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May 23

Three questions

1. Is there any language where letter A can be pronounced as a consonant?
2. Why does Italian not write the etymological H in words like uomo, uovo, idrologia and avere?
3. Is there any Spanish dialect that has not undergone diphthongization of /o/ and /e/ to /ue/ and /ie/, and thus say ovo, porta, morto and cento instead of huevo, puerta, muerto and ciento?

--40bus (talk) 04:42, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Question 1

Do you ever get bored with all this minutia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

1. All 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are treated as consonants, including the first letter, alif, which in its long form can be considered the equivalent of the letter A. When used as a consonant, it is unvoiced (to simplify things greatly). Xuxl (talk) 14:20, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Aleph seems to work that way in Semitic languages in general. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 22:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

In early Semitic alphabets, all the letters originally wrote consonant sounds (with a slow rise of "matres lectionis" in some languages). However in Arabic as it has developed, the letter 'alif only means a glottal stop when it has a hamza diacritic or similar. 'Alif without such a diacritic is either silent or a vowel letter... AnonMoos (talk) 17:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

We could wish that it were a singular minutia, but it is cumulatively many minutiae. —Tamfang (talk) 03:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

For item 1, I doubt the situation has changed substantially in the last year: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2023_April_3. —Amble (talk) 15:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Question 2

2. I believe Italian orthography largely goes back to Dante Alighieri, and at that time, it wasn't considered necessary or relevant. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:20, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

According to this timeline of the Italian language, "h" and "x" tended to disappear in the latter half of the 16th century, postdating Dante by a couple of centuries. But still, OP presents a stupid question. Why does Italian not write the useless leading H? Well, they do, to differentiate a few homophones. Otherwise, the answer is "because it's useless and scribes got tired of it." --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:55, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there any Spanish dialect that has not undergone diphthongization of /o/ and /e/ to /ue/ and /ie/, and thus say ovo, porta, morto and cento instead of huevo, puerta, muerto and ciento?

I thought about Castrapo but the reference in the article has only one or two words where diphthongization could happen and the form is the Spanish one with diphthong. I haven't looked into Portuñol.--Error (talk) 01:32, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
There is no such dialect which would be categorized as Spanish. deisenbe (talk) 18:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

"Wouldn't you like to know?" origin/occurrence

I've been trying to find the origin/early occurrences/etc. of the English phrase "Wouldn't you like to know?" used sarcastically. Wiktionary doesn't have an entry for it, OED just has its origin listed as "1860" with no cited source. It's difficult to search Google Books for because you often don't get enough context to tell at a glance if it's being used earnestly or not (the phrase seems to be used non-rhetorically fairly often even into the 20th century). I find this use[1] in an 1868 periodical, and while it is pointed out explicitly by the narrator that the use is sarcastic, it is clearly not a "novel" use or one that would be unfamiliar to the reader; it thus seems unlikely to me that this sense actually originates in the 1860s (or could language have really evolved that fast back then?). It's a weird set phrase that evolved from a phrase that otherwise has basically no meaning (as a modern native speaker it's hard to understand why one would ask "wouldn't you like to know" non-rhetorically). Google Ngrams shows a massive rise in usage starting around the year 2000, but this is almost certainly just a result of weighting errors (an artifact found near-universally when searching Ngrams). Any earlier sources/theories/similar evolutions would be appreciated -- I find no analogues with other English set phrases.

(As a side note, in asking a breadth of friends/family members/co-workers if they've ever heard a non-rhetorical (or further non-sarcastic) use of the phrase, I found that basically everyone born after Gen X remembers first encountering the phrase in the viral "Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?" video from 2017. Google Ngrams shows literally zero bump in occurences from 2017, and relative usage actually decreases from then on... Obviously highly anecdotal, but interesting nonetheless.)

Thank you! (fugues) (talk) (fugues) (talk) 05:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm seeing it in possibly-sarcastic usage in newspapers as far back as the 1850s. It was also the closing line of a Superman TV episode from 1952, where a seemingly intelligent computer is asked "Who is Superman?" and the computer gives that as the answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:28, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

This is an interesting question and having been born in 1952, the same year as the Superman TV episode Baseball Bugs mentioned, I was not exposed to its usage before the portrayal of artificial intelligence in that TV show. I think as a stark phrase, it is almost universally sarcastic and and often confrontational. But I can see it being used in an expanded form in another context. Imagine an educational TV segment about jewelry making where the host starts by saying, "Wouldn't you like to know how to make the delicate gold filigree on this necklace? Well, I am going to show you how." Cullen328 (talk) 08:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I can push it back a little to a poem or song in a popular magazine:

I know a girl with teeth of pearl, / And shoulders white as snow; / She lives, - ah well, / I must not tell, / Wouldn't you like to know? / Her eyes are blue (celestial hue!) / And dazzling in their glow; / On whom they beam / With melting gleam, / Wouldn't you like to know? The Family Herald, London, 1864 (p. 42)

Alansplodge (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

A bit more digging finds the sheet music for this, should you wish to sing along. Lyrics by John Godfrey Saxe and music by John Wallace Hutchinson of the Hutchinson Family Singers, dated 1862 in New York. The title of a song popular on both sides of the Atlantic seems a good starting point. Alansplodge (talk) 15:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that poem is even older than that. But is it sarcastic, or merely teasing? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:14, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The Oxford American College Dictionary gives the meaning of this phrase as, "used to express the speaker's firm intention not to reveal something in spite of a questioner's curiosity". The speaker may intend to mock the questioner, but they may also be merely playful.  --Lambiam 08:19, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Kind of a cousin to "That's for me to know and you to [not!] find out!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:40, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

May 26

Before non-Protestant churches switched to vernacular

How much of the church service would the average blue-collar farmer or unskilled worker understand at different times and places? Did they know more than they would of a speech even more different from the holy church language but as different from vernacular as vernacular is from ecclesiastical? If you hear it so much and it's important to you you'd realize some stuff even if you weren't taught right? Presumably the Romance area people and those closer in time to when the priests' vernacular was "corrected" would understand more than Germanic branch and 1+ millennium later people and the non-Indo Europeans would have the steepest learning curve of all. Also how different would the Romance tongues be now if the Western Empire borders more or less followed this timeline's fuzzy Western Christianity frontier and the educated Romans had tried to get everyone to speak Classical Latin or a compromise of the different Vulgar Latins? Maybe with compulsory education from 5 to 16? Not that I wish it, probably no one could predict butterfly effects enough to say which timeline they'd rather be born in all other things equal (i.e. level of birth luck and tech. I always wondered what year's tech would be most like now if Rome survived and if it'd conquer Earth like an asshole or be conquered by higher tech) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:28, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

As explained in the book "Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World" by Nicholas Ostler, before the ca. 800 AD reforms introduced by Alcuin, parish priests in Romance-speaking areas of Europe pronounced Latin texts out loud in the local spoken vernacular, and most of them were not really aware that the ancient Latin language had been different from their current local spoken vernacular. As late as Dante's time, some people were confused on this point, and he had to explain it in detail in his De vulgari eloquentia. Preserving a correspondence with a written language in one's spoken language over the long term works best when you have a small somewhat isolated and homogenous community of language speakers, as conspicuously in the case of Iceland -- and even in that case, the phonology of Icelandic has changed a fair amount since the sagas were written down. I really don't know how it could work in a large heterogenous realm such as the Roman Empire (united or disunited)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:23, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Would say Brandenburg or Moscow peasants know some words? A few roots could trickle down or be guessed from thousands of church services? Were the readings or even homily in God language too though presumably there'd be some vernacular i.e. confessions and teaching Christianity to youth. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:16, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what Moscow has to do with it, since Latin was never the liturgical language there (unless very briefly during the Polish-Lithuanian occupation of Moscow). P.S. For a rather ugly version of a Roman Empire surviving until the 20th century, see the classic Murray Leinster short story "Sidewise in Time", which in some ways founded the whole alternative history genre. For a more nuanced version, see "Roma Eterna" by Robert Silverberg... AnonMoos (talk) 02:28, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I thought they used Greek at times? Or did they switch to Slavic branch ASAP? (why were they more flexible using Slavic branch (vernacular?) in Old Church Slavonic area then (in at least some churches) fossilizing again? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

The Roman Catholic mass was in Latin until Vatican II in 1965. I remember the mass being in Latin when I was a child (in the US). If I recall correctly, there were booklets in each pew containing the Latin text along with an English translation, so anyone who wished to do so could follow along and understand what was being said (assuming they could read English). I don't know when or where such translation booklets came into use. I don't really understand the last half of this question about Rome surviving or what that has to do with the language of the mass. CodeTalker (talk) 05:32, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

How similar would the Romance languages be if the educated Romans tried to nip Classical Latin fragmentation in the bud instead of not caring how the commoners spoke and if the Western Romans had also stayed united with borders similar to Western Christianity or the Roman Catholic Church? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

As a related matter, Haitian Vodou took on its local form because French priests insisted that African slaves attend Christian services conducted in Latin, but never bothered to teach them anything about what any of it meant, so the slaves adopted and adapted images of Catholic icons to portray the West African gods they remembered. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.67.173 (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Long before 1965, Catechisms occurred in the vernacular languages, sometimes translated orally on the fly by the catechizer, but with the rise of printing, printed vernacular catechism books increasingly appeared. The first book printed in the Quechua language (also the first in the Aymara language) was a catechism, as were the first books printed in some European languages (Finnish, Latvian, and Lithuanian), though in those cases usually Protestant. Of course, in Saint-Domingue (French colonial Haiti) there was the additional issue of the French language vs. Haitian Creole... AnonMoos (talk) 04:37, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Voltan or Voltaic?

