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December 13

Japanese

Are there any pure Japanese words in which ぴゅ (specifically the hiragana variant) is used? 120.148.158.178 (talk) 02:10, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

This list gives several examples of onomatopeia, mostly related to blowing winds and air. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:47, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

English hyphen

Does English ever use hyphen to separate parts of a closed compound word? Are the following ever used?

• New York–Boston-road
• South-Virginia
• RSS-feed
• 5-1-win
• Harry Potter-book

Neither Manual of Style nor article Hyphen mentions that, so is it used? --40bus (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I can think of situations where such expressions could be used, as a creative (perhaps journalistic) form of adjective, but it would feel a bit affected to do so: as if the writer was trying to draw attention to their writing. For example, if writing about a Germany v England football match and you knew your audience would understand the reference, you could say the match had a 5–1-win vibe throughout (the reference being this match in 2001). Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 20:04, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

My examples are nouns, not adjectives. In many other languages, this is normal way to use hyphen. --40bus (talk) 21:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, OK; in English a noun would never be made in that way. Using a hyphen in that way would make it look like an adjective. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 21:51, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

In many other languages, a noun is like 5-1-win and an adjective is like 5-1-win-, with prefixed as 5-1-winvibe. And are there any place names written as closed compounds where second part is an independent word, not a suffix, as if South Korea and North Dakota were written as Southkorea and Northdakota respetively? --40bus (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Westlake might be an example of what you're looking for. GalacticShoe (talk) 22:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

But lake may be a suffix there. --40bus (talk) 22:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Personally, it seems strange to have lake be a suffix to north, but in any case what about Westchester and Eastchester? GalacticShoe (talk) 00:00, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. Compound (linguistics) says that if it has a hyphen, it's a hyphenated compound. If it's a closed compound, it doesn't have a hyphen. Do you want a word that can be spelled both ways? Try dumbass and dumb-ass.

Your examples, if compounds, are all open compounds.

There's wild cat, also spelled wild-cat and wildcat. The hyphen may be present because a compound is being tentatively created, giving a historical progression like foot path → foot-path → footpath. Or it may indicate different grammatical usage, like drop out (verb) and drop-out (noun), also dropout.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Street names used to be, e.g. Smith-street, rather than Smith Street.

Why in English, street name suffixes are not written together with the main part, as in most other Germanic languages? For example, equivalent of Example Street in German is Beispielstraße, in Dutch, Voorbeeldstraat, and in Swedish Exempelgatan, all literally "Examplestreet". And in numbered streets, if names were written together, then 1st Street would be 1st street or with more "Germanic" style, 1. street. In lettered streets, A Street would become A-street. --40bus (talk) 21:54, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Lots of old place names are closed compounds, for instance the well known ox ford location, Oxford, and I think for the Saxons that included streets, such as Watlingestrate. So it's tempting to say that closed compounds went out of fashion through the influence of Norman French, which is the usual cause of non-Germanic aspects of English, but the Normans would have said rue, and somehow that didn't make it into English - yet they introduced the habit of keeping street a separate word? Maybe?  Card Zero  (talk) 07:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd indeed be curious to know if the different notion of word is due to the fact that whoever applied writing to that specific language decided to write add a space between the elements of the compound term (in English) or to write them together (in German, Swedish, Dutch etc.). One could perhaps argue that filler letters (e.g. an s or e between the different elements of the compound word) is more typical in those languages than in English and therefore these filler letters mean that the combination is still a single word, while English does not have such filler letters except for the genitive s. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 14:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Years ago, here, I asked which of "instore", "in-store" or "in store" was the correct form. I don't remember getting a categorical answer. -- Jack of Oz 19:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2007_March_12#In_Store, and see also Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2010_May_12#Merging_of_expressions_into_single_words. DuncanHill (talk) 19:37, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

When were street names hyphenated? I'd like to see an example of that, I've never noticed it.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:28, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

At least until the 19th-century apparently - see examples from Oxford. Mikenorton (talk) 11:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Neat. I also found Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, which in 1505 was Whitnourwhatnourgate.  Card Zero  (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm so old, I remember when 19th century was two words. —Tamfang (talk) 03:01, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Korean romanization question (by 40bus)

In Revised Romanization, are there ever situations where there is same vowel twice in a row? Does Korean have any such hiatuses? Would following made-up words be correct according to Korean phonotactics?

• 구울 guul
• 으읍 eueup
• 시이마 siima

--40bus (talk) 19:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, having the same vowel twice in a row is pretty common. The word 구울 is a real word that means "to be baked": see wikt:굽다. That's not really a question about Revised Romanization, though. --Amble (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 16

Ancient Greek letter rho and Latin letters rh

Question #1:

The initial letter rho of Ancient Greek (which always carried a rough breathing) was transcribed in Latin as 'rh', 'r' for the letter and 'h' for the rough breathing. It was not transcribed 'hr' which would be just as logical.

On the other hand, in the case of a rough breathing before a vowel the Latin 'h' which transcribes the rough breathing preceded the vowel: for example an alpha with a rough breathing would be transcribed in Latin as 'ha' not 'ah'.

How can that inconsistency in the way the rough breathing was transcribed in these two cases in Latin be explained?

Question #2:

There are also cases of 'rh' in Latin which do not transcribe a rho with a rough breathing. There are even cases of medial 'rh' which obviously could never transcribe an initial rho in Greek, for example 'arrha' ('pledge, deposit, down payment').

What are those 'rh'? Do they always occur after 'rr' or 'double r' (as in the example)? Are there 'rr' that are not followed by an 'h'? In other words is this 'h' simply a spelling device indicating some peculiarity of the pronunciation of the 'rr'? Or are 'r' and 'rh' (or possibly 'rr' and 'rrh') two different phonemes in Latin?

178.51.16.158 (talk) 02:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

A likely explanation for the inconsistency is that when such things were first devised by somebody, they weren't working to already-set rules, and went with the first idea that came to them, which might well have been inconsistent with similar things thought up by someone else, somewhere else, at some other time, that they didn't know about. This is a major difference between the evolutions of 'natural' languages and writing systems, and the creations of conlangs and their scripts (and also 'real' solo-constructed scripts such as Glagolitic).

Similar processes explain a lot of the frankly bonkers nomenclatures used in modern physics, etc., where someone makes up 'placeholder' names intending to replace them with something better, but never gets round to doing so, and others take them up. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 04:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

40bus -- Latin alphabet "rh" fit in with other digraphs used when transcribing Greek into Latin, namely "th", "ph", and "ch". The sequence "hr" would only make sense if a rho with a rough breathing meant a sequence of two sounds "h"+"r", which I highly doubt. As for medial doubled -rr-, it also had a rough breathing over one or both rhos in some orthographic practices, which is included in some transcriptions -- i.e. diarrhea -- and ignored in others. By the way, words beginning with upsilon generally had a rough breathing also. AnonMoos (talk) 06:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

A simple consistent rule is that the Latin ⟨h⟩ in transliterated Greek words immediately precedes a vowel or, exceptionally, another ⟨h⟩ digraph (as in chthonic and phthisis).

