Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 January 21

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January 21

Swedish pronunciation

I've been trying to figure out how to pronounce "Tjikko" as in Old Tjikko. I assume its a Swedish name, and I'm no expert in phonetics so any help would be appreciated. If anyone is familiar with using the {{IPA}} templates feel free to answer by editing the article itself. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 00:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd have a go, but as Wikipedia's version of IPA as used in Swedish pronunciation is different to the form used in my Swedish Dictionary, and I have had difficulty in the past making what I type correspond to what others see with IPA, I won't. DuncanHill (talk) 01:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand IPA, and I'm not familiar with Old Tjikko, but AFAIK, "tj" in Swedish is pronounced "tz", so it would be pronounced something like "tzikko". JIP | Talk 05:51, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the so-called 'tje-sound' would come into action. My guess would be something like /ɕɪkɔ/. --Kjoonlee 10:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

”Trädet fick sitt namn efter upptäckaren Leif Kullmans hund Tjikko.”, that is, "The tree got its name after Tjikko, the dog of its discoverer Leif Kullman." Leif Kullman is a professor at the Umeå University, and apparently a Swede, therefore his dog's name is likely pronounced in the Swedish way. In Swedish, ‹tj› is normally a way of spelling /ɕ/, as in tjugo, tjänst, tjock. My guess would also be something like /ɕɪkːɔ/, even though the natural Swedish spelling of the long "k" consonant is ‹ck›, in contrast with Danish and Norwegian, which use the here-present ‹kk›. In order to receive a fully trustworthy answer, you may consider asking this question at the Swedish Wikipedia's reference desk. (It won't be much of a problem if you post there in English, because Scandinavians almost exclusively many Scandinavians speak it.) --Theurgist (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Really? I'd have thought very few Scandinavians exclusively speak English. Pais (talk) 16:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. It's my bad command of English. I'm just a learner of English. --Theurgist (talk) 16:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

You might try universally or invariably next time, or just always. (Not that you asked.) 81.131.65.219 (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Whereas "tj" in Swedish is pronounced as this /ɕ/ sound, which I transliterated as "tz" above, this sound does not occur in native Finnish. On the contrary, in Finnish, "tj" is pronounced "tj", for example in the interjection "tjaa..." which is pronounced something like "tyah" in English. The reason why I'm writing this here is a recent Finnish advertising campaign for the travel agency Tjäreborg, which makes fun at the Swedish pronunciation by using phrases like "Lähdetjä?" which is intended to be pronounced like "Lähdetsä?", colloquial Finnish for "Will you go?". JIP | Talk 20:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

From where do you get the transliteration "tz"? As a Swede, that strikes me as wrong, unless the "z" means something specific and unrelated to the letter z. Pronouncing the 'tje', 'kje' and such sounds more "s"-like than they should be strikes me as something you would typically do when pretending to have a strong Finnish accent. (Particularly, a Finnish Finn having learnt Swedish from Finland-Swedes). Regarding the name "Tjikko" in the question, it is not a Swedish name. The double-k spelling indicates to me that it is Sami, or made-up to look like Sami or Finnish. So, the "tj" should most likely be pronounced like in Finnish, making the sound quite close to the beginning of English "chick". /Coffeeshivers (talk) 13:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

(I corrected Coffeeshivers' wikilink, because it originally pointed to a disambiguation page.) The double "k" may, purely theoretically, be due to the fact that the name of the dog is a compuond word, consisting of tjik [ɕiːk], whatever that could mean, and ko [kuː], meaning "cow". But that's surely not the case here. --Theurgist (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The transliteration "tz" comes mostly from my own assumptions. For a native Finnish speaker, all these different "s" sounds are hard to keep track of. You know our Slavic friends just to the east of our country? They have seven different "s" sounds. Finnish has all of - count them! - one, plain old "s". In Finnish Swedish, "tj" is pronounced either "ts" or "tsch", but I guessed that in proper Swedish, it's supposed to be pronounced voiced, like "tz". That guess might have been wrong. JIP | Talk 22:27, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow, ok, I didn't realize it was so complicated. If I'm not mistaken, I see "cheek-oh" or "ti-zeek-oh" or "ti-yeek-oh". Someone correct me if I'm not getting this right. At least I can imagine what it sounds like now, whereas before I had no idea. Thanks to everyone for their answers but if I can get a definitive answer that would be even better. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 23:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be OR, but if you're curious I think you could always ask the professor himself. --Kjoonlee 02:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, here's an mp3 file of my 11 year old daughter (a native Swedish speaker) saying the word Tjikko. She thinks this entire discussion is quite hilarious, and immediately asked "why don't you just record a sound file", so I did. Out of the mouths of the babes, literally. You may now proceed to figure out what she's saying, in IPA :) 81.233.156.109 (talk) 18:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! My first guess was correct then, "cheek-oh". It helps to hear it as well. Thanks to all who took the time to reply. Unless someone has a better idea this is the one I'm going with for the article. Happy editing. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 01:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like [ɕɪkɔ] to me. It could be an artifact from the recording/encoding process, but it sounded more like it started with a fricative (ɕ) rather than an affricate (tʃ). --Kjoonlee 04:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