What would be the correct translation into English of the French 'voltaïque' (i.e. someone from Upper Volta)? Voltaic or Voltan? -- Soman (talk) 18:58, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

The article Republic of Upper Volta gives "Upper Voltese" (demonym in the info box). --Wrongfilter (talk) 19:01, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

That may be so, but Google Books Ngrams shows that "Upper Voltan" was by far the most common term of the three in the era between its independence and its name change to Burkina Faso. I know "Voltaic" (apart from its electrical sense) only as an older term for the Gur subfamily of languages. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:30, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

You're right, the CIA agrees and I've changed the article accordingly. --Wrongfilter (talk) 21:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

May 27

Root vs rowt

The standard American pronunciation of "route" is, as I understand it, /rowt/.

So, why do people sing of getting their kicks on "Root" 66, rather than Rowt 66? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:37, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Both pronunciations occur in American English. I would say that when "route" occurs before a number, the "oo" pronunciation is preferred, while in a phrase such as "postal route", the "ow" pronunciation would be preferred, at least in my speech. AnonMoos (talk) 02:15, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I've heard it both ways as a prefix to a highway number, even by the same individual. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:32, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, same. I think the standard is that there is no standard. Matt Deres (talk) 20:22, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Add another vote to the "both ways occur in virtually all circumstances" column. In more detail, it is always "Root" 66 (other, less famous, roads can vary), but mail delivery in the country is by rural "rowts". Other than those two (very specific) examples, I come across (and use) both versions fairly commonly. I would probably ask someone what "root" they took to get somewhere, but would also ask that a message get "rowted" to the proper person. But the oppsite usages would not surprise me at all. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:54, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

That's been my experience with NA English: "root" is the pronunciation for nouns; "rowt" for verbs. Folly Mox (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

And that box that gets you internet access.... is that a rooter or a rowter? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:52, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Despite the tossup between root and rowt for route, everyone I know/have asked (a sample of people that is mostly American) pronounces router as rowt-er. GalacticShoe (talk) 23:58, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

In British English a router is pronounced "rowter", but a router is pronounced "rooter". DuncanHill (talk) 00:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

In America, I've always heard the electronic device pronounced "rowter". Thought I can see why "rooter" makes more sense etymologically. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:40, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

In Australia they seem to say "rowter" for router, possibly because of the usual meaning of the word root. Strangely though, road numbers are referred as "roots" not "rowts". Router is pronounced "rowter". TrogWoolley (talk) 09:05, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I suppose "My router keeps going down" would mean something else entirely if they used the "rooter" pronunciation. DuncanHill (talk) 21:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm always amused by senior US Army officers pronouncing route as a homophone of rout; "a panicked, disorderly and undisciplined retreat of troops from a battlefield". The potential for misunderstanding seems obvious. Alansplodge (talk) 16:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Oddly enough, rout and route have the same etymology.[2][3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:38, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary gives an entirely different etymology for rout.  --Lambiam 08:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Note that the square root of 66 is an irrational number, 8.12403840464... Driving an infinite time should give a precise result at either end. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:14, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

English itself often seems irrational. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:21, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Based on 40 years of working with the woodworking power tool, with the scars to prove it, I can attest that the power tool is always pronounced "rowter" in the United States. Cullen328 (talk) 06:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Obviously because it is rout + -er, not route + -er.  --Lambiam 07:58, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks, all, for the enlightenment. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:38, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

On British v American pronunciation differences, The Wordy wise feature in the Daily Mail of 23 May was contributed by a Derbyshire reader:

THE BALL GUY - footie fanatic.

THE CALL GUY - town crier.

THE GALL GUY - what a cheek!

THE HALL GUY - Albert habitué

THE MALL GUY - shopping precinct denizen...

