Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 February 11

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February 11

Cleverness

I have often wondered about the meaning of the term 'clever' (As in 'You are a clever person/student/boy/dog/woman'). Does it mean intelligent or knowledgeable, or a combination of both attributes?--92.28.81.231 (talk) 00:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It would vary depending on the context, but I'd generally suggest a combination of both, plus skilful, if the achievement was also a physical one. HiLo48 (talk) 01:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The wictionary definitions 2, 3, and 4 match what I tend to think of: quick-witted. This wouldn't necessarily mean exceptionally smart, but quick to come up with good or unexpected solutions, comments, etc. when required. I don't think you need to be knowledgeable to be clever, so I wouldn't quite say it's a combination. In fact, coming up with a solution without knowing how in advance is clever. Mingmingla (talk) 01:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't equate it at all with knowledgeable. There's also a whiff of superficiality associated with it, as opposed to "profound". Few people would describe Albert Einstein as clever. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

[ð] → [v]

Hello. How would the consonant shift of [ð] → [v] be classified? I don't really remember the patterns of lenition and fortition and all that from all those years ago when I studied diachronics but having had a look at your articles it seems that this shift falls under neither lenition nor fortition, as both [ð] and [v] are voiced fricatives and seem to be on the same "level." Is there another category? Or can it really be classified under one of the two? Thank you. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 01:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't think it's either one, but it's a transition from a typologically more marked or less common sound to a typologically less marked or more common sound... AnonMoos (talk) 01:16, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a fundamental shift in the place of articulation. It's a VERY BIG shift at the very highest level of consonant classification. Way beyond lenition or fortition. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Not entirely. They both involve dental articulation, and bear in mind, too, that children lose their front teeth between about 5 and 7 years of age. During that time, it's far easier to pronounce /v/ than /ð/, which essentially sound very similar anyway. It's very common in UK English. I don't know about Icelandic, Greek, Albanian, Spanish, etc. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It's very uncommon in the United States, except maybe among teething children. To my American ears the UK pronunciation sounds, well, infantile. Marco polo (talk) 18:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The technical term is Th-fronting. Infantile or not, it isn't "the UK pronunciation". As KageTora says, it's common in the UK (more in some accents than others) but certainly not universal. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It also happens with the voiceless versions ([θ] -> [f], in chorus of The Streets' song "Blinded by the Lights" he keeps going "An' I'm finkin'..."). As KageTora and AnonMoos hinted, those linguodental fricatives (ð and θ) are rare crosslinguistically and are more difficult to pronounce, and acoustically the difference between those and hte labodentals (v and b) is very small--not only is it hard to hear the difference between them, it's also hard to find physical differences in a spectrogram). rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

(conflict) Thank you for the link - it is exactly what I was looking for! 24.92.85.35 (talk) 18:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

@Marco polo: I beg to differ, it is actually quite common in urban areas of the United States for word-final [ð] to be shifted to [v], and is a salient feature of the AAVE (this effect in the United State is in fact where I got the idea to ask). Thanks again. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 18:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Our article doesn't mention it, but th-fronting has happened in other languages besides English. For example, Greek words with [θ] are historically borrowed into Russian with [f], e.g. the names Фома Foma "Thomas" and Афанасий Afanasi "Athanasius". It also happened in the prehistory of the Italic languages, where Proto-Indo-European *dh first became *θ and then f, as in Latin faciō "do, make" from ealier *θak- from PIE *dheh₁-. Angr (talk) 19:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the most familiar Russian example is "Фёдор" "Fyodor", from "Theodore". Until 1918 such words were written with the Cyrillic letter 'ѳ' (Fita) which was the Greek "theta" renamed, but this letter was abolished in the reforms and replaced everywhere by 'Ф'. --ColinFine (talk) 01:12, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I've lived in urban areas of the United States most of my life, including areas with large African American populations, and seldom heard that pronunciation. I won't claim that no African American adults show this shift. Probably some in certain cities do. But it is nowhere near as widespread as in the urban UK. Marco polo (talk) 04:07, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

You need to come to London and its environs to learn how to do it properly: "Forty fousand frushes wiv forty fousand fevvers ‘round their froats. / Didn't they look fine? Didn't they sound sweet? / Lifting up their beaks and singing “Tweet, tweet, tweet.” / Some folks see blue elephants, pink tigers or green goats, / But I saw forty fousand frushes wiv forty fousand fevvers ‘round their froats." You can listen to a 1929 recording here, by one Fred Douglas[1], but it was also performed by Florrie Forde[2]. Strangely, Wikipedea doesn't have an article about this particular musical gem, but we do have Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be. Alansplodge (talk) 00:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Unknown language