BTW, if a double rho is adorned with breathing marks, the first of the pair is marked with smooth breathing, as in διάῤῥοια.  --Lambiam 10:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

That's most standard. I was looking at Goodwin and Gluck's "Greek Grammar", and it seemed that they had rough breathings over both rhos in an intervocalic doubled rho, but on looking closer, the first one is actually a smooth breathing, as you describe... AnonMoos (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary, latin arrha is from Greek, originally from Semitic: wikt:arrha#Latin. So it still has to do with how Greek words were borrowed into Latin, not to do with native Latin phonetics. --Amble (talk) 15:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

English full stop

Can ordinal numbers in English be abbreviate with full stop, like 4. time (4th time) or 52. floor (52nd floor)? And does English ever abbreviate words with full stop to save space, similarly to many other languages, like in table columns, where e.g. Submitted Proposals -> Subm. Prop. would occur? There are some established full-stop abbreviations like US state abbreviations, but are there any temporary abbreviations which are used only when space is limited. And can full stops be used in dates like 16. December 2024? --40bus (talk) 21:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

In some situations words are abbreviated with full stops, but in my experience they are never used with numbers in the way you suggest. HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In British English, no to ordinal numbers (as far as I know), yes to abbreviations (for instance Asst. means Assistant in many titles, like this example), and yes for dates but only when fully numerical (today's date can be expressed as 16.12.24 - see this example from New Zealand, although a slash is more common, 16/12/24). Alansplodge (talk) 22:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

In some cases, Romance languages use ª , º abbreviations, but English has a whole series of special two-letter endings for the purpose: -st, -nd, -rd, -th... AnonMoos (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

In certain contexts a slight re-ordering may result in needing no ordinal indication at all: "Manhole 69", "Track 12", "Coitus 80" (all titles of J. G. Ballard short stories, by the way); "Floor 17", "Level 42", etc. This however might fall outside the scope of your query. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 03:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Afaiknew only German uses 4. for 4th. But see wikt:4. which says 4. is an abbreviation of vierte (=fourth), but also lists several other languages where it means 4th. 213.126.69.28 (talk) 13:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

So does Turkish. "4. denemede başardı..." means "She succeeded on the 4th try...".  --Lambiam 18:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. 4. stands for "dördüncü", which means fourth in Turkish. This type of abbreviation is commonly used in Turkey, maybe through the influence of German. Xuxl (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

December 17

Some questions

1. Are there any words in English where yod-coalescense appears with a stressed vowel?
2. Are ranges of times in English-speaking countries ever presented as: 7-21, 12-18, with 24-hour clock? Would most English speakers understand "7-21" to be a range of clock times?
3. Why does English not say "Clock is five", but "It is five"? In most other Germanic languages, as well as in some Uralic languages, word "clock" appears in this expression, such as in German er ist fünf Uhr, Swedish Klockan är fem, Finnish Kello on viisi.
4. Do most English speakers say that it is "seven" when time is 7:59? I think that it is "seven" when hour number is 7.
5. Are there any words in English where ⟨t⟩ is pronounced in words ending in -quet?
6. Why has Hungarian never adopted Czech convention to use carons to denote postalveolar and palatal sounds?
7. Are there any Latinates in English that have letter K before A, O and U?
8. Can it and they be used as distal demonstrative pronouns in English?

(More to come) --40bus (talk) 06:32, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

3. Quick note that the German phrase given doesn't seem to directly use the meaning of "clock" (although of course noting the clock meaning of wikt:Uhr#German) GalacticShoe (talk) 08:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Also compare Dutch “Het is vijf uur,” where uur can only be translated as hour(s), not clock. The German and Dutch phrases can be calqued into English as “It's five hours.” (Dutch and German normally don't use the plural of units of measurement.) PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:42, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure I would agree for the German language. "hours" would be "Stunden"; "Uhr" has the double meaning of "clock" and "o'clock". However, I don't see how it differs from the English phrasing, since "Uhr ist fünf" (analogous to "clock is five") would simply sound wrong to German ears. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 12:03, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

3. "It is five" or "It is five o'clock" would probably be in response to "What time is it?" If you responded "Clock is five", you would probably get some weird looks. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

4. If the time is 7:59, you wouldn't say it is "seven" - you would either give the exact time or else say "it's almost eight ". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

5. Banquet I think everywhere, racquet in UK spelling, and sobriquet and tourniquet in American English pronunciation. GalacticShoe (talk) 08:11, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

6. You should ask the Hungarians that question. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

3. Note that "it is five" is short for "it is five o'clock", itself shortened from "it is five of the clock".  --Lambiam 11:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Once again, the "why" questions aren't really answerable. There is almost certainly no underlying reason (no "why") that explains what happened. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

7. Kalends

Are there any Latinates in English that have letter K before A, O and U that were spelled with letter C in Latin (and possibly in French too)? --40bus (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Kale evolved from Northern Middle English cale, cal, and ultimately derives from Latin caulis. As for ko and ku, I can't really think of any common English words that start with them and are not obviously of non-Latinate origin (e.g. koala, kukri.) GalacticShoe (talk) 05:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

1. To quote our article Phonological history of English consonant clusters, "In certain English accents, yod-coalescence also occurs in stressed syllables, as in tune and dune". ColinFine (talk) 16:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

2. No it's not used like that in the UK. I imagine that most people would guess that 7-21 would mean 07:21 (21 minutes past 7 am). I think 07:00 - 21:00 would be understood however, but in normal speech one would use "7 am to 9 pm", in the UK at least. Alansplodge (talk) 22:19, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Do English speakers ever refer an hour from 21:00 to 22:00 as "twenty-one"? Is there any English-speaking country where 24-hour clock predominates in writing, and 12-hour clock is used orally at most, but 24-hour clock is common orally too?

They may refer to 21:00 (9 pm) as "21 hours" or "twenty-one hours", but this means a time of the day, not a period lasting one hour. The one-hour period from 14:00 to 15:00 will most commonly be referred to as "from 2 to 3 pm" or "between 2 and 3 pm". Similarly, one may use "from 21 to 22 hours".  --Lambiam 11:38, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

A phrase such as "during the 5 o'clock hour" is sometimes used to denote the period from 5 o'clock until 6 o'clock. At least around where I live in NC.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

2. Not really no. 24 hour time is not in general use in the United States and is only vaguely familiar to most people. It is used in military and hospital contexts where people are expected to learn it. But it is not used for transportation timetables, broadcast announcements, or really any communications designed for the general public. An American adult can generally function perfectly well without being able to use or recognize 24 hour clock references. Eluchil404 (talk) 07:39, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Are there any timetables in US that use 24-hour clock? And can 24-hour clock be used in articles with strong ties to US (I have seen no US-related articles with 24-hour clock) such as: "The Super Bowl begins at 18:40 ET? --40bus (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC) --40bus (talk) 06:29, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I've never seen one and I'd be surprised to find one in a public-facing context. In a Misplaced Pages context, I don't see any explicit guidance in MOS:TIME and would probably ask at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. Eluchil404 (talk) 03:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

6: Unusually among the world's languages, Hungarian uses a plain ⟨s⟩ for /ʃ/ and a digraph ⟨sz⟩ for /s/, for the reason that the /ʃ/ is in fact more common. Then it makes sense to employ the ⟨s⟩ as a modifier of the alveolar consonants ⟨z, c⟩ /z, ts/ into postalveolar ⟨zs, cs⟩ /ʒ, tʃ/, akin to how Czech uses a caron for that purpose: ⟨š, ž, č⟩ /ʃ, ʒ, tʃ/.

