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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 November 7

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November 7

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Czech question: držák and tříska

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Do the Czech words držák (handle) and tříska (splinter) assumably have a common root or other etymological relation? --KnightMove (talk) 11:20, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not likely: one is from wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/dьržati and the other from wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/trěska 82.166.199.42 (talk) 15:27, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why assume that? —Tamfang (talk) 23:47, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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Hey! I've been doing a lot of work trying to get Chinese characters to a GA state, and any direction regarding the treatment of kanji within the article, as wholly part and parcel of its scope, would be appreciated! I would really like some books, articles, or style guides to reference that deal with 'ordinary' kanji use, or with any of the languages in scope really. thank you in advance! Remsense聊 11:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Questions again

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  1. Are there any languages which have labiodental trill?
  2. Which time in history of English words such as unit, union and unicorn were last pronounced with plain /u/ vowel before they were loaned into English?
  3. Are there any would in English from Greek and Latin which start with letter K before A, O or U?
  4. Are there any English dialects which pronounce cluster ⟨kn⟩ in words such as know and knife as /kn/?
  5. Are threre any dialects in French where final consonants in words such as chat never became silent?
  6. Are there any words in French where word-final ⟨ts⟩ is also pronounced /ts/, with neither consonant silent?
  7. Are there any dialects in English which pronounce letter H in word hour?
  8. Are there any dialects in English that still use thou?

--40bus (talk) 20:22, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2. From a bit before the Great Vowel Shift. See below.
3. There are databases for these things, you know.
4. See Phonological history of English consonant clusters#Reduction of /kn/.
5. It's extremely irregular, elision of /t/ and /s/ etc. in many words vary almost idiolect-ically, in my experience.
7. No, Classical Latin /h/ became silent in nearly all of the Romance languages, which is where words like "hour" come from. cf. French heure, Spanish hora.
8. See Thou. Remsense聊 20:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, your answer to 2 is wrong -- these words never began with IPA [u] in English. They transitioned from beginning with [u] to beginning with a front-rounded vowel in early old French (after common "Gallo-Romance"), and when these words with front-rounded or "umlaut" vowels were borrowed into Middle English, it wasn't with an initial [u] vowel... AnonMoos (talk) 21:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Parsing the question ("before [these English words] were loaned into English"), the "history" of these English words concerns their versions in the donating languages. This means that the Great Vowel Shift is irrelevant. How was Anglo-French unité pronounced, with a /y/ as in Modern French? If so, then when did the plain Latin /u/ become the French /y/? We may assume that it was not the case that one night the people who were to become the French went to bed saying bien sur using /u/ and woke up the next morning saying this using /y/. The transition must have been gradual. Since the boundaries between phonemes on a vowel chart are somewhat arbitrarily decided, the question is unanswerable.  --Lambiam 08:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I assumed they misspoke. But yes, I was wrong, striking from the record. Remsense聊 13:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
40bus -- "Kalends" is probably the only Latin one that's not hopelessly obscure (though the Wikipedia article is Calends). "K" was occasionally/archaically used before A in Latin, but very rarely or never before O or V... AnonMoos (talk) 21:42, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to know when the pronunciation of "cornucopia" changed from "corn-yoo-copia" to "corn-uh-copia". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Did it? Not for me. ColinFine (talk) 12:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Me neither. Bazza (talk) 13:07, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I retain the "yoo" pronunciation, but have encountered the "uh" fairly often. There may even be a usage difference, as the "yoo" seems to still be the common pronunciation for the actual thing while "uh" seems more common for the idiomatic use. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:00, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like a case of free variation depending on idiolect. Remsense聊 15:06, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
5. Some French last names exist in two versions, one with the final letter silent, and one where it is pronounced. "Doucet" is an example. Words imported from foreign languages can have the final letter pronounced, e.g. "set" (as in tennis), whereas the "t" would be silent if it was a native French word. There can also be regional variations in pronunciation: for example, in Quebec, "tout" is sometimes pronounced as if written "toute", which is also the case in some French regions. Xuxl (talk) 15:05, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
6. Almost all French words which end in "ts" are words that end in a t (normally silent) in the singular, and add a final "s" as the marker of the plural. That final "s" is also normally silent. I can't think of any exception where the two letters are pronounced. Xuxl (talk) 15:05, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
5. Some native speakers of Monégasque dialect (not itself a French dialect, but rather one of Ligurian), who all also speak French, might pronounce final consonants in French. I suggest this because the Monégasque racing driver Charles Leclerc's name is usually pronounced with the final 'c' sounded by commentators who themselves know how to pronounce French. (The article on him calls this "the Anglicized pronunciation", but most British English speakers know not to pronounce final consonants in French, even if they are not fluent in the language.)
Investigation of French dialects on the south coast of France might therefore prove fruitful. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.5.208 (talk) 15:39, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Anglicized pronunciation" doesn't mean "how English speakers say this when they know that it is French", it means "pronounced the way an English speaker would tend to pronounce a word with that spelling when its origin is not known to the speaker". Final "C"s are pronounced in English, so an "Anglicized pronunciation" of LeClerc would have the "C" pronounced. Regardless of whether the speaker knows anything about French. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:59, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What explains the sports commentators who regularly tell us about the /coo de grah/, having assumed grâce is pronounced the same way as gras? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 19:49, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's even got a name: those are called hyperforeignisms. Remsense聊 19:50, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I recall at least one Chicago radio announcer who used to make fun of this kind of thing by calling it the "coop du gracie". Also rendering "creme de la creme" as "cream dee luh cream", and "piece de resistance" the way it looks in English. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:39, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm partial to 'the piece of resistance', 'sacred blue', and 'lose majesty'. Remsense聊 22:45, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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