Truth with a capital T

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nijk
Truth with a capital T

Postby nijk » 2022-01-22, 8:59

I'm mainly curious to know how languages written in a script with no capital letters convey this meaning. Or even how German conveys this meaning since all nouns are always spelled with a capital letter.

(en) Truth with a capital T

(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby h34 » 2022-01-23, 14:43

nijk wrote:Or even how German conveys this meaning since all nouns are always spelled with a capital letter.

Even though it doesn't really make sense in German, it is often translated quite literally, as in this article (a similar example would be "America with a k"…). I guess most people don't care because they recognize it as a calque anyway.

(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W

(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

azhong

Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby azhong » 2022-01-23, 15:31

nijk wrote:I'm mainly curious to know how languages written in a script with no capital letters convey this meaning.

Hmm...Chinese added. Very challenging to me.
► Show Spoiler


(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W
(tw) 真相,至高無上的ㄓ
► Show Spoiler

(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)[/quote]

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Naava
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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Naava » 2022-01-23, 15:59

azhong wrote:I googled the term and I think it basically means "the Truth is unique".

It's a fixed expression ("something is ____ with a capital [first letter of the word]"). It's more of a way to add emphasis than to say that something is unique per se. The actual meaning of the emphasis depends on the context. Perhaps this page could help you understand how this phrase is used and what its closest translation in Chinese could be?

Fun fact: "Truth with a capital T" happens to be homophonous with "the truth with a large tea" in Finnish. :)

(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W
(tw) 真相,至高無上的ㄓ
► Show Spoiler

(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

(fi) Totuus isolla teellä.

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby md0 » 2022-01-23, 17:12

Greek has the same expression and since we only capitalise proper nouns, it works as intended. In Cypriot Greek we have an additional common expression, roughly "Something, both in name and substance".

(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W
(tw) 真相,至高無上的ㄓ
► Show Spoiler

(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

(fi) Totuus isolla teellä.

(el) Αλήθεια με Α κεφαλαίο
(el-cy) also Αλήθκεια, όνομαν τζιαι πράμαν
"If you like your clause structure, you can keep your clause structure"
Stable: Cypriot Greek (el-cy)Standard Modern Greek (el)English (en) Current: Standard German (de)
Legacy: France French (fr)Japanese (ja)Standard Turkish (tr)Elementary Finnish (fi)Netherlands Dutch (nl)

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-01-23, 18:22

Naava wrote:Fun fact: "Truth with a capital T" happens to be homophonous with "the truth with a large tea" in Finnish. :)
It has that meaning in spoken language in Estonian too, but they are not the same in writing (T-ga versus teega). They do sound the same though. In fact in spoken Estonian all three of these sound alike:
Tõde suure T-ga = "truth with a capital T",
Tõde suure teega = "the truth with a large tea"
Tõde suure teega = "the truth with a big road".
And while we're at it, they sound almost the same as:
Tõde suurteega = "the truth with a highway"
Tõde suurtega = "the truth with the large ones"/"the truth with the grown-ups"

:silly:
In Spanish you can say it the same as in English or you can leave out the "V", in which case it is like "truth with a capital [letter]".

(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W

(es) La verdad con V mayúscula / La verdad con mayúscula
(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

(el) Αλήθεια με Α κεφαλαίο
(el-cy) also Αλήθκεια, όνομαν τζιαι πράμαν

(et) Tõde suure T-ga
(fi) Totuus isolla teellä.

(tw) 真相,至高無上的ㄓ
► Show Spoiler
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

azhong

Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby azhong » 2022-01-24, 1:41

Naava wrote:It's a fixed expression ("something is ____ with a capital [first letter of the word]"). It's more of a way to add emphasis than to say that something is unique per se. The actual meaning of the emphasis depends on the context. Perhaps this page could help you understand how this phrase is used and what its closest translation in Chinese could be?

Thank you. The page you've found explains the phrase more clearly. Kiitos. Luckily enough, I had a correct conjecture. :D
BTW, is there any order to list the translations? Are they sorted from A to Z by the alphabet order of the language names in English or something? Please let me know if there is a rule about this issue, minor to me though. (Culture sharing: Humility is a the feature of traditional Chinese culture. And if based on it, I'll always add my translations at the end.)

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby md0 » 2022-01-24, 13:11

azhong wrote:BTW, is there any order to list the translations?


