Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 December 9

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 9

Etymology

What is the etymology of "Antilles"?174.3.102.6 (talk) 04:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

According to List of country name etymologies#N, Netherlands Antilles: (territory of Netherlands): "Antilles" from a mythical land or island (Antillia), west of Europe, or a combination of two Portuguese words ante or anti (possibly meaning "opposite" in the sense of "on the opposite side of the world") and ilha ("island"), currently the name for these Caribbean Islands. "Netherlands" after the colonial ruler, the Netherlands.

-- Wavelength (talk) 04:46, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Antillia is quite interesting, and discusses various etymologies for that name (Portuguese for "the island out before or the island in front of", Arabic for "dragon's isle", a Latin name for northwestern Africa, a variation of Atlantis, amongst others). --Pleasantman (talk) 13:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, indeed. I wonder why there are so many different explanations. What's wrong with the Portuguese origin? It seems to fit perfectly. — Sebastian 18:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Fortis-lenis contrast

Can anyone provide disagreements to my understanding that the fortis-lenis contrast in English cannot be transcribed as a gemination contrast, or like [ pː tː kː fː sː] vs. [p t k f s ]? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 04:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not gemination, it's voice onset time (in stops) and voicing (in fricatives). As far as I know that's almost universally accepted in the phonetics literature.

And [x] is not part of the English sound system at all. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I corrected the [x], which I copied. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 05:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Fine, but gemination is still irrelevant. VOT and voicing is what creates the contrast; in /f, s/ and /v, z/, there is little to no length difference (and what difference there may be is just a downstream effect of the underlying features). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

English has a fortis-lenis contrast?? --Kjoonlee 14:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

As to the English language, Rjanag's explanation seems fine on gemination (i.e. other languages might have explanations to transcribe their germination such a away in ‘fricatives’ but not in ‘stops’). On the comment that it’s voice onset time (in stops) and voicing (in fricatives), I do not quite understand, because the VOT or voicing of phonemes are not transcribed such a way in English. There might be some other explanations. The VOT in English is the aspiration and the ‘voicing’ is the feature what contrasts the phonemes that are in a similar place of articulation. On the question whether English has a fortis-lenis contrast, i think, yes (in the cases where phonemes need to be velarized because of their environments). However, somone else can provide a better answers to this. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 15:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In English, the difference between /p, t, k/ and /b, d, g/ is VOT. Any intro phonetics book can tell you that.

As for why I said that the difference is VOT in stops and voicing in fricatives...well, fricatives don't have VOT.

As for whether VOT/voicing distinctions are "transcribed" in English... well, first of all, they usually are (poo vs. boo, knife vs. knive, etc.), and secondly, why does it matter? You seem to be focusing only on orthography and ignoring the acoustic realities. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

But this is correct--"As for why I said that the difference is VOT in stops and voicing in fricatives...well, fricatives don't have VOT." —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I know. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

If fricatives don't have VOT, then how can a language like Burmese have /sʰ/. I was under the impression that VOT is just normally irrelevent for fricatives because VOT is normally strongly correlated with constriction. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have specified English fricatives; you're right that it's not physically impossible for VOT to be meaningful in fricatives, it just isn't in English (and in any case, it's not very important to Mihkaw's point, whatever in the world that may be). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'm unconvinced that the distinction between /s/ and /s^h/ in Burmese is one of VOT at the phonetic level. I haven't seen spectrograms of the two sounds, but when I've heard minimal pairs pronounced, what I hear is that /s/ is very short and maybe slightly affricated [^ts], while /s^h/ is long and unaffricated [s:]. Interestingly, English /s/ in loanwords is usually adapted as /s^h/ in Burmese, e.g. /s^hiNs^ha/ 'censor', /s^hwɛta/ 'sweater', /s^hito/ 'SEATO', etc. +Angr 21:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

