Talk:marosii

Archived from RFV: February 2014

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marosii

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.

I speak Finnish natively and have never heard of this word. I asked a couple of friends, all of whom also speak Finnish natively, and none of them had heard of this word either. A Google search for "marosii" returns only Wiktionary and its mirrors, apart from the lyrics of one song, which make clear that "marosii" is a Russian word written with Finnish ortography. Whoever added this to Wiktionary probably either was joking or doesn't understand any Finnish. JIP (talk) 16:57, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It appears in the (in Finland) well-known WWII propaganda song "Niet Molotoff" by Matti Jurva, lyrics by Tatu Pekkarinen and Robert von Essen. You can listen it in YLE's "Living archive" [1]. This said, I don't think that it should be included in Wiktionary as it seems to have gained no documented usage outside the song. It was probably chosen to the song because it rhymes with "harosii", which isn't Finnish either. BTW, the original contributor is Jyril, whom I have learned to respect as a serious Wiktionarian. He has added more Finnish entries than anyone else so far. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I have only recently learned that Jyril is a respected Finnish Wiktionarian and therefore I have to apologise for my "doesn't understand Finnish" comment, which is clearly wrong. That said, I still think "marosii" is not a Finnish word and has no place on Wiktionary claiming it's one. JIP (talk) 18:59, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I know zilch about Finnish and so am not taking a position, but I did remove marosii from the translation table at [[ice cream]] already. Is it supposed to be Russian моро́женое (moróženoje)? It seems to have lost its last few syllables. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I know Finnish inside-out but zilch about Russian. However, from what I can understand about the Cyrillic alphabet, "marosii" is apparently a Finnishised form of this "моро́женое" word. JIP (talk) 19:20, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

If you go to моро́женое (moróženoje) you can click an audio file and hear what it sounds like, though to be honest it doesn't sound the same as what the IPA transcription shows. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

In Russian, intersyllabic /j/ in unstressed syllables is often little more than a slight raising of the tongue and is thus sometimes inaudible. Yes, it sounds like it's pronounced [mɐˈrɔʐnəː], but Russian doesn't have a long schwa /əː/ phoneme. It's possible that Russian is headed in the direction of Ukrainian (and actually most other Slavic languages) and will eventually completely lose the /j/ in the adjectival nominative endings, but it's definitely not there yet. --WikiTiki89 22:56, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The audio file also sounds to me like it's stressed on the first syllable. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 23:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

That's because of the intricacies of Russian prosody. The pretonic syllable gets a good deal of secondary stress and the stressed syllable itself is usually indicated by a drop in tone. I'm sure entire research papers have been written about this if you're interested. --WikiTiki89 23:12, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

In Serbo-Crotatian, this pattern caused the stress to shift back and created a phonemic tone for syllables that did not shift due to already being the first syllable. --WikiTiki89 23:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

That reminds me of Welsh, where in most polysyllabic words the penult gets the stress, but it has a low pitch, and the final syllable gets a high pitch. As a result, English-speaking people often perceive stress as being on the final syllable even though it's actually one syllable before that. You can hear a good example at [[Ionawr]]. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 23:30, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes that is very similar. In Russian, however stress is not always in any particular place, in fact it is phonemic and unpredictable and can occur anywhere in a word (although I don't know of any cases where it is farther back than the fourth-to-last syllable). --WikiTiki89 00:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Removal of "marosii" from the translations list was definitely a good idea. I don't think the etymology of "marosii" is important. It may be only a whim of the writers of the lyrics to make it rhyme with "harosii". Remember that the Russians were enemies at that time and "mutilating" their language was probably considered a virtue. Let's concentrate on deciding whether the entry should be kept or deleted. We have one documented occurrence in a well-known work and no evidence of usage elsewhere. I don't think we include any of the numerous creations of James Joyce unless the word has "entered the lexicon", i.e. become part of the vocabulary of English language. It seems to me that "marosii" has not gained any wider usage and should therefore be deleted. --Hekaheka (talk) 19:57, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, [[bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk|yes]] [[husstenhasstencaffincoffintussemtossemdamandamnacosaghcusaghhobixhatouxpeswchbechoscashlcarcarcaract|we]] [[lukkedoerendunandurraskewdylooshoofermoyportertooryzooysphalnabortansporthaokansakroidverjkapakkapuk|do]]. WT:CFI includes "use in a well-known work" and if the song is really well known, I'd say we should keep it, but mark it {{label|fi|nonce}} (and create Category:Finnish nonce terms to hold it). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The word appears in this stanza:

Finlandia, Finlandia, sinne taas matkalla oli Iivana.

Kun Molotoffi lupas: "Juu kaikki harosii,

huomenna jo Helsingissä syödään marosii".

Njet Molotoff, njet Molotoff, valehtelit enemmän kuin itse Bobrikov.

The Russian loans or rather eye dialect terms are bolded. Finlandia comes from Финляндия (Finljandija, “Finland”), harosii from хорошо (xorošo, “well”) and njet is нет (net, “no, not”). Iivana was a nickname used of Russians during WWII and it comes from the first name Ivan. The choice of words harosii marosii may also be a reference to phrase хороши́ моро́зы ("horozy morozy") which, according to my grandmother, was used by turn-of-century (19th / 20th when Finland still belonged to Russia) Russian ice-cream vendors to advertise their product on the streets of Helsinki. Rough English translation of the verses above:

Finland, Finland, to there was on his way Ivan.

'Cause Molotov promised: "Yes, everything well,

tomorrow we will eat ice cream in Helsinki.

No Molotov, no Molotov, you lied more than Bobrikov himself.

I believe the idea behind the choice of words is to make mockery of Russian and Russians and therefore marosii is not even intended to be understood as Finnish. It means as much "ice cream" in Finnish as harosii means "well", i.e. not at all. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:35, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

One further point. If marosii were Finnish, it should be a partitive singular form, as "ice cream" is here a mass noun. The partitive ending is -a, but in many dialects partitives ending in -ia change to -ii ending. Therefore the nominative singular form should be marosi and that, according to my understanding, is uncitable. The partitive singular of marosii would be marosiita as the declension table properly shows. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Ha, I found something! According to this study[2] made in the University of Tampere in 2007, marosi did mean "ice cream" in the Helsinki slang. The study even gives a usex of harosi marosi. I update my position from delete to move to marosi, incorporating the findings from above. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The only place where "marosi" appears in that study says: Venäläine kauppias huus 'harosi marosi' ("the Russian merchant yelled 'good ice cream'"), accompanied by an explanation in Russian, which I don't understand. The word might have been jocularily used in Finnish slang some time during the war but I'm fairly certain it isn't any more. I even live in Helsinki and have learned my fair share of Helsinki slang, but I still hadn't encountered the word before I read it on Wiktionary. But the last time Finland was at war with Russia (or the Soviet Union), even my parents hadn't been born yet. I still think the entry should be deleted, or failing that, marked that it is obsolete and not in use any more. JIP (talk) 18:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Of course there's only one example in that study. They list dozens or even hundreds (I did not count, but I can see there are many) of words and give one citation of each. It's typical for slang words that there are not many citations available as, by definition, slang is a spoken form of language. Naturally it shall be tagged obsolete. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I can translate the Russian:

Данное слово было заимствовано и в столичный сленг в другой форме (TSBS).

Dannoje slovo bylo zaimstvovano i v stoličnyj sleng v drugoj forme (TSBS).

The given word was borrowed even into the Capital's slang in a different form (TSBS).

I have no idea what "TSBS" means. --WikiTiki89 22:19, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. My Russian is quite elemental and I misunderstood this bit. "столичный сленг" was right but I confused the rest. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:44, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

See page 94. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Content moved to marosi, speedied "marosii". --Hekaheka (talk) 07:39, 23 February 2014 (UTC)