The other set of Hungarian digraphs is the palatals ⟨gy, ty, ny, ly⟩ /ɟ, c, ɲ, j/, the latter having been /ʎ/ historically. They could have written them in the Czech/Slovak fashion as ⟨ď, ť, ň, ľ⟩ – but, for one reason or another, they just didn't. --Theurgist (talk) 19:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

English H

1. Why English uses letter H in words such as bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah and Utah? In the first two, the ⟨ah⟩ is pronounced as a schwa, so the spelling without H would be more logical (as spelling with H would indicate a long sound). But why Utah has letter H, why it isn't just Uta?
2. Why English uses ⟨ph⟩ instead of ⟨f⟩ in many words to indicate Greco-Latin Φ/ph? Why is it philosophy, phone, photograph, -phobia and not filosofy, fone, fotograf, -fobia?

--40bus (talk) 20:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

(posting by banned user removed.)

In Portuguese, /s/ between two vowels becomes /z/, so spelling or "Brazil" with Z approximates the original word more closely. --40bus (talk) 20:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Mitzvah is a transliteration from Hebrew. Here's a theory on Utah. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

2. Here is some info on the photo- prefix. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

2. Blame the Romans for the "ph", see Why does “ph” make an “f” sound?. Added to that, English spelling is not phonetic but conservative and tends to preserve the original regardless of current pronunciation. Alansplodge (talk) 22:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

The Romans are to blame, according to that article, because, when the pronunciation changed from /p/ to /f/ and the spelling no longer matched the original pronunciation, they "decided not to change the way it is written in Latin". I wonder, who decided this, the Roman Emperor, or the Senate, or was a plebiscite held? Is it known when this decision was made?  --Lambiam 10:24, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

More probably, they just continued their scribal practices unaltered after the sounds changed, by default inertia. Those who know something about the history of English should be familiar with that concept... AnonMoos (talk) 01:01, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Some languages have chosen to respell "ph" as "f" -- see https://en.wiktionary.org/fotografia and related Wiktionary entries -- but French, which has cultural ties to English, hasn't, nor has English. There's not really any central body in charge of spelling in the English-speaking world which could propose or enact such a change... AnonMoos (talk) 23:19, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

One slightly odd (IMO) example is the Cypriot city of Πάφος, which was traditionally (and internationally generally still is) transliterated as Paphos, but is locally transliterated as Pafos. Iapetus (talk) 09:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

That may have to do with Turkish orthography (Cyprus is bilingual, half Greek, half Turkish), which is rather consistently fonetik. An occurrence of ⟨ph⟩ in a Turkish word, as for example in şüphe, is pronounced as a followed by a . We also find, locally, the more phonetic Larnaka instead of the traditional Larnaca. and Kerinia for Κερύνεια instead of the transliteration Keryneia.  --Lambiam 11:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't really have anything to do with Turkish. It's just that virtually all common present-day transcription systems for Modern Greek proper names transcribe <φ> with <f>. In Cyprus, this goes both for the PCGN (1962) system formerly used by the British administration, and for the common ELOT system the country later switched to (aligned with usage in Greece). See Transliteration of Greek for some details. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of ph vs. f, it's surprising (to me) how pervasive is the belief that Hitler spelled his given name "Adolph" when every reference worth a damn tells us it's "Adolf". -- Jack of Oz 21:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that is weird. I think it might be the case that "Adolph" used to be a normal-ish, if not that common, name among English speakers, so it's kind of an Anglicization, like "Joseph Stalin". These days of course you hardly ever meet an Adolph (though I once knew an Adolfo). --Trovatore (talk) 21:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

To be fair, looking back at 19th century records from German-speaking areas, name spellings weren't anywhere near as fixed as they are nowadays. You could easily be a Mayr in your birth record, a Mayer in your marriage entry and a Meier in your death record. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 13:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

1. While "mitzvah" is generally pronounced with a schwa in ordinary speech, this seems more like the general relaxation of vowels in conversational English. If I were pronouncing it as an isolated word (or phrase with bar or bat), the final a would probably sound more like the a in father. "ah" is a common way of writing that sound. Without the final h, I would tend to pronounce the a in Utah with the sound of a in cat. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Really??? You'd pronounce Uta with a final ? I'm not aware of any accent of English that permits a word-final ash in any normal word. I might not be too surprised to hear it realized in some sort of grunt, like Bah! or something, or maybe Mike Meyers's tyaah...and monkeys might fly outa my butt. --Trovatore (talk) 21:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Uta would be pronounced /juːtə/. Are there any polysyllabic words where final ⟨a⟩ is pronounced /ɑː/--40bus (talk) 12:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd also expect a schwa in the Yiddish pronunciation; cf. בריאה ,הוצאה ,הנאָה ,משפּחה, which have in their Hebrew etyma.  --Lambiam 22:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

But we aren't discussing Yiddish. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:49, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

It might be that the pronunciation of mitzvah in English has more to do with the Yiddish than with the Modern Hebrew pronunciation.  --Lambiam 00:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

What countries/languages use decimal separators for years?

I sometimes come across texts from various scientific fields where decimal separators are used for years, i.e. December 17 2,024 or 2 024. Does anyone know in what languages or countries this practice is common? The texts are in English but the authors are from around the world and likely write it that way because that's how it's done in their native language. --91.114.187.180 (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Our own Manual of Style states, "Do not add a comma to a four-digit year", giving June 2,015 as an example of an unacceptable date format. It is not hard to find examples where "2 024" occurs next to "2024" in one and the same text, so one needs to see this format used consistently before considering its use intentional. Conceivably, some piece of software that is too smart for its own good may see the year as a numeral and autoformat it as such. For the rest of this year, the wikitext {{formatnum:{{CURRENTYEAR}}}} will produce "2,024".  --Lambiam 10:13, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Continuing on Lambian's reply, a space separating the thousands column from the other three digits is recommended by SI and may similarly be a hypercorrection when used in years. Matt Deres (talk) 14:15, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The way I read that recommendation is, that if you use a decimal separator, it's best to use a space (less confusing than dots or commas), not that one should use a decimal separator. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:06, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

It's very uncommon to use decimal separators in numbers of no more than 4 digits, except for alignment in a column also having numbers of 5 or more digits. As years rarely have more than 4 digits, they rarely get decimal separators. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:11, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 18

Pinyin

Is Hanyu Pinyin a writing system for Chinese of is it just a romanizations system? I have always thought it as a writing system for Chinese. Can it be said that e.g. "letter A is used in Chinese language". --40bus (talk) 22:30, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's not much used by native-language Chinese speakers to communicate with other Chinese speakers in connected sentences and paragraphs, because it lacks a number of the disambiguation cues which readers of Chinese characters are used to. Without explicit tone marking (diacritics or numbers) it can be rather ambiguous (see Yuen Ren Chao's clasic Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den). Even with tone marking, there can be some difficulties in understanding. Pinyin is used for many other purposes, though... AnonMoos (talk) 05:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess Latin letters are used for many purposes in generally Chinese writing, though, similar to Rōmaji in Japanese. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:54, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that Pinyin is used way more than Romaji. And, for the poem, is there any page where it is written in full, in both characters and pinyin? Misplaced Pages lists only the first verse. --40bus (talk) 13:21, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The Latin letters "OL" are sometimes used right in the middle of Japanese kanji and kana to write the term "Office lady", which is a word fully adopted into Japanese (probably at least partly coined within Japanese). I wonder if that's found in China? AnonMoos (talk) 00:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