At an articulatory level, I guess there's probably little difference between [s:] and [s^h] anyway. Either way, it's air hissing out for a while with no vocalization...the only difference I guess would be how high up the tongue is. But in either case, when I try to pronounce the two to myself they feel almost the same. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess such occurrences in Burmese are not possible, but I do not know the language as such to assert any reasonable comment. As the IPA is a recent development in the study of languages, some errors are possible as well. However, if there is reliable literature precisely about those, then those are useful information to scientific communities. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not an IPA error. And such occurrences in Burmese certainly are possible, given that millions of speakers use them. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I've oft wondered how accurate the Burmese transcription was. It's the only example of an aspirated fricative I've ever seen. It could be that an affricate is classified as a fricative for language-specific reasons; perhaps fricatives have a certain pattern of behavior that stops do not. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

There are good phonological reasons for treating /sʰ/ as the aspirated ([+spread glottis]) equivalent of /s/. Burmese has a goodly number of verb pairs in which an intransitive or passive form starting with an unaspirated consonant is paired with a transitive or active form starting with an aspirated consonant. Not only does /sʰ/ count as the aspirated equivalent of /s/ for this purpose (e.g. /souʔ/ 'be torn' ~ /sʰouʔ/ 'tear'), but the voiceless sonorants count as the aspirated equivalents of the voiced sonorants as well (e.g. /nwe/ 'be warm' ~ /n̥we/ 'make warm'). +Angr 07:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, the example above (not the first but the second: e.g. /nwe/ 'be warm' and /n̥we/ 'make warm') is another categorization of fortis lenis contrast whereas the voiced sonorant ‘n’ in the latter case is a fortis. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If there is a fortis-lenis contrast in English, could someone give me one or two examples, please? Thanks. --Kjoonlee 23:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There isn't. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? "Fortis" and "lenis" are vague terms used in place of "voiceless" and "voiced" when talking languages that may pair consonants that have the same place of articulation but different laryngeal settings. English is a prime example. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I understood Kjoonlee to be asking if there is a contrast that is really only fortis/lenis and is orthogonal to things like voicing and VOT. As far as I know there is not one; all the contrasts mentioned above can be explained by voicing and VOT (don't know where Mihkaw got the idea of gemination). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems like an odd assumption to make since, because of the vagueness of the terms, no language could make such a contrast. Mihkaw got the idea from our article on Fortis and lenis. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, there are several researchers who feel that languages like English and German are better described as contrasting "fortis" and "lenis" obstruents rather than "voiceless" and "voiced" ones, because so often the contrast is not made by means of voicing. (For example, the distinction between bid and bit is made more by vowel length and glottalization of the final consonant than by voicing of the final consonant.) +Angr 07:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I always assumed that was just an example of opacity: the underlying stops in "bit" and "bid" are different, they trigger some alternations in the vowel, and then the stops themselves get neutralized because word-final position is a 'bad' position for things like stops. If that is the case, then what's most relevant is whatever feature is triggering those changes to the vowel (and something like voicing would be a likely candidate, since what happens to the vowel is that it gets held out and voiced longer in "bid"). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, that's one possible analysis, and a very plausible one (I happen to believe it myself), but that doesn't make it the only possible analysis. At any rate using the terms "fortis" and "lenis" allows one to be noncommittal about the exact nature of the contrast. If you're talking about a language like Scottish Gaelic or Welsh, where there is serious disagreement among linguists as to whether the language underlyingly uses voicing or aspiration to make its distinctions, you may prefer to use the vague terms "fortis" and "lenis" simply to avoid alienating half of your potential audience. +Angr 07:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It's also nice because as a crosslinguistic class of consonants at the phonological level. Incidentally, I've put a cite request at fortis and lenis about gemination; the statement perhaps needs greater clarification or contextualization. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, the fortis lenis contrast discussed here so far has only been on the context of aspiration. So I guess someone will comment this on the context of gemination. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 18:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the idea is to emphasize the fact that, as Ladefoged & Maddieson say in SOWL (pp. 97-98) fortis/lenis contrasts may, in some languages (such as Ojibwe, Tabasaran, Agul, Archi, Zapotec, and Djauan) manifest, at least in part, by a significantly longer duration. English isn't one of these languges; though there could be very slight length differences, it's not enough to use gemination in English. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you want to say that fortis and lenis contrast in English is too week to describe their gemination; otherwise there are many occurrences, e.g. the phonetic realization of the gemination of graphemes in ‘baggage’. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 21:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Gemination is still not relevant here. And, at least in my dialect, there is no gemination in "baggage". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that i cannot be precise the same way, but this style will give the attention if you answer this question. How can you transcribe (with the details of stress and syllabic break) the words, e.g. ‘admitted’ and ‘flaped’? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 04:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[əd'mi.ɾəd] and [flæpt] (assuming you mean "flapped"). The orthographic double consonant in "admitted" is far from being geminate; it's a flap, one of the shortest consonant sounds. The one in "flapped" is also not geminate. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:41, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Most dialects of English do not have any tautomorphemic gemination (it can occur at a morpheme juncture, as in 'chip-pan'). Welsh English, and I think some varieties of Indian English do have gemination. And for me 'admitted', while it doesn't have a geminate, certainly doesn't have a flap. --ColinFine (talk) 08:23, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Mine is American English. (And yes, morpheme juncture is pretty much the only way I know of to get gemination in American English...in fact, when I have to pronounce a geminate consonant in another language, I have to pretend it's two words.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 08:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