And I really think User:Coffeeshivers' comments should be taken into account; it isn't spelled like a normal Swedish word, so it might not be pronounced as expected. --Kjoonlee 04:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your transcription, except that I think the final vowel sounds like [ʊ], which is also the transcription given for a final -o in the reading on the Swedish phonology page. — Eru·tuon 15:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Kjoonlee, I went with (pronounced /ˈtʃiːkɵ/) because I'm working with the English IPA and I didn't see a ɕ symbol and couldn't really tell what the difference was. Secondly, this is beyond my area of expertise. Perhaps an English and Swedish pronunciation guide in the article would be in order? Feel free to do what you wish, I think I'm going to leave the rest of it up to other people who know what they are doing. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 00:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, the difference is something like the difference between "sheekoo" and "cheekoo", to make an analogy. The "sh" is a fricative, and the "ch" is the affricate. I removed the pronunciation from the article, for the time being. --Kjoonlee 02:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation: name "Crooijmans" of person from Netherlands

Could someone please give me a layman's (not IPA) pronunciation of Crooijmans? I'm meeting a fellow by that name at a conference and haven't a clue how to pronounce it. He's from the Netherlands, if that helps. Thank you. The Masked Booby (talk) 04:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The only tricky bit is the IJ digraph, which is pronounced (and treated by Dutch) as a single letter. If I am reading the IPA correctly, the pronounciation of IJ is something like the vowel sound in the word english word "fail" but more "back". As far as pronouncing the whole name, I think the closest English approximation would be "Croy-mans" though I don't know enough about Dutch to get the stresses right. Maybe someone who knows more Dutch could take a better stab at it. --Jayron32 04:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not bad. Lengthen the "o" a little bit, and make sure you don't say "mans" like English "man's", but rather like German "Hans". And ask him, "Hoe is het weer in Amsterdam?" Ciao, Drmies (talk) 05:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

For non-Dutch speakers it is merely an enquiry about the weather. Richard Avery (talk) 07:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you ask it that way regardless if the person is from Amsterdam or not? :D Rimush (talk) 08:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• It's the only place that matters. :) Drmies (talk) 16:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify a bit - "Crooij" rhymes with the English name "Roy" and "mans" rhymes with the words "buns", "sons", "puns". If I can suggest a useful mnemonic, think of the phrase "Roy and Sons". Roger (talk) 09:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe an even better English rhyme would be "once", because the pronunciation of the English (plural) ending "-s" is traditionally described as /z/ after voiced consonants (buns /bʌnz/, sons /sʌnz/, puns /pʌnz/), and in the case given we need an /s/ sound: once /wʌns/. --Theurgist (talk) 16:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Hyphened word