I thought that the pronunciation of "mall" implicit in the rhyme was an Americanism, but now I'm not so sure. 2A00:23D0:492:6301:207B:B2D7:62D2:2142 (talk) 11:35, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Australians are not particularly known for adopting American ways, but the above is the only way we have ever said "mall". In fact, the first time I heard the Mall (in London) pronounced to rhyme with pal, gal, Sal, shall or Val, I thought, These silly English people don't even know how to speak their own language. The things one discovers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The term "mall" referring to a shopping centre is short for "shopping mall". The first uses of "shopping mall" were in the US, referring to a "pedestrian mall" lined on both sides with shops. Pedestrian malls were popular in the 60s, and that is when the term "shopping mall" came to be used in the sense of shopping centre. It was generalized to shopping centres in other forms than pedestrian malls when this type became less popular, the first step being the covered shopping mall. As pedestrian malls became rare, the remaining "malls" were shopping malls, so dropping the redundant qualifier "shopping" was a natural step. When the UK use of the term "mall" for a shopping centre was copied from the US, so was its pronunciation, but only for this new sense.  --Lambiam 06:11, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

So, potentially, there could be a /mawl/ located on The /mæl/? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

May 29

Jargon

What is the etymology of calling proposals/requests motions in some formal contexts? I move to/motion to dismiss, I move for [something I hope judge allows], parliamentary motion and so on. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

The etymologies of "move"[4] and "motion" [5] may help. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

In the United States and perhaps elsewhere , Robert's Rules of Order has had enormous influence on such terminology outside the context of courts and legislatures. The section on "Motions" has lots of useful links. Cullen328 (talk) 05:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

One pedantic technicality: "move" is a verb, "motion" is a noun. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Only in their technical parliamentary senses. Both words, move and motion, can be used in non-technical senses as nouns as well as as verbs.  --Lambiam 07:51, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Paris, Peru.....Iraq, Iran....

There is a somewhat slow-moving discussion at Talk:Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing#Ukraingia about the pronunciation (and possible meaning) of a word in Stevie's spoken introduction of the song. The neologism in question occurs at 25 seconds. Anybody know what it is? There are unlikely to be any RS sources for this. I suspect Wonder himself wanted most of that jive to sound as impenetrable as possible. So maybe we shouldn't even try. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd never heard the song before, but I listened to it and it definitely sounds like Eurasia to me. A K sound would be easy to pick out, and he doesn't enunciate K at all. I agree with all you wrote on the talk page, and it seems daft for your nemesis to assume that Wonder just picked the word "Ukraingia" out of a hat (or an atlas). --Viennese Waltz 10:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

It's also a little surprising to be told that he just "looked at a map". Martinevans123 (talk) 10:17, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Good point. I wonder (no pun intended) if that has even occurred to the other editor. --Viennese Waltz 10:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps he used a tactile map? Alansplodge (talk) 11:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Or maybe, being a musical creative genius, he just made it all up in his head, in the studio, on the spur of the moment? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: I agree. I've added a comment to the article's talk page to that effect. Bazza 7 (talk) 13:46, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree it sounds like Eurasia: a technical and uncommon term but a very unspecific location, achieving the effect of self-exaggerated worldliness. Also Ukraine will have been labelled "Ukrainian SSR" in maps at the time. Meanwhile the second item might indeed be Beirut rather than Peru (with an unenunciated or unreleased final /t/), both because of how the first syllable sounds and because of the geographic locale. --Theurgist (talk) 22:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I've always thought it might be Beiru'. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC) ...you might want to attempt an IPA transcription of that introductory passage that follows the opening "Eek! Eek!".... but just /ˈwɔt͡ʃjɔɹˈsɛlf/

I don't really hear any diphthong, there. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

But neither is it reduced to [ə]. Also, unlike the initial consonant of Paris, the one here doesn't seem to be aspirated; for pairs like /p/ and /b/, the aspiration or lack thereof is said to be more of a distinctive feature than the actual voicing. But then, this syllable is unstressed, which may have neutralized that. --Theurgist (talk) 20:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

As it's in a pseudo-Spanish accent and in alliterative wordplay, I still think Peru sounds more likely. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

May 31

Can someone’s native language affect how they hear other languages?

Can the phonology and sound rules of someone’s native language affect how they hear other languages (or how their brain processes the sounds being heard)? For example, say a person whose native language is one that does not allow consonant clusters or syllables ending in consonants (and who is not greatly familiar with any other languages) listens to someone speaking a different language that lacks these rules. Would the listener hear the speaker as vowel-padding their syllables, thus making them more akin to the syllable structure of the listener’s own language, even if the speaker is not actually doing such? Primal Groudon (talk) 00:49, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

As a native English speaker, my first three years or so learning Chinese I had a lot of difficulty differentiating /i/ and /y/, let alone tones one and two. And I was a lot less deaf back then. So anecdotally yes. Folly Mox (talk) 00:54, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