A phonetic transcription of a word always represents its underlying phonological ruls. Thus as the word 'admit' is accented on the second syllable and the final consonant is preceded by a vowel, so we double the 't' before suffixing, which is 'ad.mit.ted' (i.e. the 't' is not the onset of the third syllable but the coda of the second; not like 'ad.mi.ted' ). In the case of 'slap', which has only one syllable, the syllable has to be accented before suffixing, so we double that final consonant like 'slap.ped', or 'slap.ping' (not like 'sla.ping' or 'sla.pping'. Then the next stage is the phonetical conventions whether it is of a cluster reduction, gemination, dialect specific pronunciation, etc. So we write the examples of the above as [ˌədˈmit.təd] and [ˈslæp.pəd] or [ˈslæpt](with another phonetical rule). —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 15:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

No, that's very wrong. first of all, the consonant doubling is only orthographic, it's not doubled in pronunciation. Secondly, those last two transcriptions you give are entirely wrong. No one says "admittED", stress is on the "mit" not the suffix. And "slapped" is one syllable, no native speaker says "slappED". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Not really Rjanag. These are phonological rules (so one cannot pool). Or, look at another simple example like ‘cat’. You cannot write its plural with /s/ or /əz/ but as /z/ in phonetic transcription; the pronunciations are other matters. On the comment about the examples that ‘pp’ or ‘tt’ are not doubled in pronunciation, yes, because of the reasons of gemination. That is what I am saying. In English, the gemination is not included in phonetic transcription. I do not want to make any comment on this further, but you can provide a reference or a link form any English dictionaries that the word ‘admitted’ can be written like as you said ‘ad.mi.ted’ or [əd'mi.ɾəd], which is wrong. However, the stress on the ‘mit’ is correct and ‘e’ in ‘ed’ should be unstressed, but then how you can write like ‘mi.ted’. How would you write ‘slapping’? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I know you're not a native speaker, and many of your assumptions about pronunciation are wrong. You need to improve your English before you can try to lecture native speakers on these things. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like the same tones of elders in my community. Whenever we find some notable errors in stories and ask ironically like ‘how that could have been possible???’, they usually turn tones and say like ‘just kidding’ for just to keep the environment under control and to continue. That's fine with me, but.... —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 19:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The difference is that you are attempting to tell native speakers of English how they pronounce things when what you say is blatantly incorrect. You're saying that "in English, the gemination is not included in phonetic transcription" but we've been telling you that there is no gemination, not in your examples and certainly not when a letter is orthographically doubled. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

