system to indicate the epistemology of a statement, how | the speaker knew that information (i.e. saw it first hand, | heard it second hand, or saw evidence of it). Depending on | the context, this may be vital or extraneous. Therefore the | same statement that is "compressed" to remove useless | information would be compressed two different ways. That | doesn't seem feasible. All of this is to say, this sounds | good in theory, but the complexities on practice are | insurmountable. | alcover wrote: | > single syllable in some languages but requires a lot of | context or explanation in other languages | | then don't these other langs do a 'bad job' at compression | ? | | > That doesn't seem feasible | | In general maybe not. But for some restricted 'assembly' ? | | "The cat is on the table" has no ambiguity. And in some | langs like Polish it compresses better : "Kot jest na | stole" (Cat is on table), same info, better syllable-wise | compression (5 vs 7). | pjc50 wrote: | Different languages "compress" different things depending | on what was needed. The Qin emperor did not know of | limited liability companies, due to the concept being | invented several hundred years later in Europe, so | Chinese writes "You Xian Ze Ren Gong Si " where an | English speaker would write "ltd." | | Kanji look very compressed, and can convey a lot in a | single character, but if there isn't one for your needs | things can get ugly. Whereas English speakers find it | much easier to borrow, shorten, abbreviate, or make up | words for convenience. | enkid wrote: | "The cat" has different information in it than "kot." | That same sentence also translates to "A cat is on the | table," but no English speaker would say "the cat" and "a | cat" have the same meaning. In fact, I can't think of a | context where both sentences would be interchangeable. | The listener either already knows which cat is "the cat" | or would be confused. "A cat" implies an unknown cat. If | you walk into your house and say "a cat is on the table," | the assumption is its an unknown cat. If you say "the | cat" it's most likely a pet. In some contexts that | matters and some it doesn't, therefore you can't just say | Polish compresses better. | mbg721 wrote: | "The cat" is folksy/chummy in a similar way to "the | wife". | dlainhart wrote: | From a data compression/language efficiency standpoint, | both sentences in both languages actually rely on a | (potentially large) amount of unstated context to sort | out these ambiguities. In some languages, this context | can be totally unspoken and merely known to both the | speaker and the listener. This absolutely MUST be | accounted for if a truly correct translation is to be | made. | | For instance, your assumption that the definite "the cat" | is being used idiomatically like so: this sentence, used | in the manner you offer, might be used in conversation | might occur in a farmhouse somewhere between an old man | and woman who have lived together in this house for a | long time, i.e. American Gothic. There's a vast amount of | shared information and a perception of very little | ambiguity held by both the speaker and the listener | (whether correct or mistaken!). Any of those might fail. | Furthermore, to use this sentence in English unadorned by | context requires that both the speaker and listener have | a shared reference to _what_ cat is being referred to by | the definite article, "the". This very well might come | with an unambiguous default in other languages! | | Translation only gets more complicated from this. | mbg721 wrote: | While that's true, anyone with a cat can tell you that | their house instantly becomes a farmhouse, and they age | years at a time on the spot as a result of said feline. | The context is kind of a given. | 93po wrote: | > the complexities on practice are insurmountable. | | "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" begs to differ | notpushkin wrote: | Finally, my favourite pastime: natural language golfing! | yieldcrv wrote: | Hackersnews don't have to be programming or tech | quickthrower2 wrote: | Lossy compression though. The songs meaning was lost because | "too many times" is very important to make sense of the | lyrics that follows. | JoBrad wrote: | Yes, but it's lossy compression, so beware. | throw0101c wrote: | > _I wonder how one could measure a language efficiency._ | | An area of active research: | | * https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/06/c | o... | | * https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/lingvan-2020 | -... | | A constructed language: | | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil | | * Via: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/zyi8q/wh | at_is_... | | Doing a search for "language information entropy" also gives | back a number of results. | seer wrote: | While some languages "compress" information into less | syllables, sometimes redundancy can be a feature. For example | I feel like languages like spanish have longer words, but | since the intonation doesn't vary too much, fluent speakers | can speak way faster, or to put it more accurately, fast | speech is more prevalent. | | Similar thing I've noticed with the south indian language - | Malayalam, just try to pronounce the name of the city - | Thiruvananthapuram, local speakers would pronounce it with | roughly the same speed as "London", and would enunciate every | syllable - its crazy. | canistel wrote: | Since you mentioned Malayalam, the sentence can be made | into a single word in the language - | _vitacholliyirunnereyaval_ (vittcolliyirunneerreyv[?]). | Sounds lyrical, but does it. | | No magic but plain agglutination, and I am sure this should | be possible in languages like Finnish too... | tetha wrote: | My first impulse - after playing some | programming/optimization games over the morning - was: Is | these just one kind of efficiency for a language? | | For example, mandarin or japanese can be very short on the | character count. However, this increases character complexity | and makes the languages harder to learn. On the other hand, | large parts of english tend to be simple to learn. | chewxy wrote: | You could measure the efficiency of a language by computing | how many bits are required to store the semantics of a | word/phrase/sentence losslessly. Assuming ideal encoding to | bits of course. Think of things like perplexity and the like. | | However, traditional way of computing efficiency of | compression would not be useful for a meaningful analysis of | the efficiency of a language. Barring issues like having an | ideal encoding to bits, or even having the concept of | "efficiency" being rigorously defined, there are problems | just from the outset. | | Take context for example. | | All useful compression methods have some sort of | decompression key involved. This could be the dictionary, or | the bitmap or the know-how (for cases like RLE). In natural | langauges, the compression/decompression key is stored in a | distributed fashion across the minds of a society. | | "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" is a VERY efficient compression | for what is presumably a very long story