McGurk effect

Whatever the language, all listeners rely on visual information to a degree in speech perception. But the McGurk effect's intensity differs across languages. Dutch,[37] English, Spanish, German, Italian and Turkish [38] language listeners experience a robust McGurk effect; Japanese and Chinese listeners, weaker.[39] Most research on the McGurk effect between languages has been between English and Japanese. A smaller McGurk effect occurs in Japanese listeners than English listeners.[37][40][41][42][43][44] The cultural practice of face avoidance in Japanese people may diminish the McGurk effect, as well as tone and syllabic structures of the language.[37] This could also be why Chinese listeners are less susceptible to visual cues, and similar to Japanese, produce a smaller effect than English listeners.[37] Studies also show that Japanese listeners do not show a developmental increase in visual influence after six, as English children do.[40][41] Japanese listeners identify incompatibility between visual and auditory stimuli better than English listeners.[37][41] This greater ability could relate to Japanese's lacking consonant clusters.[37][42] Regardless, listeners of all languages resort to visual stimuli when speech is unintelligible; the McGurk effect then applies to them equally.[37][42] The McGurk effect works with listeners of every tested language.[10]

--Error (talk) 01:25, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Speakers of languages in which [ɑ] and [a] are effectively allophones (e.g. Turkish) may have a hard time hearing the distinction between, for example, Dutch man ("man") and maan ("moon"); they sound the same to them. Similarly, Russian lacks a voiced or voiceless glottal fricative, so Russian speakers, hearing one, tend to map it to their phoneme /x/. Consequently, they then hear the Dutch spoken word hoed ("hat") as if the speaker said goed ("good").

Children of expats who were exposed at a young age to another language than their mother's tongue, and then move back with their parents even before they start to speak, have been shown to have an easier time later in life learning that other language's phonemic system than people who did not have such exposure. Apparently, the neural net for mapping the sounds to phonemes was developed at a young age and, while unused, remained somewhat functional.  --Lambiam 07:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

My sister speaks some Dutch, and was told that when she tried to say "hale good" (standard reply to "how are you?") it came out as "yellow hat" – spoonerizing the ‹h› /h/ and ‹g› /x/. —Tamfang (talk) 20:31, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

It's hele goed vis-a-vis gele hoed, I believe. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not entirely grammatical though. It should be heel goed and gele hoed, gele being the declined form of geel. Hele is the declined form of heel, but in this case it's an adverb, so not declined. Heel sounds more or less like English hale.

There's also the (probably apocryphal) story of the priest from West Flanders. In West Flemish, /ɣ/ is pronounced [ɦ] and /ɦ/ is dropped. The priest hypercorrected, talking about the geilige maagd (horny virgin) instead of heilige maagd (holy virgin). PiusImpavidus (talk) 12:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

For sure. The way the speaker of a given language hears a foreign language is reflected in the resulting "accent" associated with the native speaker's language. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Perceptual narrowing#Phoneme distinction. Nardog (talk) 15:08, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

A possibly Norwegian woman taking refuge in a seaside town in eastern England during the second world war wanted eggs and carefully enunciated the word to the shopkeeper to ensure he would understand her, but it came out "eks" and he was bemused. I can say no more as I don't speak Norwegian. 2A00:23D0:492:6301:207B:B2D7:62D2:2142 (talk) 11:45, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

F.U.N.E.X? Alansplodge (talk) 16:57, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I guess that in Swedish and Norwegian, for the combination of a short vowel and a voiced plosive, it might be unvoiced before s. Then, Scandinavian speakers might still be aware of the distinction in English. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I once heard a slightly agitated Dutch traveler, about to disembark, tell a flight attendant that he wanted his rat back. It turned out, after some confusion, that he was looking for a red bag.  --Lambiam 14:57, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Or "ret back", more likely, but ret is not a common English word. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually more like "ret beck". In something along the lines of "I want my XXX beck", spoken by a furriner, a listener's initial inclination will be to interpret this by the replacement "beck" → "back", thereby coaxing the puzzled listener towards the replacement "ret" → "rat".  --Lambiam 20:27, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I spent hours with a Portuguese friend who was telling me I say não with the wrong vowel. I'd say it exactly as she said it, then she'd say I was getting it wrong, and as explanation, she'd repeat it the same way again. Eventually she got tired, and said she was slippy.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:33, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Not just between languages but even between dialects. I have the Pin–pen merger and cannot reliable hear or say the difference in those two words in my own language. Rmhermen (talk) 14:21, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Card Zero: There was a forum comment yesterday "I did re-add Born Slippy to my Spotify playlist so some good has come from this interaction" [6]. I never heard the expression before. 92.25.129.245 (talk) 09:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Almost all dialects of Norwegian and most Swedish dialects have a distinction between two different pitch-accents or “tonems”. People having languages without such accents – including Norwegians and Swedes lacking them in their dialect – often tend to not be able to hear the difference unless being trained for it. --T*U (talk) 07:41, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