English saying

Any English saying for '青出於藍' (literally 'green is evolved from blue' & implying 'to surpass one's master in learning')? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ciesse 203 (talk • contribs) 09:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"The student has become the master". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Or as Darth Vader phrased it, "When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Translation of jital coin from Lahore

I recently purchased a jital coin which was minted by the Ghaznavid Empire in Lahore around 1050 CE. I was wondering if several editors knowledegable in Arabic and Sanskrit could translate the romanization of the words into English from this description here (at the bottom of the paragraph). Thank you. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 14:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

That link just takes me to Photobucket's main page, but even without seeing the coin I'd suspect the Arabic writing might well actually be Persian. +Angr 14:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The obverse says: "Sri Samanta deva" and the reverse has four lines: "Adil," "Shihab-ad daulah," "wa qutb al-millat," and "abu'l fath/Mawdud." I'm assuming the bit about Mawdud is the name of the ruler who ruled during that time. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, for the Sanskrit, see Sri, Samanta, and Deva (Hinduism) or Deva (Buddhism). +Angr 14:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the ruler at the time was known as Shihab ud-Dawlah Maw'dud.--Cam (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Just mentioning that Google translate now attempts to go from romanized Persian to the script (no idea how accurate it is). Nadando (talk) 00:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Note that the problem with the link is (1) the lack of a space after "jpg" tacks "from" onto the URL, and (2) Photobucket seems to know that you came here from Wikipedia. Copy/paste http://s381.photobucket.com/albums/oo252/ghostexorcist/?action=view&current=Jitaldescription.jpg into your browser and it will work fine. Nyttend (talk) 02:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

German: "a" vs "-(e)r"

Hey, I am a native speaker of German (from Berlin) and I have trouble distinguishing [ä] and [ɐ]. Literature says that the letter /a/ is pronounced [ä(ː)], which I agree to. But it also says that vocalized -/ʀ/ (and also /əʀ/) are pronounced [ɐ]. As a native speaker I must confess that I cannot hear any difference at all. The sounds in Apfel, Mutter and Bär are exactly the same to me. So my question is, IS there really a difference, or are the different phonetic symbols "a" and "ɐ" just a tradition to connect the sounds with the letters? --88.73.100.241 (talk) 17:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a native speaker. However, I have a pretty good grasp on German. I speak it with an Austrian accent, and those sounds don't sound the same. Or maybe the one in Bär does sound like a normal "a", but the one in Mutter sounds like my native Romanian "ă", /ə/. Rimush (talk) 17:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I think this is very strongly depending on which dialect of German one speaks. I'm a native speaker of Rheinhessisch (a sub-dialect of Rhine Franconian), and I pronounce the words that were mentioned like that (I'm not perfect at IPA, but this should come closest):

• Apfel (Appel, with non-aspirated "p"): [ˈʔapə̆l]
• Mutter (unshifted "Modder" with rhotacism -> "Morrer", though mostly replaced by "Momme"): [ˈmɔʁɛ]
• Bär: [bæː]

Personally, I've only encountered the pronunciation of the final -er as [ɐ] in very formal and "dialect-neutral" speech. --77.22.37.20 (talk) 18:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