about two hunters | who met at an island and fought a beast together, but it is | only efficient to the people who speak that language. The | "local" efficiency (to the population who speak the language) | is very high, but the "global" efficiency isn't. | | So we must account for efficiency in terms of the size of the | compressed concept as well as the compression key. And from | my experience, it's a sorta lumpy kinda world out there. | shanusmagnus wrote: | You can't store "the semantics" losslessly because you | can't definitively say what the semantics of an utterance | even are, unless you're using some reduced definition of | the term, or a pre-selected frame, or a computer language. | jdmichal wrote: | > You could measure the efficiency of a language by | computing how many bits are required to store the semantics | of a word/phrase/sentence losslessly. Assuming ideal | encoding to bits of course. Think of things like perplexity | and the like. | | This has been done! The answer is about 39 bits a second. | | https://www.science.org/content/article/human-speech-may- | hav... | tsukikage wrote: | It is customary, when comparing performance of compression | algorithms, to include the size of the tool needed for | decompression in the compression benchmarks, since | otherwise one can simply smuggle the uncompressed data in | the decompression tool. | | ISTM a similar principle would need to apply here: learning | the "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" language would involve | absorbing many volumes of history and mythology where for | the usual sort of language a dictionary, grammar reference | and maybe a book of common idioms would suffice. | | Whatever metric is used to compare languages for efficiency | should reflect this. | bentcorner wrote: | > _" Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" is a VERY efficient | compression for what is presumably a very long story about | two hunters who met at an island and fought a beast | together, but it is only efficient to the people who speak | that language. The "local" efficiency (to the population | who speak the language) is very high, but the "global" | efficiency isn't._ | | I suppose image macros/memes are the modern equivalent. | Social context enables readers to "decompress" the meme. | | [Drake top]: "Two hunters who met at an island and fought a | beast together" | | [Drake bottom]: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" | klodolph wrote: | If you translate it back into English, "she had said goodbye | too much", it's clear that the real question is, "did the | author mean something by those choices which the translation | obliterated?" | | Translation is a process which both erases information and | introduces new information. Any comparison of languages which | tries to evaluate which languages are more compact has to | work with some assumptions about what information _should_ be | conveyed. A statistical distribution of language-independent | messages. But when you choose a distribution, you're encoding | your biases. | | Not saying that language efficiency is a bunk concept, just | that it's a thorny, difficult concept to quantify. Same is | true of data compression algorithms--there is no such thing | as an absolute scale for Kolmogorov complexity, for the same | reasons. | bombcar wrote: | It's hard enough to translate when there's one meaning - | but good writers often use multiple meaning of the same | words - either for deeper meaning or for humor or other | layered meanings. | | That's why the translations of Asterix are so impressive. | mbg721 wrote: | The Spanish dubs of the Simpsons have a similarly good | reputation. | scarmig wrote: | > Translation is a process which both erases information | and introduces new information. | | There's an essay I enjoyed by Douglas Hofstadter which is | all about this, though from an artistic POV without much | (any?) information science. _Translator, Trader_. The title | itself is a fun bit of translational wordplay on | "traduttore, traditore." | ekidd wrote: | > _If you translate it back into English, "she had said | goodbye too much", it's clear that the real question is, | "did the author mean something by those choices which the | translation obliterated?"_ | | When translating for fun, I've often run into a choice | between: | | - Preserving the author's meaning as literally as possible. | | - Preserving the author's style. | | A translation can be literally very accurate, while | destroying everything that made the original work charming. | Or it might preserve the feel and the flavor of the | original work, but skim over a lot of the details. A really | good translation captures more of both, with fewer trade- | offs. | | Jorge Luis Borges encouraged his translators to _improve_ | upon his original work, if possible. He worked extensively | with Di Giovanni, one of his translators, debating the best | way to capture certain phrases in English: | https://medium.com/@michael.marcus/dear-mr-borges-which- | tran... His preference was almost always to capture the | "feel" of the work, rather than a strictly literal | translation. | | I have an odd book, which contains three copies of the same | story: An original in English, a French translation, and | then a translation _back_ into English by a new translator. | The French version definitely loses something, and the | second English version loses a bit more. But in the second | English version, there is an occasional delightful turn of | phrase, something that 's briefly better than the original | version. Translation is _hard_. | js2 wrote: | For example, the closing dialogue of the French movie _A | bout de souffle_ ( "Out of breath" but given the English | title _Breathless_ ) is difficult to translate to English | because of the ambiguous use of "degueulasse". | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathless_(1960_film)#Closin | g... | [deleted] | magnat wrote: | > Translation is a process which both erases information | and introduces new information | | "Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not | faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not | beautiful." | saalweachter wrote: | Digging into "She said goodbye too many times before" | versus "She said goodbye too many times", the "before" in | the first implies that She is saying goodbye _now_. | | I'm not sure if the Latin translation as it is captures | that, or if you'd go for something more like "valedixisse | nimium valedixit", "she said goodbye having said goodbye | too much"; I kind of like that because then you're saying | goodbye twice in the same line. | alcover wrote: | > She is saying goodbye now. | | Exactly (or _at the time_ ). Many submissions here attain | shortness by eliding this important precision. | Someone wrote: | Brevity isn't the only goal with language; you also want | robustness under noise and ease of random access (e.g. if you | skim-read a text or if you enter a conversation a bit late or | have to leave early) | | In an optimally breve language the meaning of a text could | completely flip when a single letter/syllable/phoneme is | changed. That, in turn, means listeners