From my experience, the most common way of typing Chinese in Mainland China is through the Pinyin input method. So it is used daily by almost everyone, but in the sense that it is used to type characters, not to type Pinyin for others to read. --Terfili (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Are books and websites ever written in Pinyin? --40bus (talk) 07:50, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I do not think Pinyin is used anywhere in isolation as a replacement of the regular Chinese writing. As mentioned already, the Chinese language has way too many homonyms even when the diacritics are added to distinguish tones. The one application I am aware of is in children's books for learning reading - but then primarily on top of the actual Chinese characters. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 11:57, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

And in Taiwan they have Bopomofo. Nardog (talk) 12:38, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

English-speaking countries

Are countries like India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Tonga, Ghana and Kenya, considered to to be English-speaking, as these countries do not have English as a majority native language, but it is used widely in administration. Why English has not become majority native language in South Africa like it has become in US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia? --40bus (talk) 22:35, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The India article says that Hindi and English are the main languages, and there are 22 Languages with legal status in India, presumably due to the many localized languages. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding South Africa, it's likely because in the other countries you contrast, Europeans, hence mostly preferrers of English over the indigenous languages, now greatly outnumber the indigenous speakers, whereas in South Africa first-language English speakers are around only 8–9% of the population, ranking around 4th to 6th, and outnumbered even by Afrikaans (evolved from Dutch), around 12% and 3rd. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

And why English is not official language in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia and Mauritius, despite having been British colonies? And I think that The "Big Six" English speaking countries are UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but is South Africa the seventh? --40bus (talk) 06:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Your first question: why? – because the legislators of those countries have not chosen to make it so. Sri Lanka's official languages are Sinhala and Tamil, with English officially a "link language" used in education, science and commerce. Myanmar's is Burmese, and English ceased to be the primary language used in higher education 60 years ago. Malaysia's is Malay, though English is used for some official purposes, and is official in the Assemblies of two States. Mauritius has no official language, but English is the official language of its National Assembly, though the use of French, actually more commonly spoken in the country, is also sanctioned there. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 10:54, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

40bus -- Braj Kachru developed the concept of "Three Circles of English" for just this purpose -- the countries you named are basically "Outer Circle" countries (though some are more outer than others). AnonMoos (talk) 04:35, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Could South Africa ever move to Inner Circle? --40bus (talk) 17:49, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The answer seems pretty clear: native speakers of European languages outside Europe are the where the descendants of European settlers became the majority of the population. The distinct case to mention here is Latin America, where most people are of both Indigenous and European descent, but where majority Indigenous-language areas are limited to Paraguay and subnational regions.

In areas with high linguistic diversity, whichever European language was introduced during colonization often becomes a lingua franca and means of leverage for the speakers of minority languages against those of the plurality language group (Hindi in India, Swahili in Kenya, Zulu in South Africa, Sinhala in Sri Lanka etc.) Remsense ‥ 论 05:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Belize speaks English commonly.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:39, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Quite! Just to be clear since I'm not sure, was something I said misleading? Remsense ‥ 论 17:51, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

No, no, just agreeing. It seemed unusual enough to single out.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

English is the official language of Belize, and spoken by over 60% of the population (whose majority is bi- or multi-lingual).

However, being spoken commonly doesn't in itself make English an official language of a country. The majority of Scandinavians and Nordics speak English, and different nationals of the region often use it to converse despite several of their languages being mutually intelligible or nearly so (the PIE but outlier Icelandic, and the non-PIE Finnish and Sami throw spanners into the comprehensibility works). 40bus and others might want to review Lingua Franca. 94.1.223.204 (talk) 21:17, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

...being spoken commonly doesn't in itself make English an official language of a country. True. In fact English is not the, or even an, official language of the United States (though it is, oddly enough, the official language of California). I'm not really sure why you bring in official languages; the original question didn't mention them. --Trovatore (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

But the OP did ask about them in his first follow-up question – "And why English is not official language in Bangladesh . . . ." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 01:54, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

In countries where English is not an official language, are government websites usually available in English? Are government websites of Latin American countries also in English? --40bus (talk) 23:14, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

One has to be careful with terminology here. Neither the USA nor Australia has an official language, so English isn't an official language in either place. And of course almost all government websites are in English in both countries. HiLo48 (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Do Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia and Mauritius have English-language government websites? --40bus (talk) 23:28, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

No, an official language is one used by officials in official proceedings and communications. The official language of both Australia and the United States is unmistakably English, there's just no piece of paper that expressly states this is the case. Remsense ‥ 论 23:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

No, the US has no official language. That's kind of important. Anyone who says we do is wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 23:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I've never heard a filibuster on the Senate floor in Esperanto. This is a common misconception, but merely one conflating official status with the explicit codification of such. The former sense is a description of reality, the latter is relaying established legal fiction. Remsense ‥ 论 23:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

If it's not codified, it's not official. There is no such thing as de facto official. --Trovatore (talk) 23:42, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I understand the distinction, and am just saying it's common for people to take "official" as meaning "codified as official". The language used to conduct the affairs of state is important, and the legal fiction thereof is also important, but one idea is more fundamental than the other. Remsense ‥ 论 00:05, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

"Official" does mean "codified as official". If you're talking about the de facto language in which government is conducted, you should call it something else. --Trovatore (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but codified means codified, and official means official—i.e. used by officials in an official capacity. Remsense ‥ 论 00:26, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

No, sorry, you're simply incorrect here. --Trovatore (talk) 00:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, in my view, you also have it the wrong way around as to which is more fundamental. Fundamentally, government in the United States could be conducted in any language. It isn't, in practice, because too many people wouldn't understand you. But it could be; there is no official barrier to doing so. That's more important than what language is used in practice. --Trovatore (talk) 00:30, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

If you would refrain from deciding it's an etymological fallacy, official here does truly mean "of and by officials", i.e. office-holders. Among other things, you'll note the language used by Official language—which is in pretty rough shape but many of its sources are okay—you'll notice among other things that states often declare and recognize, etc., an official language. This makes little sense if the declaration is itself what it means for a language to be official. What is even being referenced if not an underlying state of privileged use by authorities and officials? Remsense ‥ 论 01:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

But that's the thing! Officially, there is no preference for official use of English in the United States (at the federal level). And this is super-important, because it emphasizes that American nationalism is civic, not ethnic. That's why I stick so hard on this point. There is really no official language in the US, and in my opinion there had better not ever be. --Trovatore (talk) 19:53, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The correlation between language and ethnicity is sort of fuzzy to begin with, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:44, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

You can take "not ethnic" as short for "not ethnic/religious/linguistic". --Trovatore (talk) 20:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

There's the U.S. Official English movement, though it seems to have lost steam at the federal level since the 1980s... On Misplaced Pages, "Official English movement" redirects to "English-only movement", though they're not always the same... AnonMoos (talk) 00:49, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

• The concept of "official" has taken a lot of hits in recent years. All sorts of things are now commonly deemed to be official when they're nothing of the sort. Here's an example, where a ranking of cities by liveability index placed Melbourne, Australia at the top.
  • "IT’S official: Australia dominates in the world’s most liveable city stakes".
• The analysis was conducted by some private organisation in a far-flung country, yet many Aussies (such as the journalist) displayed their national insecurity by proudly trumpeting this as an incontrovertible official declaration. Melburnians used it to fight the never-ending battle against Sydney, saying the independent referee had spoken, it's been officially decided, and there was no gainsaying it. Independent, yes. Scientific, perhaps. Official, most definitely NOT. Not in any sense of the word. -- Jack of Oz 22:07, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

December 19

Initial /r/ as obstruent in Indian English?