TS back again; yes I was refering to Standard German (or what comes near to it, cause everyone keeps a little dialect) like you hear on TV. The dialectal and individual pronunciation differs, e. g. I always pronounce /ɛ/ as [ɛ], never as [ə] when unstressed (or at least more ɛ-like than ə-like...). --88.73.100.241 (talk) 19:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not a native speaker of German, but I understand it and have heard it spoken quite a bit. My impression is that /ä/ and /a/ are very distinct phonemes. For example, Vater and Väter have not only different pronunciations but different meanings (singular versus plural). Likewise, as I have heard it, the ä in Väter (I think [eː] or [ɛː], depending on dialect) and the ä in Bäcker ([ɛ]) are both very different sounds from the /er/ in Väter or Bäcker or the /r/ in Bär, which to my ear range from [ɐ] to [ɜ] to [ɘ] but never [ɛ], [e] or [a]. Marco polo (talk) 19:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I meant the IPA symbol "ä" (= central open vowel, opposed to "a" = front open vowel), not the German letter "Ä, ä" ;) But thanks for your hearing analysis of "-er", the [ɘ] comes surprisingly for me. But, on the other hand, the English phoneme /ʌ/ (as in "cut") is pronounced [ɐ] in RP, [ɜ] in General American and [ä] (central open vowel) in General Australian, so it's a similar phenomene --88.73.100.241 (talk) 19:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Isn't [ɐ] always unstressed? Are there any minimal pairs with the two? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

@MarcoPolo: Well, then I guess you've never been in the South(-West)ern parts of Germany yet. Whenever we speak "Standard German" (i.e. to strangers, at school, university etc.) we almost always pronounce the final -er as [ɛ] --77.22.37.20 (talk) 19:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ƶ§œš¹, [ɐ] is always unstressed, but [a] is not always stressed. One minimal pair is Oper [ˈʔoːpɐ] 'opera' vs. Opa [ˈʔoːpa] 'grandpa'. For many speakers, including apparently the OP, those two words are homophones, but for other speakers they're a minimal pair. Another is example is a pun that the Berlin soccer team Hertha BSC has used: Das Leben ist hart - wir sind Hertha ("Life is hard - we're Hertha" with Hertha being either homophonous or near-homophonous with härter "harder"). +Angr 20:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Then, the answer to the OP is that the phoneme /ɐ/ represents the rhoticity of the letters “e” and “r” if the /ɐ/ is always unstressed. The letters“a” and “r” seem different. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 01:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[ɐ] isn't a phoneme. It's an allophone of, according to German phonology, /ɛ/. It seems then, that for the OP, /ɛʀ/ and /a/ neutralize in unstressed position. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[ɐ] isn't a phoneme? Then, it sounds like a wrong for strong idea. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 02:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A what for a what? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Whether [ɐ] is a phoneme or not depends on how abstract you want your phoneme inventory to be. Like [ə] in English (and in German for that matter), it occurs only in unstressed syllables, so you can have a more economical inventory by making it an allophone of some other vowel that otherwise occurs only in stressed syllables. On the other hand, most instances of [ɐ] do not alternate with anything else, so a child learning the language has no reason to posit /ɛʀ/ as the sequence of phonemes underlying it. +Angr 07:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you meant /ɛr/. Or do you mean the underlying phonetic representation of the grapheme ‘r’ in “er” is phonemically an uvular trill? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It could be; why not? Actually, I'd be more likely to consider it a uvular fricative, which is its most common realization outside of the south. +Angr 15:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Problems in realization; so they are not just only passive articulators (i.e. more than varieties of turbulences). Here bellow is another example. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is, [ʀ] and [ɐ] are one phoneme, you may call it /ʀ/, /ʁ/ or /r/ (most dialects have a uvular sound, but "r" is easier to write). Example: "Wäre ich..." [ve:ʀə ʔɪç] vs "Wär ich..." [ve:ɐ ʔɪç] (both mean "If I were..."). Or: "hören" (to hear, /hø:ʀ(ə)n/ = [hø:ʀən] or [hø:ɐn]), "ich höre" (I hear, /hø:ʀə/ = [hø:ʀə]), "du hörst" (you hear, /hø:ʀst/ = [hø:ɐst]), "Hörer" (hearer, /hø:ʀəʀ/ = [hø:ʀɐ]). --88.74.28.10 (talk) 15:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh Doctor Oh Doctor

