How do you pronounce "God b'wi you"? For example in Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3, Line 6 (Oxford Shakespeare). The pronunciation I hear in one recording is "God by you". Folger's Shakespeare has "God be wi’ you" in writing (you can find that text online at www.folger.edu). Does that indicate a different suggested pronunciation? How would you pronounce "wi'"? Are there other variants? (Either in the text of this play or anywhere else.) There's a "God be with you" entry in Wiktionary but none of these variants are recorded. 178.51.8.23 (talk) 08:32, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

David Crystal's Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation has [ˈbɪjə] for be with ye/you. Nardog (talk) 08:47, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. This is the original pronunciation. How is it currently commonly pronounced on the stage? I mentioned one pronunciation I heard where "b'wi" is pronounced "by". Are there other options?

Regarding the original pronunciation note videos by Ben Crystal (David Crystal's son) and those of A. Z. Foreman on his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@a.z.foreman74.

178.51.8.23 (talk) 12:05, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd pronounce it "God be with you" but with the "th" sound missed off the end of "with." That might not be how they did it in the sixteenth century, but I'm pretty sure no sixteenth century people are coming to see the show. Incidentally, that's what they did in the Olivier movie (the line didn't appear in the Branagh version). Chuntuk (talk) 11:20, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming that earliest speakers of every language family had spoke some other language during the out of Africa expansion, were early human migrations successfully correlated with the consequential emergence of respective language families on migration routes? I've read about Linguistic homeland#Homelands of major language families, but wonder about the overall sequence of emergence. Brandmeister^talk 12:57, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand the question the answer is no. The migrations that you are talking about took place 100,000 to 25,000 years ago and well established language families only go back 10,000-15,000 years, often less. Even at that time depth the correlation between archeology and linguistics is often controversial. See Proto-Indo-European homeland for example. Studies such as A global analysis of matches and mismatches between human genetic and linguistic histories show that while there is correlation between human genetic and linguistic history, there are enough exception to make any precise conclusions impossible without other evidence. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:39, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There have been scholarly (and less scholarly) attempts to identify language families and relationships predating those more firmly established: see for example Nostratic and various other such proposals linked from it, but these are inevitably limited, largely because the evolution of languages is sufficiently rapid that all traces of features dating very far back have been erased by subsequent developments. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 07:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Although I cannot evaluate the likelihood, I find it conceivable that a future all-out statistical analysis of all available source material will result in a reconstruction of Proto-Afroasiatic that is widely accepted by scholars and much richer than what we have now. Perhaps this might even establish a connection between Proto-Afroasiatic and Proto-Indo-European beyond the few known striking grammatical similarities. Then we may be speaking about close to 20 kya. But indeed, there can be no hope of reconstructions going substantially farther back, by the dearth of truly ancient sources and the relative scarcity of sources before the Modern Era.  --Lambiam 21:09, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reconstructions of Proto-Afroasiatic have been hindered by the fact that the only branches with significant ancient attestations are Semitic and Egyptian, and for most of its history, Egyptian writing almost completely ignored vowels... AnonMoos (talk) 20:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hit "random article" for the first time in a while, and was directed to Adetoun Ogunsheye, the first female professor in Nigeria (still alive at 98). In the infobox it says she's known for "[b]eing the first Nigerian woman to attain professorial cadre", with the last two words piped to professor.

Does anyone recognize this locution of "attaining professorial cadre", or for that matter using cadre as a mass noun in any context? Is it maybe a Nigerian regionalism? Should we be using it in Wikipedia? --Trovatore (talk) 20:46, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That remark was added 7 years ago,[1] and the user who posted it is still active. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the collective sense is the older, just as for police and troop.

Here are uses of, specifically, teacher's cadre:

• "The smaller the city the more the teacher's cadre demand administrative support"^[2]
• "the cadre in which the teachers belong"^[3]

Other uses of the collective sense:

• "The officers, non-commissioned officers, and corporals, constitute what is called the 'cadre.' "^[4]
• "any one individual's decision to join a cadre",^[5]
• "the cadre is appropriately composed in terms of skills and perspectives"^[6]

 --Lambiam 23:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of those uses look like mass nouns to me; they all appear to be count nouns. --Trovatore (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, the phrasing is weird and probably just wrong (even in Nigerian English), so I've simplified it. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:07, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I think that's best. I'm still curious about the phrase, though. @HandsomeBoy: any comment? --Trovatore (talk) 04:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Promotion (in)to professorial cadre"^[7][8][9] is short for "promotion (in)to the professorial cadre".^[10][11][12]  --Lambiam 14:13, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Lambiam, I can almost twist my brain into following that. So far it does appear to be a Nigerianism. My reaction till proved otherwise is that we probably shouldn't use it in English Wikipedia, given that (unlike Americanisms and Briticisms) it's not going to be recognizable in most of the Anglosphere. But it's reminiscent of the lakh / crore thing, on which I don't have a completely firm opinion and which still seems a bit unsettled en.wiki-wide. --Trovatore (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The term 'cadre' was/is (in my experience) extensively used in translations from Mandarin where in Communist China a distinct body or group, especially of military, governmental, or political personnel, is referred to: I have also seen it used in a similar fashion regarding communist regimes and parties elsewhere, so it has something of a Marxist flavour (I wonder if Karl Marx used it in his writings?), but also in non-communist contexts. I don't think it can be characterised as a 'Nigerianism'.

The Wiktionary entry is of course relevant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 08:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

94, I think maybe you came in late to the discussion. Of course the word "cadre" is not a Nigerianism. The locution in question is attain professorial cadre, which on its face appears to use the word as a mass noun meaning something like "status". Lambiam's search results suggest a different, slightly convoluted explanation, but all seem to come from Nigeria, which suggests to me that this usage of the word is a Nigerianism. --Trovatore (talk) 20:55, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• @Trovatore: It's nice to see the article suggested to you, and I hope you enjoyed reading the article :). These little things motivate me to keep creating impactful articles. Regarding the usage of "cadre", I try to be creative and phrase content in a manner that is dissimilar with source references. I believe I didn't want to use the language from the source and "cadre" came to mind. It seemed like having the same meaning as my interpretation from the sources. From the discussion above, it looks like I was not entirely correct. I believe the article was created during a contest, so speed was also important to me. HandsomeBoy (talk) 22:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  FWIW, I just did a Google search and I am seeing a lot across virtually all universities in Nigeria. So it might actually be a thing UniAbuja, RUN, KWASU, Unibadan, etc. HandsomeBoy (talk) 23:07, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]