What language is being used on this website? 71.223.2.17 (talk) 02:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

My guess would be Mizo. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Yup, Mizo. They give a map of Zoram, suggesting it's a Zomi language, of which Mizo would be a reasonable guess. If you look up words from that site in the search engine of a Mizo paper, such as vanglaini.org, they all get hits. The tabs along the top are for other Kukish languages. — kwami (talk) 03:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Pronouncing 同盟

How would you pronounce 同盟 (Japanese for alliance)? And how would it be romanized into English? Thanks! 64.229.180.189 (talk) 02:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

'Dōmei'. Its romanization is how it is pronounced. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Or just look it up at Wiktionary. — kwami (talk) 03:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

So wait, [doh-may]? 64.229.180.189 (talk) 03:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

More or less. — kwami (talk) 03:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The "long" mark over the ō means that you should pronounce the syllable for twice as long as a short syllable. Likewise ei is a double vowel that is pronounced twice as long as a single short vowel. So the two syllables are long, but equally long. Just pronounce the whole word slowly. Marco polo (talk) 18:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I know next to no Japanese, so this might be a stupid question: I thought "ō" is otherwise written as "ou", and it is different to simply a long "o" - so "dō" would be like "dough" and not "door" [non-rhotic], i.e. simply a long "do"? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

'ō' is written either 'ou' or 'oo', depending on the word. Both are pronounced as 'door' (non-rhotic), except that in some words (notably at the end of verbs such as 'omou'), the 'u' is pronounced, bringing it closer to 'dough'. In these cases, the 'o'+'u' combination is never written as 'ō'. The reason for this is that the '-u' is the verb ending added onto the stem of the verb (in this case 'omo-'), and needs to be pronounced. Therefore, 'ō' is always pronounced as in 'door'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that, that clears things up! It's been a while since school Japanese... --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking for a site that adds Persian short vowels when transliterating

Hi, whenever I google for Farsi (Persian) transliteration, I find sites that just translate letter for letter, without adding the short vowels. So shoma (you) comes out as "shma", which is not very helpful, because I can already read the script, I just don't know the actual words. Is there a site that adds the vowels in? I know there are multiple words that can sometimes have the same orthography, and only context can do the trick, but it's fine if, in those cases, the website just puts all the alternatives in, like a/b/c. Thanks, IBE (talk) 06:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems you need not a transliterator but a Persian diacritizer [3]. Though if you study Persian you can use a dictionary with transcription, for example this. Or these (though they are outdated but maybe still useful). Maybe it will be helpful also.--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 18:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou - glad I came back to check. IBE (talk) 02:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

German pronunciation question

Having just watched an episode of Der Alte, which ended in Chief Inspector Rolf Herzog asking Hier? ("Here?"), I came to wonder: why is that word pronounced with a separate /i/ and /e/ sound, when usually "ie" in German is pronounced as a long /i/, such as in dieser miese Riese ("this wretched giant")? The word vier ("four") is also pronounced with a separate /i/ and /e/ sound. Is this true for all words where "ie" is followed by the consonant "r"? JIP | Talk 19:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

In most varieties of German, except southwestern Germany and Switzerland, /r/ becomes a vowel [ɐ] in the syllable coda. So what you're hearing is probably something like [hiːɐ], long /i/, followed by a vocalized /r/. That the /r/ follows an /i/ is irrelevant, it happens to any /r/ that isn't in front of a vowel. The word dieser in your sentence above is pronounced [diːzɐ] for example, except of course when you're from Baden-Württemberg like me and don't vocalize /r/ at all:)--Terfili (talk) 20:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much every syllable-final "r" in standard German undergoes this vocalisation: Meer, Tor, Kultur, Regisseur, führ (< führen) (IPA: [meːɐ, toːɐ, kʊlˈtuːɐ, ʀeʒɪˈsøːɐ, fyːɐ]). If it's in an "-er" ending, the whole "-er" becomes an [ɐ] (dieser, as mentioned above). --Theurgist (talk) 12:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

zahiere means what in spanish?

what is the imperative of this conjugated form of a spanish word? It was in a definition at rae.es but I can't figure it out. It's not zahir or zahierer, and I can't figure out the imperative, whaaaaat is it?LuciferWildCat (talk) 21:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

zahiere, see infinitive zaherir for imperative forms. 71.223.2.17 (talk) 00:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Those that have served LDS missions in Spanish-speaking countries are very familiar with this word because it's found in the Reina-Valera version of James 1:5, which was a major influence in Joseph Smith's spiritual awakening. The word is a bit antiquated, but is the equivalent of the English "upbraid," or "scold." Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 20:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)