Should the word "title decider" have a hyphen between title and decider? The context for this word would be in sports or competitions. In other words a game or match that will decide who wins the title. I found the use of the word in the article North_London_derby#Cup_semi-finals_and_title_deciders but I'm not sure if it should have a hyphen. --MicroX (talk) 09:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Since it's unambiguous as stated I see no reason to hyphenate it, but one would need to see it in a complete sentence to decide whether the lack of a hyphen could lead to ambiguity.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I would definitely use a hyphen - a similar example would be "Beckham's goal was a match-winner". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I think it makes it easier to read as it shows clearly that the two words go together. Alansplodge (talk) 12:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Usage might be different in the US, but in the UK The Oxford Manual of Style recommends using a hyphen only with good reason. "In general the tendency is for new or temporary pairings of words to be spaced [rather than hyphenated]... As the combination becomes fixed over time, it may pass through the hyphenation stage and finally come to be set as one word."--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:43, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm a fan of hyphens, but I don't see the need to use hyphens in these examples. In each case the first word of the pair is just attributive usage of the noun as an adjective describing the second word. If the pair forms a single adjective (match-winning goal, title-deciding match), then there is a good case for a hyphen because the pair of words forms a single adjective. Dbfirs 17:21, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A hyphen distinguishes a man-eating shark from a man eating shark.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The standard I go by is that when the first word is the object of a verb and the second word is the agent noun formed by using -er or a similar suffix on that verb, then a hyphen is required. Title-decider, man-eater, English-speaker, and so on. "Need to distinguish" is not a factor. If it becomes an established phrase, then maybe it can be written without a hyphen. --Anonymous, 05:07 UTC, January 22, 2011.

Integral

Oh dear, oh dear. You would think the BBC would look up their own guide on pronunciation before pronouncing "Integral" with the emphasis on the second syllable. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

As the name suggests, it's just a guide, not a formal set of rules which shall not be broken lest the individual suffer eternal damnation. Anyway, they have been getting the pronunciation of Liu Xiaobo wrong ever since they first heard of him. There was a news item about him with three different reporters speaking, three different pronunciations, and none of them correct. Even their correspondent in 'Beiʒing' was saying Looʒaobow.... Then you get the 'expert' journalists who get into North Korea for a documentary, and fairly straight away I am aware they are reporting on a country they know nothing about, when they start saying 'Kim Yong Il', presumably because they think every 'foreign' J is pronounced as a Y, unless it's French (or Mandarin, inexplicably). Quality journalism! Remember, the BBC is the one we pay for. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

From OXford Dictionaries: "There are two possible pronunciations for integral as an adjective: one with the stress on the in- and the other with the stress on the -teg-. In British English, the second pronunciation is sometimes frowned on, but both are acceptable as standard." Pais (talk) 14:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Where's the question? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe it was the opposite of rhetorical question (where a question does not expect an answer). In this case, it was a statement which did expect an answer. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:28, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

schwa

I'm italian and I have difficult to say schwa at the begin and in the middle of word. Usually I change this vowel with a or e. For example ago becomes "ego" and about becomes "abaut". My question for english native speaker is: is there a big difference in my (and many Italian people) pronuciancion? For me It's very similar and I'm not able to recognize the difference.--93.47.14.94 (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Have some sympathy for the reverse problem: To an untrained anglophone ear, scoraggiare and scoreggiare sound exactly the same :-) --Trovatore (talk) 01:05, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is any problem with retaining the initial vowel in most words, but don't change "ago" to "ego". The schwa is just a lazy pronunciation that is common but not mandatory in English. Dbfirs 17:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing "lazy" about the schwa, and it's absolutely mandatory if you're aiming for an even remotely native-like pronunciation. Pais (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Judging from user pages, you, Pais, are an American, and Dbfirs is British. One of the "criticisms" of American pronunciation is that they tend to use the schwa sound heavily. That is, for words where the British English pronunciation has a clear short e or short a (or other vowel sound), Americans use the schwa sound instead. This "Short a, short e - who cares? Just use schwa!" propensity might be considered "lazy" by some (c.f. "lazy American" stereotype). Given the large number of English Language accents, there's probably at least one which hardly ever uses the schwa sound, though I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which. -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 18:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct, though I was thinking of British laziness, with no implied criticism of Americans. My point was that there are much more serious errors that betray a "foreign" accent than careful and precise pronunciation of short vowels that are less precisely pronounced in "RP" or "standard English". I think I could get by (just) in British English without using the schwa and without sounding "foreign". This might be less true in American English. My own original (strong northern) accent made more extensive use of the sound than does my current pronunciation, especially when reading aloud. Dbfirs 08:27, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