have to hear every | letter/syllable/phoneme perfectly. | | Interestingly, natural languages already have a bit of both. | | As an example, if you skim-read a text and restart at _"He | said she wasn't there anymore"_ , there are 3 'back | references' in that sentence that require you to look back in | the text to find the meaning of. | | Also, a paragraph's meaning can change by adding the sentence | "Just joking." Or even a simple "Not.". | [deleted] | esotericimpl wrote: | [dead] | smaddox wrote: | Roughly the same number of syllables, though. | low_tech_love wrote: | The two-word phrase that was offered in the answer (nimium | saepe) was actually not a full answer, it was only for "too | many times". The answer actually did not, well.. answer the | actual question. | roblabla wrote: | it... did? Their final answer is: | | > nimium valedixit or totiens valedixit: "she bade farewell | too much before" or "she bade farewell so many times before". | | nimium/totiens conveying "too many times before" and | "valedixit" conveying "she said goodbye". | ace32229 wrote: | The top answer offers this 2 word solution: nimium valedixit | or totiens valedixit | kangalioo wrote: | In the linked answer, there's a two-word full answer phrase: | | > So I would cut this down to something like nimium valedixit | or totiens valedixit: "she bade farewell too much before" or | "she bade farewell so many times before". | qsdf38100 wrote: | Are you sure? My understanding is that the two words are the | full sentence. | | Edit: I mean in the last paragraph of the answer. | nicbou wrote: | German has many of those moments. It's a brilliant language for | very specific uses, like user manuals. | tetris11 wrote: | to dare - herausfordern Eng: "I dare you to | drink that" Deu: "Ich fordere dich heraus, das zu | trinken." | | Almost double | yorwba wrote: | Trink's, wenn du dich traust! (Drink it if you dare.) | carstenhag wrote: | "Trink's doch!" has pretty much the same meaning, in the | correct context. "Just drink it [... if you dare]" | zoky wrote: | Not fair getting "doch" involved, that's like saying | "dude": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d7sf2O90eu4 | r0b1n wrote: | Just because all the other languages are inferior for the | lack of a "doch" equivalent... ;) | mbg721 wrote: | That's the verbal equivalent of the Indian head-tilt, | right? | r0b1n wrote: | Schon, aber doch mit anderer Bedeutung. | | And we have more of those, like "schon", "gell", "fei" | (in some dialects), "halt", "eben". Maybe a few more I | cannot think of right now. | ginko wrote: | Deu: "Ex!" | | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ex#German | r0b1n wrote: | If you want to keep it very formal. Informally one would | say something like "Trau dich, trinks!", or even shorter, | "Komm, trinks!" or "Hopp, trinks!". Also depends on the | exact intentions, if it were a bet, one could translate it | as "Wetten dass dus nicht trinkst?", which would also state | which side of the bet the speaker is on. "Herausfordern" is | also more something like "challenge", as in "one knight | challenging the other", less like "dare" as in "one child | trying to get the other to do something". | h4ckerle wrote: | Shortest translation that comes to my mind would be: "Ich | fordre dich zum Trunk." Which IMO translates the original | sentence pretty well. You could add a "heraus" at the end | but as a native I would not say that it is necessary. Also | the Word "Trunk" sounds a bit antiquated but Duden still | lists it, therefore I'd say it's fair game. | andix wrote: | Usually German is just longer than a lot of other languages, | more verbose. | | Do you have any examples where it really excels? In my | experience English is quite a good language to describe | complicated things rather simple and short. | kevinmchugh wrote: | There is a mood useful especially in certain types of | fiction for which German is a perfect fit. Because the most | important verb in a sentence tend to be at the very end in | German, it naturally creates a sense of suspense. | alcover wrote: | syllable count english 10 - She said | goodbye too many times before latin 6 - nimium | valedixit polish 7 - Zbyt czesto sie zegnala | german 10 - Sie hat sich schon zu oft verabschiedet | french 11 - Elle a dit au revoir trop souvent avant | italian 12 - Ha detto addio troppe volte prima | portuguese 11 - despedira-se demasiadamente (user | tail_exchange) 14 - Ela despediu-se demasiadas vezes antes | (deepl) | | nb: the target sentence has 'before', which is lacking in some | submissions. | [deleted] | umanwizard wrote: | I don't think it's meaningful to compare syllables, since not | all languages take the same amount of time to say a given | number of syllables. English for example is an stress-timed | language, not a syllable-timed one, so the number of unstressed | syllables is basically irrelevant. | tail_exchange wrote: | You can reduce "demasiadamente" to just "demais". I realized | later that I was being silly. That would be 7 syllables. | dejj wrote: | Literal Code Golf. | oneshtein wrote: | In Ukrainian: 9 - <<proshchavalasia zabagato>> | oblio wrote: | Romanian: | | 11 | | Ea si-a luat adio de prea multe ori (inainte = before, | optional). | | 9 | | Ea si-a luat adio excesiv. | | 8 | | Ea si-a luat adio prea mult. | vladb38b wrote: | Si-a luat ramas bun deja adeseori. | niyaven wrote: | I mean technically I would translate "nimium valedixit" into | "elle faisait trop d'adieux", which is also 6 syllables (with | the advantage to keep the she). If you want to keep before, | which is skipped in this latin transaction, then it would be 2 | extra syllables. | r0b1n wrote: | If you cheat a little, you can get to similarly low numbers in | German: | | "Zuviele Abschiede von ihr" - 8 | | "Ihre zuvielen Abschiede" - 8 | | "[Sie] verabschiedete sich zu oft" - 8-9 | | If you accept "trennen" ("separate") for "saying goodbye", you | can do | | "[Sie] trennte sich zu oft" - 5-6 | | If you accept "[weg]gehen" (go [away]) for "saying goodbye", | you can also do "[Sie] ging zu oft [weg]" - 3-5 | | The "Sie" (she) is optional, but leaving it out sounds hurried | and informal. | | The literal translation also isn't very idiomatic imho, I'd | rather expect to hear one of the latter ones if it was really | about separations and going away, the former phrasing suggests | more something of literally saying too many greetings. | bitcurious wrote: | If you cheat a little you'd say "she said goodbye too many | times" and leave before implied in English also. But then the | song wouldn't sound as good. | hnbad wrote: | More like "Sie verabschiedete sich zu viele Male zuvor" | (literally, "she farewelled too many times before", but | acceptable to a native speaker). | | And no, you can't omit "sie", German is not a Romantic | language and the pronoun is required even if the verb has to | match it by case anyway. | | I'd say your examples are more than "a little" cheating. Most | of these are incomprehensible or completely fail to deliver | the same idea as the original. You can truncate sentences in | poetry but at some point you just end up with disjointed | fragments. | self_awareness wrote: | polish 7 (8) - Zbyt czesto sie (juz) zegnala | | Although it's possible to drop "sie" if we don't care about the | _response_ to the woman, so i.e. she could write a letter with | goodbyes, not caring /not receiving the response back: | | 7 - Za czesto juz zegnala | sznio wrote: | that's more like "she's been saying goodbye too often" | | the "before" at the end throws me off. I don't think there's | an correct tense to properly get this across in Polish. | "Kiedys zegnala sie zbyt czesto"? "Czesto" also kinda applies | to frequency in time, not count, so a literal "zbyt wiele | razy" feels better. | self_awareness wrote: | I feel like "she'd been saying goodbye too often" is "zbyt | czesto zegnala", but adding "zbyt czesto juz zegnala" is | like "she'd been saying goodbye too often, but now she's | fed up with saying goodbyes, and doesn't do that anymore". | | Of course "Kiedys zegnala sie zbyt czesto" is more explicit | and understandable, but not as efficient for this | competition :) | puzzlingcaptcha wrote: | It doesn't really capture the intent of the original | sentence either. To convey the same idea you'd have to | say something like "Za wiele razy mowila zegnam" | self_awareness wrote: | "Say goodbye" doesn't necessarily mean "to speak the | words 'goodbye'". I'm not an English expert, but I think | that waving with your hand is also "saying goodbye". And | if that's true, then "zegnac" is the same as "saying | goodbye". | ajuc wrote: | "Czesto" sounds way more natural here than "zbyt wiele | razy". Nobody says "zbyt wiele razy" :) | hashar wrote: | There is surely multiple alternatives for any given language, | similar to Draconis compressing the latin form, in french | instead of the literal: 11 - Elle a dit au | revoir trop souvent avant | | You could replace: * "dire au revoir" by "saluer" (which used | both for greeting and farewell so you get a bit of data | information lost) * "trop souvent" which uses the "trop" | adverbe when there is a word for it: "excessivement" | | Which got me: | | 11 - Elle salua excessivement avant | | Still as many syllable (4) but less words (from 8 to 4) which | might be easier to read. | seszett wrote: | That doesn't really have the same meaning, and sounds very | awkward though, especially because "saluer" needs an object. | | I'd say (considering the context, the meaning is that she | "told _me_ goodbye " too many times before): _Elle m 'a trop | dit au revoir_. | | That's 6 syllables (7 if you pronounce the schwa) and I think | that's close enough to what Maroon 5 mean in their song. | | _Elle m 'a trop quitte_ could work as well, with 5 | syllables. I don't think you can get shorter than that, each | word here seems necessary and as small as can be, to me. | | If you can spare a few syllables, " _deja_ trop " or "trop | _souvent_ " would make these sentences much more natural. | bambax wrote: | > _Elle salua excessivement avant_ | | That would not mean anything to a French speaker I'm afraid. | "Saluer" is seldom used. It tends to mean "saying hello" or | saluting someone in passing, more than "saying goodbye". | | _Elle a dit au revoir tellement souvent_ would work. | | Better: _Elle a dit adieu tellement souvent_. Not the exact | same meaning, but confers an undertone of dishonesty, as | "adieu" should typically be said only once (it means you | don't expect to see the other person ever again, except maybe | in some afterlife). | | Even better IMHO: _Elle dit adieu si souvent_. Present | instead of past. A little farther from the original, but | shorter and with a little more punch. It now implies it 's | something she does all the time. | nicolaslegland wrote: | In the version from Google Translate, " _trop souvent_ " adds | a notion of frequency like " _too often_ " would, "avant" is | shoehorned as a misplaced compulsory match for " _before_ " | when " _too many times before_ " already felt like a ready- | made phrase at this point. | | In yours, " _salua_ " would likely pass as a greeting, while | " _excessivement_ " would rather refer to the silly moves she | made. Definitely harder to read for me. | | I agree the "before" is the hard part to get right, I process | "too many times before" as " _too many times already_ ", | emphasis on reaching that number of times, given the song's | context. Maybe we should treat " _said [...] before_ " as a | smoothest form of " _had said [...]_ " to sing. | | I'd go for " _Elle a tant de fois dit au revoir_ " (9 | syllabes). | | Change my French mind. | alcover wrote: | > "Elle a tant de fois dit au revoir" | | Nice! And sounds better. | | To be nitpicking, I'd propose _" Elle a tant dit au revoir | avant"_ (9 also), which retains the original 'before'. | ajuc wrote: | I'd skip "sie" and reverse the word order. "Zegnala za czesto" | sounds better and more poetic ;) | | If you want to include "before" (which Lating skipped): | "Zegnala juz za czesto" | erremerre wrote: | Spanish: | | Despidiose excesivamente. 10 | jiofj wrote: | That's too lossy, and "despidiose" is trying too hard. | flobosg wrote: | > is trying too hard | | Maybe, but still a valid pronominal verb. | alcover wrote: | Does this not lack the ' _before then_ ' nuance ? | flobosg wrote: | "Despidiose excesivamente _antes_ "? | GonzaloQuero wrote: | It doesn't. "Despidio" is already past tense. That said, | "despidiose", while valid, is quite archaic. If it was me, | I'd say "se despidio demasiado" or even "se despidio de | mas" | | Edit: Reading the meaning of the song, I'd say "dijo adios | demasiadas veces", as it stays closer to the original | meaning. | grokkedit wrote: | you can remove the `prima` from the italian version: it's | implied by the use of past tense and it sounds really bad in | italian. if you want to emphasize the `before`, you can use: | `ha gia detto addio troppe volte` instead | marcodiego wrote: | The most natural translation in modern Portuguese is "Ela disse | adeus vezes demais antes." | [deleted] | tragomaskhalos wrote: | However, English will usually come out at or near the top in | terms of "syllable efficiency" due to its high incidence of | common monosyllabic words, and the feature that inflectional | suffixes will often not add a syllable (e.g. dog-s, love-d). | academia_hack wrote: | I'm really sad at how much Latin I've managed to lose since my | school days. It's really an incredible language and this stack | exchange post shows some of that versatility. | | Because the words in Latin contain dense grammatical information | in their spelling, you can be much more flexible with word order. | | This gives classical poets the ability to do crazy things with | word ordering to create "word pictures" where the structuring | ordering of the words conveys some additional meaning. This can | be done in English too, but classical Latin is almost made for | it. | | For example, Catulus 85: | | "Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris. | | Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." | | The translation Wikipedia gives is: "I hate and I love. Why I do | this, perhaps you ask. | | I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured." | | But there is so much brilliance in the structure of