I recently watched an Indian movie primarily in English, and couldn't help noticing utterance-initial /r/ was frequently realized as what sounded to me like an affricate, . I heard "jite" only to realize it was "right", and so on. They may have been or , but at any rate a sound with frication. "Rather" here also sounds to me like an obstruent. But to my surprise I can't seem to find discussion of this not only on Misplaced Pages but anywhere. Are there sources for this? Is this type of allophony commonly found in South Asia? Nardog (talk) 13:00, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Temperatures

Do people in countries that use metric system refer to temperatures in groups of 10, such as 0s (0-9 C), 30s (30-39 C), -10s (-19 - -10C), sometimes with "low", "mid", "high" added? How would people pronounce "0s"? -- 40bus

Its usual name is "degrees Celsius"... AnonMoos (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so, I think the differences between the lower and higher numbers might feel too big for general usage. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Terms like "the high 60s" used to be used by UK weather forecasters when Fahrenheit was standard, which was also when forecasting was less precise. Nowadays, with much more accurate forecasting enabling exact numbers, and with Celsius in use (which, as Wakuran alludes, anyway has degrees 1.8-times larger than Fahrenheit's) such ranges and terms are much less frequently used in the UK.

The range 0–9 was (in the UK) never routinely referred to as '"the zeros" (to my agéd recollection, though as a joke it would be understood). Terms like "below ten" (or whatever), or "X above zero" were used instead. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 01:50, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I know that some warnings in Australia use these ranges. And if 11 C is "low 10s", then -11 C is "high -10s", because negative temperatures have higher numbers colder. --40bus (talk) 06:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

-11 C would be very uncommon in Australia HiLo48 (talk) 10:24, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

In the Netherlands, there's occasional talk about "twintigers" (20s) and "dertigers" (30s), and also "dubbele cijfers" (double digits, ≥10°C), but it's more common to use adjectives like "warm" (≥20°C), "zomers" (summer-like, ≥25°C) and "tropisch" (tropical, ≥30°C). In a meteorological context, those adjectives have a precise definition. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:06, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

In the UK, low, mid, or high teens, twenties or thirties are sometimes used, an example is this London radio station website:

"The rain and grey skies that have dominated the weather in recent weeks have slowly been replaced by sun and temperatures in the mid-twenties over the past few days.

Or this national newspaper:

"There is a 30 per cent chance that temperatures could soar to the mid-30s next week"

Or this from the Met Office, the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service:

The heatwave of 2018 continues across much of England this week, with temperatures expected to reach the high-20s or low 30s Celsius across the Midlands"

I have never heard this formulation used for lower temperatures, but "around zero" or "around freezing" are common. Alansplodge (talk) 12:46, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Because those temperatures are so uncommon it might rarely apply but I would find saying "temperatures in the negative (mid-)20s" quite reasonable. Canadians, perhaps? -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 11:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

40bus, heard on the BBC TV weather forecast last night; "temperatures in the low-single-figures" (i.e. between 2° and 5° celsius). Alansplodge (talk) 12:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

December 20

Sequences of aspirate stops in Ancient Greek and their reflexes as fricatives in Modern Greek?

There are in Ancient Greek sequences of aspirate stops: for example khthoon (earth), etc. I think there are even sequences of identical aspirates (double aspirates) but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head.

Now aspirate stop geminates or even sequences of aspirate stops are, I would think, fairly problematic from the point of view of phonetics.

I guess you could posit that those were sequences of aspirate stops (or double aspirate stops) only in spelling and that in actual fact phonetically there was only one aspiration at the end of the sequence. The problem with this assumption is that those sequences produce sequences of fricatives in Modern Greek, which would seem to indicate in fact two aspirates?

Or do people imagine more complex processes: where the 1st fricative was originally an unaspirate stop that became a fricative under the influence of the 2nd fricative (assimilation) but that only the 2nd fricative goes back to an Ancient Greek aspirate stop?

What's the answer? Is there a consensus?

Incidentally: do sequences of fricatives in Modern Greek only occur in words that are borrowed from Ancient Greek (literate borrowings) or do they occur also in Modern Greek words that are inherited from Ancient Greek?

178.51.16.158 (talk) 07:34, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

In ancient Greek, geminated aspirates were written pi-phi. tau-theta, and kappa-chi: Sappho, Atthis, Bacchus. You can also see Bartholomae's law (though it doesn't apply in Greek)... AnonMoos (talk) 07:46, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, some of the non-geminate aspirate consonant clusters in ancient Greek came from the so called Indo-European "thorn clusters"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 07:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

For the non-homorganic clusters, I'd need to dust up my references for this, but as far as I remember, the natural sound change leading to Modern Greek actually dissimmilated these, leading to clusters of fricative + simple plosive, so Ancient χθ, φθ become χτ, φτ. The χθ, φθ clusters pronounced as double fricatives in Modern Greek are reading pronunciations of inherited spellings. Can't give you refs for the phonetic nature of the clusters before fricatization, off the top of my head. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:55, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Referring to Ancient Greek phonology, Koine Greek phonology and Medieval Greek, Wiktionary gives the 5th BCE Attic pronunciation for the geminates πφ, τθ, κχ as having both stops aspirated, the 1st CE Egyptian pronunciation with an unaspirated plus an aspirated stop, and the 4th CE Koine as well as later (10th CE Byzantine, 15th CE Constantinopolitan) pronunciations as having an unaspirated stop followed by a fricative. See Σαπφώ, Ἀτθίς, Βάκχος.

For the the non-homorganic clusters, the development seems to be different: both still aspirated in 1st CE Egyptian pronunciation and both fricative in Koine and beyond; see χθών, φθόγγος.  --Lambiam 11:26, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I suspect (sans evidence) that Greek khth and phth would be better understood as /{kt}ʰ/; that is, the ancients understood the aspiration to belong to the cluster as a whole rather than to the stops separately (or either of them). —Tamfang (talk) 22:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

While that may be true, it raises the question why they then did not write φφ, θθ and χχ, and even went as far as writing explicitly ῤῥ.  --Lambiam 12:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Good point. —Tamfang (talk) 02:22, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 21

Were the concepts of "pitch accent" and "syllable" recently introduced from the West in Japanese linguistic science and grammar?

I was intrigued by the fact that Japanese linguists use the Western borrowed term "akusento" to refer to the pitch accent of Japanese? It seems hard to believe that for all those centuries Japanese linguists and grammarians never thought of studying pitch accent which is a prominent feature of most of the dialects of Japanese. (Korean linguists were certainly aware of the pitch accent of Middle Korean: pitch accent was even marked in some early Hangul texts). If that is not the case, and Japanese linguists have been aware of the pitch accent since the beginning of native linguistic science, then how come the Japanese do not have their own native term for the pitch accent?