In all my years on this forum, I never understood the ordering either, other than language families are grouped together.
So, I share your question.
"If you like your clause structure, you can keep your clause structure"
Stable: Cypriot Greek (el-cy)Standard Modern Greek (el)English (en) Current: Standard German (de)
Legacy: France French (fr)Japanese (ja)Standard Turkish (tr)Elementary Finnish (fi)Netherlands Dutch (nl)

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Naava » 2022-01-24, 15:01

md0 wrote:
azhong wrote:BTW, is there any order to list the translations?


In all my years on this forum, I never understood the ordering either, other than language families are grouped together.
So, I share your question.

Tbh I'm not sure if it's ever been written down, but this is how I've understood it:

Sometimes the original sentence and the language family it belongs to goes top, but if not, then you start with the Germanic languages. Rest of the languages are grouped by language families, which seem to be always in the same order but I have no idea what the order is based on. The languages are arranged alphabetically within the language families, and if you add dialects, they go under the standard language in alphabetical order. If you're unsure where your translation should go to, you can check it from some other thread (like this one).

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-01-24, 15:09

md0 wrote:
azhong wrote:BTW, is there any order to list the translations?


In all my years on this forum, I never understood the ordering either, other than language families are grouped together.
So, I share your question.

I just grouped the Indo-European languages at the top, and grouped everything by language family/branch. In this case: Germanic first (because we started with English as the language to translate from, so it needs to be at the top), then Romance languages, then Greek, then Uralic, then Chinese.
I chose that order of language families because geographically they are moving (roughly) from west to east, and started with Germanic because of English, and alphabetized them within each group because why not. But I understand it like you do: language families are grouped together, other than that it doesn't matter. The only reason I changed them was because Chinese was between two Indo-European languages (German and Italian).
I was told to do it that way sometime back in the past and started doing my posts that way ever since but to be honest, I don't really care. It does make it a bit easier to check to see if a language is already listed when the list is long, but usually the lists aren't that long. :mrgreen:

Edit: just saw Naava's response. I think we're describing the same thing. She said it better, but I'll leave mine too.
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Naava » 2022-01-24, 15:29

Linguaphile wrote:I was told to do it that way sometime back in the past and started doing my posts that way ever since

I was also told to do it like that when I first joined the translation forum! :D Also, no idea who started this but afaik we've been doing it for years. I personally like it because it does make it easier to search for a specific language when you can tell where it should be if it's been added.

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Dormouse559 » 2022-01-24, 22:05

Adding French. The language has majuscule "capital", but grand "big" is apparently preferred in this expression.

(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W

(es) La verdad con V mayúscula / La verdad con mayúscula
(fr) La vérité avec un grand V
(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

(el) Αλήθεια με Α κεφαλαίο
(el-cy) also Αλήθκεια, όνομαν τζιαι πράμαν

(et) Tõde suure T-ga
(fi) Totuus isolla teellä.

(tw) 真相,至高無上的ㄓ
► Show Spoiler
N'hésite pas à corriger mes erreurs.

azhong

Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby azhong » 2022-01-25, 4:23

Linguaphile wrote:I was told to do it that way sometime back in the past and started doing my posts that way ever since but to be honest, I don't really care. It does make it a bit easier to check to see if a language is already listed when the list is long, but usually the lists aren't that long. :mrgreen:

Actually I thank you for arranging them in a better order, too. Were not your change, I wouldn't have the chance to ask the rule and then realize how linguists classify languages through your reply.

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Re: Truth with a capital T

Postby Multiturquoise » 2022-03-17, 21:17

Turkish, Kurdish (?)

(en) Truth with a capital T
(de) Wahrheit mit großem W

(es) La verdad con V mayúscula / La verdad con mayúscula
(fr) La vérité avec un grand V
(it) Verità con la V maiuscola (same as English)

(el) Αλήθεια με Α κεφαλαίο
(el-cy) also Αλήθκεια, όνομαν τζιαι πράμαν

(ku) Rastî bi tîpeke R-ya mezin :?:

(et) Tõde suure T-ga
(fi) Totuus isolla teellä.

(tw) 真相,至高無上的ㄓ
► Show Spoiler


(tr) Büyük G ile gerçek
native: (tr)
advanced: (en) (el)
intermediate: (fr) (ka)
focus: (de) (sl) (hr)


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