the poem that | translation cannot really encapsulate. The last word "excrucior" | (I am crucified) references a relationship between the structure | of the first and second line. Each verb on the first line has a | "mate" on the second. For example: odi (I hate)<->excrucior (I am | tortured), requires (you ask) <-> nescio (I know). If you draw | lines connecting these mates to each other, they form a number of | crosses - referencing the "crux" in "excrucior". The poem | literally depicts the torture instrument that is Catulus' love. | | Even more remarkably, this poem follows a strict metrical | standard dictating the order of long and short syllables: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegiac_couplet and it achieves | this meter in part due to the use of elision in the opening of | the poem, where two vowel sounds get merged due to the ordering | of words. "Odi et Amo" is read as "Odet Amo" as the the love and | hate crush together and evoke that sense of pressure and torment | that underlies the couplet. | | Classical Latin had so much capacity for structural complexity | that is really remarkable. It's not just that you can say more | stuff with less words, but that the allocation of information in | the grammar allows for entirely different expressions than you | could make if word order dictated meaning. | ana_winters wrote: | There's a reason Latin is a dead language. You'd do well to | remember that. | leephillips wrote: | What an amazing comment. Thank you so much for taking the time | to write this. | sharikous wrote: | The more elaborate books of the Bible, like Isaiah/Yeshayahu | and Psalms/Tehillim, make use of this kind of structure a lot | in the original. You can easily find "triple chiasms" with | structure ABCCBA. I don't know why this isn't emphasised | usually. | | Catullus of course is one of the masters. There is also the "da | mi basia mille deinde centum..." that has the structure of an | abacus | bshimmin wrote: | Great comment! For anyone looking to learn a bit more about | this, the "crossing" technique described above is called | "chiasmus": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiasmus | | Another famous example is "Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus" | from Catullus 5 (there are several instances of it in this | poem, in fact). | haste410 wrote: | > Each verb on the first line has a "mate" on the second. | | Can you clarify what a "mate" is? What determines a word's | "mate"? The position on the line? Their meaning? | viciousvoxel wrote: | Not parent but yes; related meanings (e.g. hate/torture, | ask/know) and typically same part of speech (e.g. both verbs | or both adjectives), and the lines having similar (but here | reversed) sentence structure (another commenter posted the | wiki link to Chiasmus which goes into more detail. | | The structure we see here is x0 and y0, ...z0 / z1... y1 and | x1. | academia_hack wrote: | Exactly this! It gets even cooler in this example too | because the meter for "Odi et amo" elided to "Od'et amo" | directly parallels the scansion for "excrucior" (long | syllable, short syllable, short syllable, long syllable). | So the two concepts that start and end the poem (love+hate, | and torture) are also linked by how they are pronounced. | Incidentally, that linkage is also the message of the poem | itself. | | These two lines are basically just Catulus' being a | complete show-off. And IMO, some of Ovid's work makes | Catulus look like a bit of an amateur by comparison. | | Classical latin poetry is like 10% being able to write down | clever ideas and 90% showing off your grasp of grammar and | vocabulary such that you can pose and solve incredibly | difficult linguistic puzzles. I think Sanskrit is pretty | similar in this respect too. | [deleted] | throwaway_69_69 wrote: | [flagged] | heavenlyblue wrote: | There was vert little pretence in the message above. | exitb wrote: | Is that a way an actual native speaker would phrase it, or is it | just Latin golf that would sound out of place? | hgsgm wrote: | That's what the question is trying to figure out | | Actual native speakers are all dead. It's poetry, not | conversational. The answers looked to poets. | monster_group wrote: | While I don't know Latin, I do know Sanskrit. In Sanskrit you can | say entire sentences with one word. For example "jigmissaami / " | is a full sentence and it means "I want to go." This is possible | because Sanskrit (and Latin) are highly inflected languages. The | price for brevity is that now you have to remember many more | forms of verbs and nouns. So nothing impressive (at least to me). | screamingninja wrote: | I find it highly impressive, but that's just me. | xdennis wrote: | That's nothing, in Nuxalk, clhp'xwlhtlhplhhskwts' means "he | had had in his possession a bunchberry plant". | | It's a single word sentence with no vowels, pronounced as | [xlp'khwltklpkl:skwkts'] (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ | x%C5%82p%CC%93x%CC%A3%CA%B7%C... ). | | It's formed from: xl- ("have") + pxwlt ("bunchberry") + -lp | ("plant") + -ll (pluperfect marker) + -s (possessive marker) | + kwc (of uncertain function) | [deleted] | nihiven wrote: | I read the linked info and the comments asking why this was | upvoted and it's a good question. The liked answer feels a lot | like a text version of a TikTok video. It's an interesting fact | that takes very little time to read and makes us feel that we've | learned something about a interesting topic outside of our | expertise. A TikTok example is a video about a 'little known' | fact of quantum mechanics. The linked info gives us the same type | of satisfaction we would get from a TikTok, but is on Hacker News | because it's presented in a more 'legitimate' way. | [deleted] | tonetheman wrote: | It pleases me greatly that there is a latin stackexchange. | [deleted] | da39a3ee wrote: | The English starting point is very questionable. Is it trying to | say "she had said goodbye too many times before"? In any case, | this makes the exercise of translating questionable. | FrustratedMonky wrote: | Would Latin GPT come up with that 2 word phrase? | tmalsburg2 wrote: | GPT4 response: You can translate the phrase | "She said goodbye too many times before" into Latin as "Dixit | vale saepe nimis antea". | | I asked GPT4 whether it could make the translation shorter to | which it responded that Latin was inherently a verbose | language, so no. | z2 wrote: | For what it's worth, I asked the same two questions to GPT | 3.5 and got: | | _Yes, in Latin, you can say "multum vale" to mean "goodbye | many times" or "vale nimis" to mean "goodbye too much"_ | penguin_booze wrote: | For a change of scenery, here's your Latin 101: | https://youtu.be/0lczHvB3Y9s. | sandworm101 wrote: | Yes, latin crams more meaning into each word (gender, tense ect) | but that doesnt make it superior, rather different. English is | generally short than french, but french remains the more exacting | and clear language for communicating specific ideas. | mbg721 wrote: | A side effect of that cramming is that word order doesn't | affect meaning as much as in e.g. English, which makes poetry | and wordplay