June 1

"accidents and conveniences" (May 15)

banned user
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I don't think that Will Adam became Archdeacon of Canterbury by chance [7] (at 18:47). Don't you think that Keir Starmer looks a lot like Will Adam and [redacted] these days? Favonian appears to think so [8]. Will Adam's career at University and beyond mirrors that of [redacted] in many ways. After Favonian's intervention the interview with Adam was pulled from the University's website. - 92.25.128.239 10:08, 17 May 2024 And that was before the Diane Abbott debacle! Harking back to Future Perfect at Sunrise's outburst (08:06, 3 September 2008) Jon Stewart tells Fox News to "go f**k itself. Patrick Kidd in the Times of 23 May puts it very well: Vennells is not a sympathetic figure, who seems to have lacked the charity and good faith [administrators please note] towards her flock that one might hope from an ordained priest. Anthony Trollope, that chronicler of Victorian churchmen as well as a high-up Post Office administrator in his day, would have depicted her as a rather cold and managerial archdeacon. Is there a connection between these sentences or do they concern unrelated topics collected under one heading? As archdeacons of the Church of England are not selected by sortition, it is fairly certain that Adam's appointment was not "by chance".  --Lambiam 11:50, 1 June 2024 (UTC) "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate." --ColinFine (talk) 14:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

June 3

Why are placenames are not pronounced the same everywhere?

I would have thought that placenames are pronounced the same everywhere. For example, both Cambridge s (in England and Massachusetts are pronounced the same [keim-brije], along with Gloucester [glos-te] (UK, USA). However, is Palestine (state) [pa-les-tain] and East Palestine, Ohio [pa-les-tin] really said that way? How about the Thames River (Connecticut)? Do people actually say [temz], as in the one thru London, or [theymz]? I was thinking that because they are likely familiar with the UK Thames and say it that way rather. Are all of the other Thames at thames (disambiguation) pronounced [temz] since they do not all list the IPA? JuniperChill (talk) 16:04, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Toponyms and hydronyms often retain significantly older pronunciations even as the surrounding language evolves, leaving them with often highly unintuitive written forms. See also Frome, Dong'e, et al. Folly Mox (talk) 16:09, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

To me, having placenames pronounced differently is not the same as normal words. For example, I do see why water is pronounced in many different ways depending on the region. Another example I can think of is how Gaelic can be pronounced [ga-lik] as in Scottish Gaelic or [gei-lik] as in Irish Gaelic. I tend to say [gei-lik] for both.

But back to rivers, I do see that this is being discussed at Talk:Thames_River_(Connecticut)#Change_of_name so I need to see if people in Connecticut actually say it that way and not [temz]. Also, I (and possibly many) never heard hydronym before so I am linking it. JuniperChill (talk) 16:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I'll throw in Gillingham, Kent and Gillingham, Dorset. Just because. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Gloucester, USA is in New England: consider New England English. If it were a place in, say, Alabama, like Birmingham, USA, the pronunciation might not have been conserved.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:14, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

"I would have thought that placenames are pronounced the same everywhere" Why? They're words. Words are pronounced differently in different accents, dialects, and languages. Even fairly common words. I know of three ways to say "aunt" (and actually use 2 of them). My real life personal name isn't even the same to all English speakers, and it's a very common name. My mother's maiden name is pronounced differently by some of her own siblings. Why would you expect place names to be different? --- User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:13, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

People re-shape names to fit their native dialect. One of the many things Americans get legendarily wrong, is what we do to foreign and Native-American names. From my native Tennessee, I cringe when I remember how we pronounce Bolivar (TN) and Montezuma (TN), to say nothing of Kosciusko (MS); and Σάρδεις in the Lydian Empire was probably pronounced rather differently from Sardis, Tennessee. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, this. Where the same placename occurs in two regions, even if it was originally pronounced the same, it will often have been subjected to pronunciation shifts, e.g. a name with historical -r may lose the -r in the speech of non-rhotic British accents but retain it in rhotic American accents. This may also be why even placenames created relatively recently and from a common origin develop different pronunciations, e.g. the NH vs NC places named wikt:Concord, both derived from the common noun concord, have different pronunciations. And in many cases, especially with the more obscure Biblical names that see use as US placenames, settlers may have picked the name out of a book and used a spelling pronunciation. Also, occasionally placenames only superficially look the same in spelling but have different origins (and had different pronunciations to begin with), though I can't relocate a good example offhand (the best I can find offhand is Moscow, Tennessee, and Moscow, Russia, which are pronounced differently by Americans and have different etymological origins, although Britons pronounce them the same). -sche (talk) 17:29, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

