Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 April 8

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April 8

British colony and British accent

Why do Australian and South African accents (at least to me) sound more British than Canada and America? OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Because U.S. accents are more or less based on 17th-century and 18th-century dialects from various regions of the British isles, subject to a process of koine-ization and centuries of further independent development, while Australian accents are more or less based on 19th-century forms of British English (more closely focused on working-class London than was the case for the early settlement of British North America). A more recent split-off point plus less time for independent divergence means more similarity. By the way, the twentieth-century "Received Pronunciation" type of prestigious British English doesn't seem to have existed in any form that would be very recognizable to twentieth-century ears until well into the nineteenth century... AnonMoos (talk) 17:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I can hear a few points of similarity between Australian and my own London accent, but with South African, I can only hear the Afrikaans influence. Perhaps it sounds different to Americans. Alansplodge (talk) 22:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

To my North American ears, South African English sounds like Australian English spoken with a German accent. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Chinz?

A very funny Donald Duck story, which I have only ever read in German, concerns Gus Goose and a famous fashion designer ending up at each other's parties and being mistaken for each other. One of the guys at the fashion party asks Gus:

• Und Chinz? Was denken Sie davon?

Gus replies:

• Chinz? Darüber habe ich nie gehört!

All the others think Gus is being sarcastic and think this "Chinz" thing is on its way out, but Gus was being serious, he really has never heard of it.

My question is, what the heck is "Chinz"? I have even asked my sister, who speaks German at a near-native level, but she didn't know it either. JIP | Talk 17:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe chintz...? AnonMoos (talk) 17:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be it. I have a hard time distinguishing between z and tz endings in German, especially since they are pronounced pretty much identically. I note there is no Finnish article about this cloth, so I'm not sure what it would be called in Finland. JIP | Talk 17:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

See http://en.organisasi.org/translation/chintz-in-other-languages.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Google Translate gives 'sintsi', but the Finnish Wikipedia merely has that down as a town in North Karelia. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

And google Translate agrees with Wavelength's link. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Chintz shares the record (with abhors, almost, begins, biopsy and chimps) as the longest non-proper English word in which the letters are in alphabetical order and there are no repeated letters. Aegilops is the longest at 8 letters, but it's a proper noun and its status as an English word is not secure. Beefily and billowy have 7 letters but they contain repeated letters. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Ikea in the UK about 5 years ago had an advertising campaign called Chuck Out Your Chintz. Perhaps they've already done that in Germany. Alansplodge (talk) 00:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible they are using definition 3 of chintzy: "Stingy; excessively reluctant to spend" ? This would certainly fit with original version of the Scrooge McDuck character. StuRat (talk) 00:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

No, nowhere near so. The whole point was that Gus Goose was mistaken for a fashion designer. He was even asked what he liked more, red or white. He thought the question was about wine, while it was about colours of clothes. Scrooge McDuck never even appeared or was mentioned in the whole story. JIP | Talk 17:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Just as a sidethought: the German in the dialogue above is false...it should be:

"Und Chintz? Was denken Sie darüber?" (or even better: "Was halten Sie davon?") "Chintz? Davon habe ich (noch) nie gehört."

And it is usually used when talking about furniture, although with an undertone of "old and musty"; that is why the Ikea campaign targeted it like that. Lectonar (talk) 12:08, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I was going by memory, my German is fairly good, but nowhere near native level. I am far better in understanding it than speaking it myself. But I do think you missed the "nie" ("never") from your second line. JIP | Talk 17:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Touché :)....it was not meant as criticism anyway, just an observation. I have added the missing "nie". Lectonar (talk) 18:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Nubian

Hello,

does somebody know the Proto-Nubian terms for:

• bread
• water
• woman
• chiefess
• home, land, homeland
• good
• father
• city
• chief
• mother
• dog
• meal

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 19:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean the Old Nubian language? --Jayron32 19:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You could also mean Meriotic? It comes up when I google for "Proto-Nubian". There's a word list here which gives you some of your words:

• woman - kdi, glossed as "lady"
• good - ne OR ñ1 OR -ne
• father - ab (also means "ancestor")
• city - ri
• chief - ene
• mother - ste
• meal - ek, glossed as "nourishment"

The article also has a long list of references. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)