One of the essential qualities of schwa, it seems to me, is that it has no essential qualities--certainly not stress. I could venture a guess and say that this results from the particular Germanic focus on emphasis rather than on vowel length. If you try to pronounce the syllable less, so to speak, with less emphasis, that might help. Schwa is located in the middle/back of the mouth, tongue down--"uh...uh..." Drmies (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a stressed equivalent of the schwa, the ʌ in IPA, but functionally it is pronounced exactly like the schwa. Think of the first syllable in words like "buggy" or "bumper". Compare to the last syllable of "comma". Same sound, different stress... And both British and American english pronounce the schwa in "comma". --Jayron32 20:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

In my world, the first syllable of 'buggy' and 'bumper' is ʌ, not ə. Quite distinctly different. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree — my schwa is often (though not always) more like an unstressed "book" vowel than an unstressed "buck" vowel. --Trovatore (talk) 23:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

140.142.20.229 -- The British complaints are probably about unstressed [ɪ] in British becoming [ɨ] in many cases in many American accents. However, both British dialects and American dialects make abundant and frequent use of the schwa sound. Before the mid 20th century, some dictionaries (such as the OED) didn't include any separate pronunciation symbol for schwa, but a dialect of English which didn't include the sound schwa would be quite remote from any form of standard English... AnonMoos (talk) 01:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I would say that if you have trouble with the schwa, try to replace it with the appropriate "short" vowel, such as ʌ in "ago." I know that when I (a native speaker) was teaching English as a second language, I had trouble teaching the "pronunciation" sections because I couldn't tell the difference between schwas and short vowels. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 07:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Say the word "ago" out loud a few times. Now say "three months ago" a few times. You might find you're using a ʌ when "ago" is spoken by itself, and a schwa when it's more naturally preceded by other words and placed in a context. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 18:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Danish Pronunciations and Immigrant Name Changes

I have posted here before concerning genealogical research. I have recently found some good information about my ancestor. It seems, though, that his surname is slightly different from what it is today.

According to the 1860 Danish census his surname was "Raaub." After his immigration to Montreal, Canada and later Buffalo, New York the name was spelt "Raadt."

Questions: 1)How is "Raaub" pronounced in Danish, and 2) what could be the reason behind this discrepancy?

Thanks Wikipedians! schyler (talk) 18:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

For your second question, you might be helped a little by the article "Name change", especially by the subsection "Norway".

—Wavelength (talk) 03:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Re 2, sounds like anglicisation to me. An immigration agent might've written the name down incorrectly or maybe your family decided that it would be less problematic for them in an English speaking country if their name was less "ethnic" --Hutcher (talk) 04:24, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

For question one, I'm guessing in Danish it would be something like Danish pronunciation: [ʁɔːub̥], approximately "RAW-oop". I agree that poor copying or mishearing at immigration is the most likely explanation for the spelling change. Lesgles (talk) 22:16, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The scandinavian å is often, even today, anglicised as aa. His name was probably actually Råub 81.233.156.109 (talk) 07:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it appears from our article that å is a relatively recent addition to the Danish alphabet, although it was used in Sweden since the 16th century. Lesgles (talk) 17:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

'Raaub' cannot be pronounced i Danish. I am a Dane. If you Google raaub you find nothing useful. Raaby and Raabo and Raarup are Danish names. Raabu is Norwegian. Raarup is my best guess for your ancestor's name, because the second 'r' is hardly pronounced. Bo Jacoby (talk) 00:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC).

Language speaker question

Approximately how many people in the world speak (not necessarily natively) at least one of these languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish. FOr my purposes, people who speak more than one of these languages should only be counted once. Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 21:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of problems there. First, I doubt if anybody has compiled stats for just that particular set of languages. Second, what do you do about someone who is equally fluent in multiple languages if you can only count them once? I think I misread the question. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

If you were asking about native speakers this would be pretty easy, just add up the numbers for all those languages and you'd have a reasonable approximation. (Of course it will vary depending on what statistics you use, since the counts for any given language vary widely, and because some people--although definitely a minority--are native speakers of more than one of these languages at the same time.) Including second-language speakers, though, makes it more complicated, since you can't just add in the numbers of L2 speakers overall—for instance, if you calculated the number I just described above and then added in the number of second-language speakers of English, you'd be double-counting many people, since a large number of people from all those groups speaks English as a second language. There are certainly statistics around on L2 English speakers by language (e.g., an estimate of the number of Mandarin, French, and Spanish speakers who also speak English as an L2), although I don't know off the top of my head where to find them; comparable statistics for those other languages might only be available in those languages. Another issue is what you mean by "speak"; how proficient do you want someone to be to be counted? The estimate you get will vary widely depending on how you answer that question. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:43, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Try http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=English%2C+Mandarin+Chinese%2C+French%2C+SpanishBo Jacoby (talk) 08:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC).