different. | umanwizard wrote: | > french remains the more exacting and clear language for | communicating specific ideas. | | /r/badlinguistics nonsense. | jeroenhd wrote: | Reducing word count is rather useless if you end up with words | that are much longer. | | The distinction of what a word is, is also pretty interesting | to think about. When I read some old Dutch stories back in high | school, I noticed the writers would glue together words that I | would consider to be completely separate. The Latin word | "quodsi" from the second answer is obviously a combination of | "quod" and "si", two separate words, but "nimium saepe" isn't | combined into "nimiumsaepe" despite Cicero often using those | words together. "valedixit" is just "vale" and "dixit" smashed | together into a single verb. | | The proposed "illa nimium valedixit" (from combining both | answers, to include the stressed gender of the person in | question) can be interpreted literally as "she overly | goodbyesaid". You can derive the same meaning from reordering | the words, but it won't sound as poetic. | | I don't think English or French are more exacting and clear per | se, I think that's more of a cultural thing for native | speakers. Compare posh British English speakers to American | English speakers; the exact same words can be used to either | say something directly ("very interesting") or to hide complete | disagreement behind a nice expression ("very interesting"). | | I wouldn't consider French to be any better or worse than | English. It's just another language. Though, with the exception | of the useless ^ here and there to indicate a missing s, French | spelling matches pronunciation a lot better at least. | [deleted] | lgeorget wrote: | [citation needed]?! | OtomotO wrote: | Nitpick: it's etc for et cetera | masswerk wrote: | It's "&c" - Latin ligatures are important, especially in a | thread like this! ;-) | r0b1n wrote: | ... | vgalin wrote: | For further nitpicking: "etc." shall also end with '.' as it | is the abbreviated form of "et cetera/caetera". Also, when | used in an enumeration, it shall be preceded by a comma. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera | sandworm101 wrote: | And sentences generally end with periods, or release from | confinement. | stinos wrote: | One could also say that French is 'rather different', not | better or more clear. Let alone superior (though I do not know | where that claim came from). | anbende wrote: | If we're talking about clarity I think there's some merit to | the claim. It has tense markers that English lacks which buys | you information in the conjugation about tense, gender and | speaker. And unlike other Latin languages you aren't able to | drop the subject and just rely on the verb to convey it which | forces clarity one could argue. You get the best of both | worlds for clarity though the worst of both worlds for | conjugation complexity and overall verboseness. | | At least that's my attempt to defend the GP's statement. | [deleted] | whimsicalism wrote: | As a native english speaker, I feel like "She'd said goodbye too | many times before" better conveys the meaning for me. | jacksnipe wrote: | Sure, but then it's no longer the lyrics to a Maroon 5 song. | [deleted] | ak_111 wrote: | I think two words also in arabic : wd`tn tkrr | misja111 wrote: | [flagged] | KeplerBoy wrote: | Meh, ChatGPTs answer might be very different if it would have | been trained on this stackexchange thread. | efficax wrote: | chatgpt is no cicero | tgv wrote: | Illa doesn't even mean "she", and I see no other use for it | in the translation. But my Latin is very rusty. | masswerk wrote: | Mine shows some serious oxidation, too, but, if I'd go with | this, at all, I'd prefer, _" saepe valere dixit illa antea | nimis"_ | | (I guess, "saepe" is really a bit luxurious here, while I | can see the need for expressing, even emphasizing the | gender related aspect.) | tuomosipola wrote: | Illa means "she". (Thesaurus linguae Latinae 7,1:349) | uptownfunk wrote: | [delayed] | tail_exchange wrote: | I think you can achieve the same "compression" in other latin | languages. In portuguese, you may be able to translate this as | "despedira-se demais" or "despediu-se demais" (despediu-se = she | said goodbye, despedira-se = pluperfect form of she said goodbye, | demais = too many times). | ajuc wrote: | Slavic too. In Polish: zegnala (she said goodbye) za czesto | (literally too often, but used here it would convey the meaning | and sound more natural than literal za wiele razy). | | BTW zegnala encodes the gender. If it was he it would be | zegnal. So arguably it's more compressed than latin. | | BTW2 the real compression happens in conditionals zegnalaby = | she would have said goodbye | Metacelsus wrote: | Polish "za" has so many uses, it's really mind-boggling (as | someone learning Polish) | bitdivision wrote: | Yes, I think similarly in Spanish would be `se despidio | demasiado` or `se despidio demasiadas veces` if you want `too | many times` rather than `too much`. Disclaimer: Spanish is not | my first language. | | Does demais in portuguese mean too much, or too many times? | tail_exchange wrote: | It can be used for both. A better translation for it would be | "excessively". | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | You can do the same thing in English. | | She said bye often. | | 5 syllables. | elliottkember wrote: | "often" and "too many times" do not have the same meaning at | all | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | Neither do the majority of the translations. | | For some reason, it's fine to lose most of the meaning when | translating to Portuguese or Latin for simplification - but | it's not okay to just simplify in English. | tail_exchange wrote: | That's not true. What you provided completely changes the | meaning, whereas the translation I provided only loses | one detail (the speaker's genre) without altering the | meaning. | | One thing you should consider is that, in English, you | cannot omit the "she" pronoun without making the sentence | incorrect or unclear, since modern English does not have | declensions for the grammatical person. But in other | languages it is not only correct, but speakers do drop | the pronouns when they speak. This is what the commenter | was referring to when they said " _That translation | strikes me as overly literal, trying to keep a match for | each English word. I 'd go more idiomatic with this._". | | I agree that the translation I provided is not 100% word- | for-word perfect, since it drops a detail while trying to | maintain the original message and compress it as much as | possible, but saying that it lost most of its meaning is | very unfair. | lopis wrote: | You lost the gender of the person though, which from my | understanding is preserved in Latin with a verb suffix. | jjtheblunt wrote: | it is not encoded in the verb ending. | hgsgm wrote: | How very postmodern. | vlz wrote: | I think you got that wrong, "valedixit" is just third person | perfect, "he/she/it said goodbye", the verb suffix does not | encode gender. | tail_exchange wrote: | That is true. It could also be used by a "he", so there