The letter sequence "kansas" is pronounced differently in the names of the states of Kansas and Arkansas, both in the same general region of the United States... -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:49, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

And the Arkansas River is pronounced differently depending on which state you're in. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of Kosciusko [sic]: That was how Australia spelled the name of its tallest mountain until only a couple of decades ago. We finally got the spelling right (apart from the Polish diacritics), but we've never got the pronunciation right, and probably never will, given our national ethos of not only being ignorant of the pronunciations of foreign names but actually being proud of that ignorance. It would never do to be seen to be knowledgeable in such matters; that would make you probably gay, certainly suspect. Yet we're among the most multicultural nations on planet Earth, and we're some of the most intrepid international travellers anywhere. Go figure. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it was good to see that spelling correction. Australians can't even agree among themselves about how to pronounce the name of the Queensland city of Cairns. Some pronounce it the same as the Campbells soup cans, while to others it's multiple piles of rocks. HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

When I was in Western Australia, I mentioned the name of its southernmost city, Albany (there are some interesting references at the beginning of the lead), making the first syllable rhyme with "All-Bran". I was corrected (I suspected that would happen before I opened my mouth). The first syllable actually rhymes with "Albania". 2A00:23D0:EAC:C101:14CB:81DB:A836:FF5D (talk) 14:16, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The first syllable of "Albany" is "Al". How do you make it rhyme with something that ends in an /n/ or a vowel?  --Lambiam 16:09, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I see the city also has an aboriginal name (Kinjarling). I was unaware till now that they might have both. 2A00:23D0:EAC:C101:14CB:81DB:A836:FF5D (talk) 14:23, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I just looked at the Cairns article and I think the IPA in the lead has changed. Do Aussies say cairn like they do for the city? Maybe the IPA should also be added to cairn because it may be pronounced completely differently to the city. Likewise, the '-bourne' in Eastbourne and Melbourne is different. I still pronounce both Palestine (the one people are familiar with) and East Palestine, Ohio (I only knew this because of the train derailment) the same way and I think I am not alone in this. JuniperChill (talk) 18:15, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

June 4

How many solutions of perfect pangram exist?

In Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 May 17#Pangram, I asked “Use the symbol of the 118 chemical elements, and the abbreviation of the 88 constellations, and the abbreviation of the 50 states of America, what is the least words we need to make a pangram?”, and someone gave a solution of perfect pangram:

Aql, B, Cu, Fm, Gd, KY, NJ, Oph, Sex, VT, WI, Zr

I also found some other solutions from this solution:

1. Replace B to Yb, replace KY to K
2. Replace B to Bi, replace WI to W
3. Replace Cu to C and U
4. Replace KY to K and Y
5. Replace B to Bh, replace Oph to Po
6. Replace Sex to S and Xe
7. Replace Cu to Tc and U, replace VT to V

So, how many solutions of perfect pangram exist? Also, how many things (chemical elements, constellations, states of America) are contained in every perfect pangram? Or not contained in any perfect pangram? (I only know, by the answer of the one who gave the solution, every perfect pangram contains NJ, and thus no perfect pangram contains others containing the letter N such as N, In, Nor) 2001:B042:4005:546F:E921:9E13:BB77:C79F (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

These solutions have at least 12 elements. I find in total 1,687,855 perfect pangrams, 476 of which have 11 elements. The lexicographically first 11-element solution is:

Ag, Bk, Ds, Equ, Hf, LMi, NJ, Oct, Pyx, WV, Zr

 --Lambiam 10:41, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The only things (chemical elements, constellations, states of America) contained in both of your solution and the solution given in Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 May 17#Pangram are NJ and Zr, but for Zr, we can replace Ag and Zr to AZ and Rg, thus NJ is the only thing (chemical elements, constellations, states of America) contained in every perfect pangram. (There are only 3 things (chemical elements, constellations, states of America) containing the letter Z: AZ, Zn, Zr, but Zn cannot be used since NJ must be used)