On the excellence of accents

I am in a literary frame of mind today.

We doubt if there is a people under the sun, that so murders its own language as the English. There are many dialects, even in England. A well-educated man cannot understand the working-people in country parts. Some drop the letter h., where it should be used, and vice versa, and others give every letter a wrong sound. Surely it ill becomes any one belonging to such a country to find fault with American pronunciation.

(From London by Day and Night, by David W.Bartlett, 1852 - Chapter 5 - Costumes and Customs, reproduced on Victorian London. Mr Bartlett is an American visiting the capital of the Empire, probably for the Great Exhibition.)

It is commonplace to prefer one's own accent and hear others' as grating and erroneous and degraded. Historically, and still in some places now, it is commonplace to secretly or not so secretly despise one's own accent, and to disparage it, while holding up to esteem that of another people as purer, more melodious, more correct. My question is: was it ever thus? Was there ever a time when all different mutually comprehensible accents were held as socially and intellectually equal? Somehow I think not. Keeping to English for the sake of simplicity, was there ever a time when most Americans wished to sound like the British, or vice versa? I am aware of accent reduction classes, e.g., for Indians working in call centres, and of course the long history of elocution lessons to assist social mobility. I also remember Mark Twain's remark of Montreal, that it was the only place he knew where a French accent was not of social benefit. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd suspect that the answer is that there has never been a time when all accents and dialects were considered socially equal. One's dialect has always betrayed one's social class, and it has often been seen as a ticket to a different class to learn to speak like them. See, for example, Pygmalion (play)/My Fair Lady (film). --Jayron32 03:19, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

As an Australian from Melbourne visiting the USA I was often told "Oh, I really love your accent." Trouble was, even though I understood them pretty well, they didn't understand half of what I said. Even ordering a Coke was difficult. I think Australians are exposed from birth these days to their families and neighbours speaking Australian, with American and British shows filling all the gaps in our TV schedules. We have immigrants from other English speaking places such as New Zealand, South Africa, India and south-east Asia, with probably the most extreme case for us Melbournites being our popular last Lord Mayor John So. (If you read his article you will see that it's valid to say popular.) He came from Hong Kong in his teenage years and although now in his 60s still has the most extreme Hong Kong English accent. It cracks a mention in his article here. We are used to variety. Not everyone else is. I think that makes a difference. HiLo48 (talk) 03:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

My experience (and I don't know if this is a place thing, an age thing, or just my own experience) is that foreign accents, especially British (or Australian or South African or anything that sounds vaguely British) or French sound "posh" and sophisticated to our North American ears, and even other accents are exotic and therefore desirable. I've heard many times things like, "Oh wow, your accent is so cool, say something for me." So it's quite the opposite of the idea that our own accent is preferable and others are grating. An obvious exception might be calling for tech assistance and hearing a (for instance) Indian accent, but that's more a case of, "Oh no, we're is going to have trouble communicating" rather than the actual sound of the accent being bothersome. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 06:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

That particular American experience of sensing sophistication (and even higher intelligence) in an English accent seems to have been confirmed in polls. (Mentioned, for example, in the "Europhilia" entry (p 245) of Volume 1 of Class in America: An Encyclopedia, Robert E. Weir, ISBN 9780313337192). Janet B. Ruscher sees this as an exception to the "standard-implies-competence" rule. More often, a speaker of the standard accent will be seen as "more intelligent, as having higher status, and as being more dominant and competetent" in comparison with a non-standard speaker. ("Standard" meaning whatever the local standard happens to be). She refers to studies documenting this for Mexican-American accents in the US and for Scottish accents in England. English and Japanese accents are given as examples coming from a culture perceived as higher. (Prejudiced Communication: A Social Psychological Perspective, Guilford Press, 2001, ISBN 9781572306387, p 108) ---Sluzzelin talk 07:39, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that is all very interesting. I'll look for that book, Sluzzelin. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)