I am writing a very formal letter to a professor who holds 2 research PhD degrees, so in the salutation line should I address him as "Dear Dr. Dr. XXX"? If so, would MD-PhDs also get the double doctor appellation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.151.135.122 (talk) 17:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In Austria you would write "DDr.", but I don't know how it is where you are. Rimush (talk) 17:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In the UK (and I believe in other English-speaking countries) it is normal to just use one "Dr.". There are countries (eg. Germany) where you do repeat the title if they have two doctorates. You say there are a professor - it may be more appropriate to use "Prof." rather than "Dr." - the meaning of "professor" varies from country to country. If you say where you are, where they are and where they are from we may be able to help more. As a general rule of thumb, though: try and find a formal letter from them and see how they signed it and copy that. --Tango (talk) 17:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm also in Canada (assuming the letter you're writing is to a prof here). I'd use "Dear Dr. XXX" in the salutation. My M.Sc. advisor was an MD-Ph.D, and people used Prof. or Dr. with him. Also, I knew an MD-DDS-Ph.D (that's medical doctor, dentist, real doctor ;) ) who was also addressed as Dr. XXX. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Note the OP is in Canada.-- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

In English-speaking contexts, Dr. is never doubled. It is always just Dr. When I was completing my PhD, one of my advisors (a professor with a PhD) told me that, in correspondence, professors with PhDs should always be addressed simply as Mr.. He may have meant that, as a soon-to-be peer, I should use this salutation. Still, I think that, in the United States at least, PhDs feel a bit awkward when addressed as Dr. because of the term's association with MDs. In the United States, I would address such a person as Mr., or more deferentially, as Professor. Marco polo (talk) 19:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

At least according to what Im used to, people of the same degree of professionaltiy tend to omit their degrees, while taking to each other, but not when talking to more qualified personnel. Also to omit it as a less-qualified person is considered rude (or presumptuous for reasons above) --91.6.54.142 (talk) 18:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If the person happens to be in the UK and is a professor as opposed to a university lecturer, Professor is the correct form of address. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There's one important exception: when you're asking for some news. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Or the earlier "Doctor, Doctor, Mr. M.D."—— Shakescene (talk) 10:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[Warning: non-expert amateur opinion] In other languages, it's common to combine Professor and Doctor and even Mrs when all are applicable, e.g. a doutora profesora ^(sp?) in Portuguese or Doktor Frau Doktor Professor ^(sp?) in German, but even a medical doctor who's a Professor in some other field would normally be addressed in English as either Dr or Prof., but not both, although I suppose you could write Prof. John Smith, M.D., or in the U.S. if he's also a lawyer, Prof. John Smith, M.D., Esq. The U.S. also has the strange custom of using Ph.D. after names to indicate a psychologist, so a reference to "John Smith, Esq., and William Brown, Ph.D." might imply different things in the U.S. and Britain. In addressing the envelope, sometimes you can convey some of the information with mention of the professor's diplomas, fellowships or membership in a learned society, such as (improbably) "Prof. James Jones, F.R.S., FRCP, AIME". In England, there was a traditional distinction between physicians addressed as "Dr" (John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Royal Army Medical Corps) and surgeons (derived from the profession of barber-surgeons), always addressed as "Mr." —— Shakescene (talk) 10:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

"I didn't spend six years in evil medical school to be called Mister, thank you very much." Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Mr. Evil doesn't have quite the same cachet. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, then who would Mysteryville be named after, then? Doctoryville doesn't sound nearly so ominous, except to hickory-mice. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:52, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

In a North American context, the term Professor is more exclusive than the term Doctor. (All professors have Ph.D.s, generally, but most Ph.D.s are not professors.) There is no need (or, really, ability) to indicate multiple Ph.D.s in addressing formal correspondence (the number is irrelevant—there is no difference in addressing between whether they have one or ten). Use "Professor".? --Mr.98 (talk) 14:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)