Anecdotally, while young Japanese people who study linguistics or even study to become teachers, even primary school teachers, are taught about the Japanese pitch accent, the way the standard language and the dialects differ, etc. many regular Japanese people, particularly fairly old ones, still subscribe to the notion that Japanese pitch contour is a monotone. It is somewhat amusing to see them try and "help" foreigners learning Japanese with artificial demonstrations of how Japanese "ought to be spoken" that so obviously have nothing to do with the way they actually speak.

In the same vein, when was the concept of "syllable" introduced in Japanese linguistics? Is there even a native term for the concept of syllable?

In general Japanese people are aware of kanas (moras) because it is kanas that are written and it is in terms of kanas that the pronunciation of kanji (for example) is described. The so called syllabaries of Japanese are actually "moraic syllabaries". Japanese poetry counts kanas not syllables. Regular Japanese people seem to be completely ignorant of the concept of syllable. For example everyone knows To-u-kyo-u (the capital city) is 4 kanas (and so 4 moras) long but I've never ever heard anyone mention the fact that it has 2 syllables.

178.51.16.158 (talk) 03:45, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess Japanese could often have borrowed English terms, due to them being more specific than similar Japanese, often Chinese-derived, homonyms. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:16, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

From what I've read, pitch accent in Japanese has a low "Functional load" (as Martinet would express it), and there are significant numbers of people who speak a form of Japanese close to the standard, but without pitch accent. As for borrowing the term from a European language, the fact that it's not a concept which is needed when analyzing the Chinese language could be relevant. (Of course, the concept "syllable" is quite relevant for Chinese.) AnonMoos (talk) 12:44, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

For many languages the notion of syllable is rather artificial. Even if it isn't, it may be unclear. How many syllables do English library and Turkish sıhhat have? What are the constituent syllables of the Dutch word voortaan? Since the concept is not particularly meaningful for the Japanese language, it should not be surprising that its speakers are unfamiliar with it. The useful concept known to most Japanese is the on, a concept of which English speakers are generally quite ignorant.  --Lambiam 12:47, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks guys for your insightful comments. Still, my basic questions are yet unanswered: Are the concepts of "pitch accent" and "syllable" a relatively recent borrowing from Western linguistics or not? (If they're not, and you do have examples of the use of these concepts in traditional Japanese grammar, what is the traditional terminology?) 178.51.16.158 (talk) 14:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Japanese uses 音節 (onsetsu) for the concept of a syllable, possibly with the kanji borrowed from Chinese but with unrelated readings.  --Lambiam 02:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

The Japanese term for the syllable is 音節. Funnily enough, the mora is known as モーラ, though the term was coined for analysis of Japanese. Nardog (talk) 05:11, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The Japanese term 拍 (haku) is also used for a mora.  --Lambiam 02:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I would hesitate to say it "is" used, rather than "was", so far as I've seen. Nardog (talk) 12:41, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. And how about the pitch accent, アクセント? No native Japanese equivalent? And most importantly, no attestation of it being dealt with in traditional Japanese grammar prior to Western contact? 178.51.16.158 (talk) 13:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I found this paper (Sugitō 1983) pretty informative. She notes 日本大辞書 (1892) was the first dictionary to mark accent, which it called 音調. But she also cites a paper from 1915 already featuring the term アクセント in the title. Nardog (talk) 14:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I've always been intrigued by this and have asked around for years without ever getting any answers. Finally you've provided some real data. Thanks again. Is 音調 also the Chinese term for "lexical tone" (one of the tones that Chinese "monosyllabic words" have, e.g. like the 4 tones of the standard language)? If it is, then I would guess this phrase is also used in Japanese to refer to those Chinese tones? Which might explain why they thought after awhile that it'd be more specific to adopt the Western term for the Japanese pitch accent? I can see the term 音調 is also used in Korean, hence the same questions? Standard Korean no longer has a lexical pitch accent but Middle Korean did (that was even at times notated in hangul) and some dialects still do, so Korean must have terminology for that.

Incidentally, are you somewhat familiar with the linguistic literature of the Tokugawa (Edo) period? Not only for Japanese but also possibly for Chinese or Sanskrit or other languages? If you are do you know if there are any Edo-jidai Japanese descriptions or grammars or textbooks of the Dutch language? Tokugawa scientific activity was not completely isolated from the West since the Japanese were importing Dutch books on science, medecine, mathematics, technology, etc. (as far as I know that imported learning was called "Rangaku" or "Dutch science"?) through Nagasaki (more exactly Dejima) so some Japanese people must have had some command of the Dutch language if they were to make any use of those books? How were they getting it?

178.51.7.23 (talk) 10:40, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I might have meant "distinct" rather than "specific", when I think about my phrasing, as well. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:22, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

The modern term for phonological tone is (トーン or) 声調. I had never heard of 音調. I also saw 語調 in some papers by authors Sugitō mentions (particularly 井上奥本), but it now only means tone of voice or choice of words in general.

I'm no expert on Japanese history but there was Kokugaku, with Kamo no Mabuchi and Motoori Norinaga discovering Lyman's law in the 18th century (hello Stigler's law). Note modern Western linguistics didn't start until William Jones connected Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit in 1786, and monolingual dictionaries of contemporary languages had just started to become a thing in Europe; there probably didn't yet exist a large body of research into Dutch or any vernacular and I doubt the Japanese had much to learn from them. King Sejong was ahead of Europe by centuries. Nardog (talk) 11:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Two questions

1. Are there any French loanwords in English where French hard C was changed to K when it was borrowed to English?
2. Why most languages do not have native words for continents where they are spoken? For example, neither Finnish nor English have native word for Europe, nor does Swahili have native word for Africa.

--40bus (talk) 21:39, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@40bus: As an ordinary, little-knowing person, I think the 2. is quite obvious: when languages were emerging, people didn't know there is such thing like 'a continent' and that they were living on one. So there were no such concept known to them, consequently no need to invent either a general word 'continent' nor a specific name for the one where they lived. --CiaPan (talk) 22:04, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Thre only one that springs to mind is "skeptical" from the French sceptique. Here in Britain, the usual spelling is "sceptical", but apparently the "k" variant was preferred by 19th-century lexicographers in America, out of deference to its Greek roots. Alansplodge (talk) 15:13, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Your link asserts that skeptical derives directly from Latin rather than from French. Is the <c> really pronounced /k/ in French? That's not what I would have guessed, though I suppose otherwise it would sound the same as septique, assuming that's a word, which would probably not be desired. --Trovatore (talk) 20:08, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 22

To borrow trouble

I recently had occasion to use this phrase, which I believe I learned from my grandma, and it occurred to me I wasn't sure everyone knew it. I went and looked it up in Wiktionary, and found a definition I consider wrong, which I corrected.

But searching, it does seem like the "wrong" definition may actually have some currency in the wild.

My understanding is that to borrow trouble (against tomorrow/against the future/etc) is to spend a lot of effort worrying about or preparing for an adverse event that may never happen. I think this is clearly the definition that makes the most sense and is best historically grounded. Similar sayings include Jesus ("sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof") and William Inge ("worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due").

The other understanding is that it means "stir up trouble". A Quora post I found claims that this is actually the older meaning, which it dates from the 1850s, whereas the "worry" meaning it dates to the 20th century. This rendering, to me, makes much less sense — in what way is this supposed to be "borrowing"?