is a | bit of ambiguity. | trgn wrote: | I'm really curious, where is the gendered information in | "valedixit"? I feel like the proposed translation misses | that romantic weight by keeping the gender ambiguous. What | am I missing? | tail_exchange wrote: | I don't speak Latin, but according to my short research | (aka googling), it does not distinguish between third- | person masculine and feminine. So the ambiguity is also | present in Latin. | _aavaa_ wrote: | The thing missing is the context in which the sentence is | used. | | From the comments on stackexchange: "if the context | refers to this person enough to make it clear who "she" | is, it should also make it clear who "he/she/it/they" | is." | Vox_Leone wrote: | My shot >> Illa dixit vale multis temporibus | | (*) if you drop the pronoun you can even sing the Latin lyrics | on the same division. :) | | In colloquial pt_BR that would be 'Ela disse adeus muitas vezes | [antes]' | Zecc wrote: | Can't really speak for colloquial pt_BR, but wouldn't that be | "demasiadas" instead of "muitas"? | Vox_Leone wrote: | >but wouldn't that be "demasiadas" instead of "muitas"? | | I could be, but it wouldn't sound natural in pt_BR | colloquial mode. | Vox_Leone wrote: | Edit: but I get the discussion is centered on 'too many'. | | 'Ela disse adeus demasiadas vezes'. | | *I'm a natural pt_BR speaker. I would never say it this | way in a conversation. Too perfect to be colloquial. | maleldil wrote: | "muitas" is "many", "demasiadas" would be "too many". | "demasiadas" works better in the context here, but I | (Brazillian) don't think I've ever heard it spoken, only | read. | Lio wrote: | I realise it's from song lyrics so doesn't have to make sense but | this instinctively scans as poor grammar to me. | | Shouldn't it be "she'd" past tense? | | Otherwise it's just someone saying "goodbye too many times | before" and someone who'd previously said "goodbye" more than is | acceptable. | | ...I'm almost certainly overthinking this but I'd wager that | tense error is important when translating to Latin. | | It's like reading XML where someone's left out a closing tag. :P | bloak wrote: | > Shouldn't it be "she'd" past tense? | | Yes, probably (I don't know the context), but it seems to me | that in colloquial US English the traditional complex tense | system has been somewhat simplified: perhaps another example of | the historical influence of Germans and other non-native | speakers in the US. I'm British, of course, so I don't really | know what I'm talking about here but I think I've heard native | speakers of US English say things that are just wrong, because | of the choice of verb tense, in any form of British English | that I am familiar with: things like "Did you already do it?", | though I can't guarantee that's a good example. Of course it | could be that the verb system of colloquial US English is just | as complex as the verb system of British English but the | subtleties pass me by: I just notice the things that to me seem | wrong, like failing to distinguish between "Did you do" and | "Have you done". | whimsicalism wrote: | I don't know, as a speaker of American english to me it | sounds wrong without "she'd." | | "Did you already do it?" sounds perfectly normal to me on the | other hand. | da39a3ee wrote: | Yep, for example, it's standard for US speakers to say "I | wish you would have done X instead" whereas Brits would say | that should be "I wish you had done X instead". I believe | that that construction is a past subjunctive (since it's | counterfactual) and therefore that the Brits are essentially | right here ("had" is a past subjunctive form but "would have" | is not; it's a conditional). | whimsicalism wrote: | > Yep, for example, it's standard for US speakers to say "I | wish you would have done X instead" whereas Brits would say | that should be "I wish you had done X instead". | | Maybe that is something some Americans might say, but it is | certainly not the most natural way I would say it. | | I would likely say "I wish you'd done X instead" or "I wish | you'd X'd" | jgwil2 wrote: | This is not standard or correct in American English either, | though interestingly, German uses the same form for both | situations ("ich wunsche, du hattest es getan" vs "du | hattest es getan, wenn..."), so if that construction is | more common in American English it's possible that it's due | in part to the influence of German speakers. | da39a3ee wrote: | That's interesting. While perhaps not "standard", I'd | definitely say it is very common among educated US | speakers. Not to blame Bruce Springsteen -- who for all I | know might have been trying to depict via grammatical | error a certain sort of person in his song -- but for me | it always brings to mind the song Bobby Jean. But now I | see that apparently that is "wished" not "wish" so it's | extra confusing :) Me and you, we've | known each other Yeah, ever since we were sixteen | I wished I would have known I wished I could have | called you Just to say "Goodbye, Bobby Jean" | singron wrote: | It's pretty common to use present tenses in US English for | events in the future or past. E.g. "I'm at the store the | other day, and this guy comes up to me...", "I'm visiting the | store later" | | Perfect tense is common. Future is occasionally avoided like | above. Pluperfect and future perfect are almost never used, | and most speakers would convey that meaning a different way. | E.g. "I'll visit the store before then" rather than "I'll | have visited the store". There is also some pseudo future | tenses related to "going/gonna" (e.g. "I'm going to do | that"). | | I think tenses are probably taught in some schools, but I | didn't learn any of this until I took other languages. The | average US English speaker probably doesn't know the names of | all the tenses and doesn't even know what subjunctive, | indicative, etc. mean. | prosody wrote: | The answerer does say that either the perfect past (Latin's | closest to -ed) or the pluperfect past (Latin's closest to had | -ed) would work, they just chose perfect past. Maybe that | choice was because the perfect past has a sense of finality | that English's simple past doesn't, so it isn't necessary to | reach deeper into the sequence of tenses as it is in English. | [deleted] | benrutter wrote: | If you're interested in the grammar, I think the distinction | you're getting at is pluperfect (plan action that was | completed-in-the-past-in-the-past) and perfect (an action that | was completed-in-the-past). | | "She had said goodbye too many times before" means, at some | point in the past, it was the case that she had previously said | goodbye too many times. I think this is the intended meaning. | | "She said goodbye too many times before" I don't think makes | sense if you're extremely literal about it, since I can't see | what "before" would track to without the embedded past. | | The grammatically correct versions I can come up with are: - | She had (or she'd) said goodbye too many times before. - She | said goodbye too many times. - She said, "Goodbye too many | times before". | | Disclaimer: I do get that these are all worse song lyrics and | that nobody