Also, how many things (chemical elements, constellations, states of America) are not contained in any perfect pangram? 220.132.230.56 (talk) 13:13, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Counting abbreviations that only differ by lower/upper case, I find 60 unusable ones: And, Ant, Aqr, Ar/AR, Ari, Au, Aur, Cae, Car, Cen, Cn, CrA, Cru, CVn, Del, Dra, Er, Eri, Gru, Her, In/IN, Ind, Leo, Lep, Lu, Lup, Lyn, Men, Mn/MN, Mon, N, Na, Nb, NC, Nd/ND, Ne/NE, Nh/NH, Ni, NM, No, Nor, Np, NV, NY, Per, Ra, Re, Ret, Rn, Ru, Ser, Sn, Tau, Tel, TN, TrA, UMa, Vel, Vul, Zn.  --Lambiam 14:19, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

All of these 60 things can be ruled out by the letters J, Q, Z: (and limited the using of the letters A, E, L, N, R, U)

1. NJ is the only thing which contains the letter J, thus NJ must be used.
2. All other things (besides NJ) containing the letter N cannot be used, this would include Zn.
3. AZ, Zn, Zr are the only three things which contain the letter Z, but since Zn cannot be used, one of AZ and Zr must be used.
4. Since one of AZ and Zr must be used, all things containing both of the letters A and R cannot be used, this would include Aqr.
5. Aql, Aqr, Equ are the only three things which contain the letter Q, but since Aqr cannot be used, one of Aql and Equ must be used.
6. Since one of Aql and Equ must be used, all things containing both of the letters A and E, or containing both of the letters A and U, or containing both of the letters L and E, or containing both of the letters L and U, cannot be used.
7. Also, AZ and Aql cannot be both used since both of them contain the letter A, thus at least of Zr and Equ must be used, and hence all things containing both of the letters R and E, or containing both of the letters R and U, cannot be used.

220.132.230.56 (talk) 15:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Also, there are 1687855 perfect pangrams, and all of them contain NJ, besides NJ, which ones are used in the most number, the second-most number, the third-most number, etc. of the perfect pangrams? Also, besides the 60 unusable ones, which ones are used in the least number, the second-least number, the third-least number, etc. of the perfect pangrams? 220.132.230.56 (talk) 15:56, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The questions are endless, but less and less interesting.  --Lambiam 18:40, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

OK. Besides, can you give all 476 11-element solutions? Thanks. (I think that there should be more things which are not contained in any 11-element solutions, e.g. the lexicographically first 11-element solution starts with Ag, this means Ac is not contained in any 11-element solutions, also, since the sets of Ca/CA is the same as Ac, thus Ca/CA is also not contained in any 11-element solutions) 220.132.230.56 (talk) 19:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

They can be admired at User:Lambiam/Pangram.  --Lambiam 07:50, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Also Ara, Boo, Cnc, Pup, since they have repeated letters themselves. 220.132.230.56 (talk) 19:25, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Thus there are 64 unusable ones. 220.132.230.56 (talk) 19:25, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Right. My program throws them out right at the start, before commencing its search.  --Lambiam 07:50, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Why are English, Indonesian & Malay the closest natural languages to ISO Basic Latin alphabet?

(at least according to List of Latin-script alphabets and ISO basic Latin alphabet). Is it cause English has unusually high tolerance for inconsistent and non-phonetic spelling? Why are Malay and Indonesian alphabets so Englishy? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The notion that one can assign a measure of distance between a natural language and an alphabet is absurd.  --Lambiam 07:02, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Mentally replacing "natural language" with "orthography", this becomes one of those questions that is presented as asking about some subtle truth about language, which is odd to me because the answer is pretty much just that the Dutch were the ones to romanize Malay. Also, I will hiss every time someone says that English spelling is qualitatively more irregular than any other: surely you've read French at least once in your life?Remsense诉 07:08, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

If one hears a French word pronounced, say /si.fle/ , its spelling can often only be guessed: is it siffler, sifflez, sifflé, sifflée, sifflés or sifflées? The champion may be /vɛʁ/: is it vair, vairs, ver, vers, vert, verts, verre or verres? The other direction, however, from spelling to pronunciation, tends to be rather predictable. For English you often also have to guess in that direction, as is made clear in the poem "The Chaos". I wonder if there are languages where it is the other way around: the standard orthographic rendering of a spoken word is usually predictable, but the pronunciation of a written word is often hard to guess.  --Lambiam 09:51, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The technical answer is that the spellings of the three languages do not require the use of diacritic marks, or of letters beyond those found in ASCII. (Sometimes diacritics are optionally used in writing English in the case of words borrowed from other languages into English, or the "New Yorker dieresis", but it's never wrong to omit diacritics in English.) However, this has nothing to do with how good the spelling systems are in writing the languages. The Malay spelling system is quasi-phonemic, except in not having a distinct symbol for the schwa vowel, while English spelling is of course quite complex... AnonMoos (talk) 10:42, 5 June 2024 (UTC)