Anyway, I would be interested to know if high-quality attestations can be found for the "provocation" meaning, and how it might have come about if it actually predated the "worry" meaning. --Trovatore (talk) 00:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

To me the 'stir up' makes sense. 'Borrowing' implies that you now actually have something: if you just worry about something, it may never materialise, but if you talk and/or act in the wrong ways, potential trouble may become actual. I (in the UK) have always read/heard the phrase as being about bringing trouble upon oneself unnecessarily.

The saying is an example of an idiom, where the literal meaning is not (at least any longer) what it actually means. Both individual words, and idioms and other sayings, can drift in meaning over long periods. They may also differ in current varieties of English.

Many expressions in English originate from sailing. The nautical meaning of borrow, "to approach closely to either land or wind" is quoted in the OED from William Henry Smyth's The Sailor's Word Book of 1867 and obviously describes a manouvre with some risk; See also the golfing use of the word – the amount a ball on a sloping green will drift to one side of the hole, which the putting player must compensate for. (If the player compensates too much, they are said to have "over-borrowed".)

May I gently suggest that if you want to correct (or otherwise edit) material in Wiktionary, you should (as here) do so only on the basis of published Reliable sources, not on "what you (or your Granny) know". Many (all?) families have their own internal expressions and word meanings, and every individual has their own idiolect – ones different from yours (or mine) are not automatically "wrong". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 03:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Unlike Misplaced Pages, Wiktionary has no "reliable sources" requirement.  --Lambiam 14:54, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Which is why I made a suggestion, rather than issuing a ukase. Although Wiktionary does not have that formal requirement, it would be improved if editors there chose to follow it anyway. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't really know the norms on Wiktionary in detail. I believe though that it's based on "attestations" rather than "sources". The only real sources for meanings of words are usually -- other dictionaries, which has an obvious circularity problem. (Similarly, at Misplaced Pages, which is a tertiary source, we should not ordinarily be relying on other tertiary sources).

As to the merits, the point is that "borrowing" innately involves the idea of the future. You borrow against income you expect to have tomorrow. If you're just creating trouble from scratch, that's not being a borrower, that's being a producer. But if you worry about something not under your control and that may never come to pass, that's borrowing that potential trouble from tomorrow, and making it actual trouble (for you) today. --Trovatore (talk) 20:02, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The two senses coexist on a dictionary page hosted by Collins, which has,

1. Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition: "to worry about anything needlessly or before one has sufficient cause";
2. Penguin Random House/HarperCollins: "to do something that is unnecessary and may cause future harm or inconvenience".

Sense 1 is also found in Longman: "to worry about something when it is not necessary".

Sense 2 is found in Merriam–Webster: "to do something unnecessarily that may result in adverse reaction or repercussions". Dictionary.com has the stronger "Go out of one's way to do something that may be harmful".  --Lambiam 12:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The earliest use I found, from 1808, is about unnecessary worry.  --Lambiam 12:44, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Idioms are often literal nonsense. Back and forth implies returning before departing: Wiktionary's definition is "From one place to another and back again", not "Returning from a place and then going to it". Head over heels is the normal configuration for a human, and indeed the expression has inverted over time from an earlier heels over head. You can easily and naturally have your cake and eat it too. The difficult thing is eating a cake that you don't, at that point in time, have: or eating a cake and having it later, too.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

 

The two senses have in common that the subject is doing something unnecessary, and that someone sees potential trouble ahead. In the first sense it is the subject who sees the (unprovoked) trouble, and what they do is worry. In the second sense it is the speaker who fears trouble if the subject does a provocative act. (The speaker may in this case coincide with the subject.)

Looking at books of idioms, it looks almost as if a switch-over occurred between 2008 and 2010.

For the worry sense:

• 1977, Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases.
• 1995, The Anthracite Idiom.
• 2008, Idiom Junky.

For the provoke sense:

• 2010, Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. (labelled "North American")
• 2013, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms.
• 2015, Professional Learner's Dictionary of Spoken English.

These are "mentions", not "uses", and not usable as attestations on Wiktionary. For attestations of the "provoke" sense:

• 2016, Stacy Finz, Borrowing Trouble. Kensington, p. 22:

  Brady hadn’t bothered to change his name, figuring it was common enough. But he stayed off Facebook and Twitter. When Harlee Roberts had wanted to write a feature story about him for the Nugget Tribune, he’d politely declined. No need to borrow trouble.

• 2024 June 11, Kristine Francis, “7 Little Johnstons Recap 06/11/24: Season 14 Episode 14 ‘Burpees and Burp Clothes’”, Celeb Dirty Laundry:

  Brice didn’t want talk about it because he thought it was borrowing trouble.

• 2024 August 7, Colby Hall, “Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Defends Kamala Harris Avoiding Press to Fox News: Her Campaign is In ‘Euphoric Stage!’”, Mediaite:

  From O’Leary’s perspective, shared during Wednesday morning appearance on America’s Newsroom, Harris is enjoying so much momentum at the moment, things are going so well for her since she became the nominee; she has little reasons to borrow trouble by taking tough questions during a press conference or a journalist willing to challenge her.

 --Lambiam 13:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Against this is the fact that I (a Brit) have taken the expression to have the 'provoke' sense since the early 1960s. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 17:53, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Can you find earlier uses of that sense in published sources?  --Lambiam 23:52, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Repetition

Does English use do-support when the verb is repeated? Can the main verb also be repeated? For example, are the following sentences correct?

• This is why this street has the name it has.
• Jack likes it more than Kate likes.
• I drink milk and you drink too.

--40bus (talk) 08:27, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The first is correct, the latter two are not.

In such cases, I'm pretty sure any transitive verb still requires its object to be explicitly stated. Remsense ‥ 论 08:35, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Apparently, the what in I know what you know preposes what is called a fused interrogative content clause. I don't go down syntax rabbit holes enough... Remsense ‥ 论 08:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

In this sentence, the interrogative content clause is the object, what you know. The word what is a fused relative pronoun, not a clause.  --Lambiam 11:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The other two would normally be phrased as:

• "Jack likes it more than Kate does." (Or less commonly, "Jack likes it more than Kate likes it.")
• I drink milk, and you drink it too." Clarityfiend (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Or, "I drink milk and so do you."  --Lambiam 11:44, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Or "I drink milk and you do too". Pondering this street has the name it has, "I drink milk you drink" makes sense, and has a similar structure, but not the required meaning.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I consider the repetition of wording a sort of emphasis. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:53, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

The third sentence is grammatical but may not mean what you think it means. (Intransitive "drink" in English tends to mean "drink alcohol", quite likely to excess.) --Trovatore (talk) 20:16, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm reminded of the intransitive "go" (Does your wife go? She sometimes goes, yes.) -- Jack of Oz 20:43, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Aye aye nudge nudge say no more.... --Trovatore (talk) 20:44, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

But does your wife come? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary lists 46 intransitive senses.  --Lambiam 01:48, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

In my dialect of (American) English I think I would prefer does even in the first sentence, i.e. "This is why this street has the name (that) it does.", without necessarily considering 'has' wrong. As others have said, the lack of repetition of the direct objects is a bigger problem than not replacing the verbs with a form of 'do'. It makes the sentence sound wrong or have another implication (as "drink"=consume alcohol to excess) rather than just sound non-native. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:36, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

The possibility to use lexical (i.e. non-auxiliary) have without do-support ("At long last, have you no decency, sir?") is quite exceptional; it is unique in this respect among lexical verbs. Colloquially, this is far more common in British English, but seems to be dying out also there, sounding stiff.  --Lambiam 02:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