had any problem understanding the intended meaning | of the example sentence, which is sort of the goal of grammar. | jakear wrote: | Somehow the context of the song hasn't been shared on the | thread yet: Whispered goodbye as she got on | a plane Never to return again ... | This love has taken its toll on me She said goodbye | too many times before And her heart is breaking in | front of me And I have no choice 'cause I won't say | goodbye anymore | | Clearly "before" is needed to rhyme with "anymore". Also it | is referencing the times she said "goodbye" _before_ she said | it this last time when she got on the plane. | eszed wrote: | Thanks for the context, as I'm not familiar with that song. | | Isn't the grammatically correct rendering of that line "she | _has_ said goodbye too many times before"? (Present | Perfect, right?) | | Now I'm curious to hear the recording: is there a sibilant, | "she's"? | | Edit: Several others made the same point below. I'll leave | this here, but they were first. /e | jakear wrote: | There's no audible difference between signing "she's | said" and "she said", the s's blend together. Any | possible difference would be entirely obscured by | stylistic choices. | | Even vocalizing normally the difference is hard to tell. | Try saying "She said I love you" vs "She's said I love | you" - unless you make a point to completely stop in | between words there's basically zero distinction. | Majromax wrote: | > "She said goodbye too many times before" I don't think | makes sense if you're extremely literal about it, since I | can't see what "before" would track to without the embedded | past. | | It would grammatically work if you interpreted 'said' as a | habitual action. | | "Before [the etiquette training], she said 'goodbye' too many | times. [Now, she says it just once.]" | | In the context of the song, I think the habitual | interpretation makes sense; the lyrics speak of trying to | break the _pattern_ of a dysfunctional relationship. This | also works in that "said goodbye" has figurative intent | (meaning 'left the relationship') over its literal meaning of | verbally expressing one's departure. | hgsgm wrote: | I don't think that matches. In your version, "before" | implies that something happened that affected the goodbye- | saying. | | In the song, "before" is an adverb referring to the current | time in the story, which does not impact the goodbye- | saying. | | I can only make yours scan if I interpret it as "She said | goodbye too many times before... I stopped taking her back. | ses1984 wrote: | Doesn't adding the 'd change it from past tense to passive | voice past tense? | Lio wrote: | I honestly don't know but to me it sounds like present tense. | | I'd be interested to know though. It just reads as ...wrong | to me. | | I guess it might be an English dialect thing. | slhck wrote: | I'd say: "She has said goodbye too many times before." | | Because it still has relevance for the present, it should | be present perfect. | | Unless if course it's about finally quitting, then the past | tense makes sense. | Lio wrote: | > "She _has_ said goodbye too many times before. " | | Yeah, that sounds OK. Probably better than my original | suggestion. | | Or even the contracted "She's said goodbye too many times | before". | jameshart wrote: | I always heard the lyric as 'she's said goodbye..', which | both scans and makes more grammatical sense. Also matches | the tense of the previous line - 'this love has taken its | toll..' | thfuran wrote: | No, that's past perfect but not passive. Passive voice is | where the subject is not the actor. "Mistakes were made" is a | classic example. Mistakes are the subject but did not do the | verb. Someone made mistakes. | whimsicalism wrote: | Not sure, but the phrasing without 'd reads as _off_ to me, a | native english speaker. | VikingCoder wrote: | How am I the first person here to uselessly link to the Latin | Lesson scene from the Life of Brian? | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjOfQfxmTLQ | prerok wrote: | I was learning Latin at the time I watched that movie. Fell off | the sofa, laughing, during that scene :) | denton-scratch wrote: | The original English is ungrammatical, or at least incomplete; it | helps a bit if you start from grammatical English. | | So first alter it to "She HAD said goodbye too many times | before". Then it's essier to translate correctly. | wunderland wrote: | Both "she said goodbye too many times before" and "she had said | goodbye too many times before" are grammatically correct | English. They have slightly different meanings. | denton-scratch wrote: | Agreed; "she said goodbye too many times before" is | grammatical. But it's temporally ambiguous. The sentence is | reporting on a time in the past, a time when "her" utterances | were even further in the past. | | I suggested rephrasing prior to translation, to clarify the | tense of "said". | | As someone upthread noted, it's a song, so prosody is more | important than grammar. But I think it's still an ugly | construction. | | [Edit] I'm not sure what tense it is; I'm a native English | speaker, and I don't think I was ever taught the grammar of | my own language. I don't think it's past-perfect/pluperfect; | that would be "she has said" (she has finished saying it). | Wikipedia disagrees, but doesn't say what tense "she has | said" is. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluperfect | burkaman wrote: | That would be the past perfect tense, a different tense with a | different meaning that is only used in the context of another | past event you're talking about. The original quote is simple | past tense and is correct. | | You could also use the present perfect, "she has said goodbye | too many times before", which sounds slightly better to me, but | is again a different tense and implies the goodbye-saying is an | ongoing phenomenon. If it's all in the past, this tense would | be wrong. | jackcosgrove wrote: | I wonder if the original question -asking if a popular song lyric | could be translated into Latin - was asked because someone wants | a tattoo of it. | | I know a Latin teacher and she gets several emails a year from | strangers asking her to translate phrases into Latin because they | want them in a tattoo. | [deleted] | justinator wrote: | Let's hope not- Maroon 5's songwriting is not known to be... | good. | lr4444lr wrote: | People trusting the advice of a stranger over email to | permanently etch their skin? What a world... | sandyarmstrong wrote: | That was my first thought as well. Ah, to be young again! | tuomosipola wrote: | When I was the president of the society of Latin students, I | got several emails asking for tattoo translations. I hope I got | them right. | leke wrote: | My favourite part was - Saves valuable chisel time. | bertil wrote: | A clear reference to 'lapidarius/um', an explicit quality of | speakers, and meaning literally that. | DeTheBug wrote: | You can do something similar with Arabic, I can think of few ways | to squeeze it into 4~2 words phrase (variations) without | sacrificing clarity | ClaraForm wrote: | [dead] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-06 20:01 UTC)