That sounds a bit categorical. There are a lot of archaic-sounding, but clearly grammatical, uses that allow such constructions. Stuff like know you not that I must be about my father's business?. It's not something you would likely say to communicate ideas in any ordinary context, but it's still completely clear what it means, and the syntax still works. --Trovatore (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, "not likely" is too weak; "no way" comes much closer. If "know you not" sounds syntactically acceptable to some, it is only because it is familiar from the syntax of the 1611 KJV, Wiſt ye not that I muſt be about my fathers buſineſſe?, with the familiarity kept alive through reuse in later revisions, such as Webster's revision from 1833 (knew ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?.), an archaism that, including the archaic ye, is retained in the 21st Century King James Version.  --Lambiam 01:27, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

No, I disagree; know you not is syntactically acceptable. If you use it in casual conversation, you're obviously making fun, but it's not nearly as obscure as (say) "wist", and maybe less than "ye". --Trovatore (talk) 19:43, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Demonyms

How are demonyms of overseas territories determined? Are people from Isle of Man, Channel Islands and British Overseas Territories "British"? Are people from all French overseas departments, collectivities and territories "French"? Are people from both Caribbean Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten "Dutch"? And I have never seen demonyms formed from French overseas department names, such as "Réunionian", "Guadeloupean", "French Guinanan", "Mayottean", "Martiniquean", so are their people just "French"? Is this same from overseas collectivities and territories? --40bus (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Demonyms are generally listed in the articles. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:04, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

There is no system to it. The inhabitants of Corsica are French but still have a demonym, Corsican. The demonym Curaçaoan can be used for the inhabitants of Curaçao. In both cases these terms are ambiguous, because they are also used for members of specific ethnic groups.  --Lambiam 01:37, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Most regions, islands, cities, etc have demonyms, and even for those that don't, you can always say "a <toponym> person" or "a person from <toponym>" if you want to be more precise than just indicating the country. Or if you're asking whether those people are legally full British, Dutch and French nationals, then WP:RDH or WP:RDM would be a better place for that. --Theurgist (talk) 03:03, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

40bus -- The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are under the British Crown, but technically they aren't part of the UK. The demonym for the Isle of Man is "Manx" adjective (as in the famous tailless cat), "Manxman" noun, but you wouldn't be able to predict that. AnonMoos (talk) 03:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Although Manx people (and Channel Islanders) are British Citizens. Like everything connected with British governance, it's a tottering pile of complex traditions and reforms; we have never re-started with a clean sheet, and don't intend to either. Alansplodge (talk) 12:41, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

P.S. The French have the lovely word "DOM-TOM" to describe non-Hexagonal territories. On Misplaced Pages, that redirects to Overseas France, which might answer some of your questions... AnonMoos (talk) 03:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Martiniquais, Guadeloupéen and Réunionais are commonly used in French; I guess you just don't run across their English equivalents that often. For Mayotte, which has been in the news a lot of late, the demonym is "Mahorais" for some reason I haven't explored. Other overseas territories have demonyms as well (e.g. Guyanais); this goes even though their inhabitants hold French citizenship. Xuxl (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

American citizens include Californians, Texans, Rhode Islanders, Pennsylvanians, etc. Australians include New South Welshmen, Queenslanders, Victorians, etc. The Soviet Union was populated by Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, etc, all of whom were Soviet citizens. -- Jack of Oz 15:38, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Georgians could be both Sovietans and Americans, though... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Similarly the French include Normands, Lorrains, Bourguignons and whatnot; though I am not aware of demonyms for the newfangled départements. —Tamfang (talk) 02:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Luckily French Misplaced Pages is. --Antiquary (talk) 15:39, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Mahorais comes from Mahoré, the Maore Comorian name for Grande-Terre (and consequently the entirety of Mayotte.) GalacticShoe (talk) 19:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

December 24

Language forums

I was just reading this list of still active web forums, unfortunately there's no language section. What language, linguistics, etymology, and lexicography blogs and forums are there? Epigraphy? Deep knowledge and open attitudes are best. Temerarius (talk) 23:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Linguist List hosted some lively discussions in its early days, but by the time I stopped receiving it, it was mainly for conference announcements, job offerings, book announcements etc.; I don't know what it is now. Language Log is still operating, but only approved people can start new topics, and it's focused somewhat on Chinese language and linguistics in recent years. AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

There are also general question-answering websites such as Quora, but I don't know if any of them contain an interacting community of people with linguistic expertise. Back in the day, there was also Usenet's "sci.lang", but I haven't participated there for many years, and 2024 seems to be the year when general-purpose Usenet became definitively defunct (only certain niches survive). AnonMoos (talk) 19:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 25

Ways to improve proposed Help:IPA page

I currently have a draft of a proposed Help:IPA page for the Kannada language, and I was referred here by @Hoary to seek advice on ways I can improve it for potential inclusion in the Help: category. Any advice or criticisms would be much appreciated.

Link to draft: Draft:Help:IPA/Kannada Krzapex (talk) 12:18, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello, @Krzapex. I have little knowledge of Dravidian languages, but I do have some comments about your draft.

• "suit" is not a good choice for English approximation, because it has variant pronunciations as /sut/ and /sjut/.
• I doubt that most English speakers could even tell you what the Korean currency is, and would be unsure how to pronounce it. According to Wiktionary, the currency is pronounced in Korean, and /wɑn/ in AmE, /wɒn/ in BrE - none of them quite the /(w)o/ you want. I think the BrE "want" is probably closest, but I don't know how to convey that to an AmE speaker.
• I really don't think that "Irish 'boat'" (whatever that is supposed to mean) is a good match for /aʊ/
• 'Hungary' has the sequence /ŋg/ in all varieties of English I've ever heard, and certainly in RP/ "Hangar" does not have the /g/ in most varieties of English (except in the Midlands and North West of England).
• your use of "th" to key the dentals will not work for most English speakers outside India (and maybe Ireland). To most Anglophone ears, the salient feature of /θ/ and /ð/ is their fricative nature, not their dental articluation, and if you write "th" you will get θ or ð.

Of course, the whole problem with "English approximation" is that you are trying to capture distinctions that are completely imperceptible to most Anglophones. I see that Help:IPA/Hindi and Urdu addresses this problem in notes, and I think this is the better approach. ColinFine (talk) 14:36, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

December 27

Weird sentence

I recently removed this wording from an article because it looked on the face of it like a grammatical error, but reading closer, I see that it is likely correct but still confusing:

• "He thus became a permanent ambassador at the at the time itinerant royal court."

Should it be left as is, or is there another way to write it that is less confusing? Viriditas (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

"He thus became a permanent ambassador at the royal court, which at the time was itinerant." --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 18:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Another way to say it would be to hyphenate at-the-time. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:27, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I have to admit this sentence threw me for a loop. It isn't often I come across something like this. Does it have a linguistic term? Viriditas (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

It's not quite Garden path, but close.

I might have minimally amended it as "He thus became a permanent ambassador at the then-itinerant royal court," but Wrongfilter's proposal is probably better. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 21:47, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

While yours is better than mine. :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:56, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

"ambassador to" would be better than "ambassador at". DuncanHill (talk) 22:01, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 28

• Misplaced Pages resources for researchers
• Misplaced Pages help forums
• Misplaced Pages reference desk