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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 October 12

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October 12

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Which one is the headquarters of Air China (Chinese help)?

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Which building is the Air China administrative headquarters? I seem to be getting some contradictory stuff

It's possible the company may have one building as its "registered office" and another as its administrative headquarters

I put this in the language section because Chinese speakers may be needed to pore over documents which explain things Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 08:05, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

-tr

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Is there a word for words ending in "-tr" (e.g. Polish teatr), "-tl" (Icelandic "jökull") and other "unpronounceable" combinations? In what languages do such exist? bamse (talk) 11:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The combinations may be unpronounceable by you, but that doesn't mean they are unpronounceable by speakers of these languages. Phonotactics is the study of how phonemes may be combined, such as the consonant clusters in the examples you mention. Gabbe (talk) 12:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. I don't know Polish that well, but is the end of "teatr" any different than the french word "quatre" (four), in terms of how the final consonant cluster is sounded? Each language has a set of sounds that are used by that language, which is only a small subset of the possible sounds availible for all languages. Without practice, some sounds are difficult for non-native speakers. It doesn't make them unprouncable, it just means the non-native speaker isn't as practiced in making them as native speakers. --Jayron32 12:49, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's pronounced VERY different from the French. The Polish "r" is flapped or trilled. And the word is pronounced exactly like it is spelled. Approximately like "TEH-aht-rrrrrrrr". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In this case I think it may just be a matter of spelling. The fact that English spells the word "theater" doesn't mean that English speakers always pronounce a distinct "e" sound in the last syllable. In general spelling only correlates approximately to pronunciation, whatever language you look at. Looie496 (talk) 16:05, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But lots and lots of words in Nahuatl end in "tl"; besides the language's own name, examples you may recognize includechocolatl, coyotl and of course the useful military implement, the atlatl. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:12, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There's a distinct difference in pronunciation in the final consonant sounds of the French word "quatre" and the English word "theatre". Indeed, one thing that makes native French speakers apoplectic is the way in which native English speakers butcher their language by substituting native English sounds for native French ones based purely on spelling (vowels are particularly problematic in this regard). I have a decent knowledge of French as a second language, however I am not comfortable speaking it often in front of native French speakers because I don't want to be disrespectful of their language by butchering it. --Jayron32 16:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The French getting upset at others butchering their language. Ah could nev-AIR ev-AIR believe zat.  :) -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 22:07, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There's a general problem in confusing pronunciation and spelling. The final r, l, m, and n in English words like butter, bottle, bottom, and button are actually 'stand-alone' syllabic consonants. There's no actual vowel sound between them and the t's that precede them. We usually write them with a schwa, because we expect every syllable to have a vowel, but this is more a matter of convention and expectation than fact. We could just as rationally write those words as butr, botl, botm, and butn, and as we do write rhythm. Indeed there are many languages that do just that. The Czech tongue-twister Strč prst skrz krk "Stick your finger through your throat", ignoring other minor differences, would be written "Sturch pursed scurrs Kirk" if it were an English phrase. See Vowel#Words_without_vowels and English words without vowels.
Yet, in the case of Nahuatl and French words ending in -tre (if the r is pronounced at all) those consonants are fricatives likes and 'sh'. The tl sound in Nahuatl is somewhat like a lisped English ch. The ɫ is a voicelss fricative like the double ll of WelshLloyd, pronounced with the tongue in the position for /l/, but with air hissing out around both sides of the tongue, rather than the throat humming in the way we pronounce the /l/ in lick. (You can approximate the sound of this phoneme by trying clearly to enunciate "hlick".) As for the French -tre, the r may be silent, but if it is pronounced, it will usually be a fricative made in the back of the throat, sounding vaguely Arabic. See French phonology.
Topics like these are complicated, and surprisingly scientific. I would suggestA Mouthful of Air as a great introduction, and then an old edition (it's a textbook, and new editions are expensive, but no better) of Fromkin & Rodman's Introduction to Language.μηδείς (talk) 17:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)The OP used scare quotes around "unpronounceable", indicating that he already realized that these words are not really unpronounceable, just seemingly so. To paraphrase and update his question, what languages have final consonant clusters other than "-tl" and "-tr" that are seemingly unpronounceable to speakers of English, and is there a term for words ending in such? Duoduoduo (talk) 17:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know much about Russian, but can their "shch" sound be word-final? Duoduoduo (talk) 17:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, борщ, "borscht" is one such word. The ad hoc phrase 'cluster-final word' would seem to cover the necessary meaning. I can't see the concept being needed so much that it would necessarily have its own word. μηδείς (talk) 18:21, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The "borscht" spelling is really misleading and I don't know how it ever gained prominence. The final consonant is -shch, just like the-shch- of "ashchurch". It could be romanised in German as -"schtsch", and that's how a t could creep into the middle. But to end it with a -t is not right, in any language. Of course, many people probably do now pronounce it as "borsht", but only because it was mis-romanised in the first place. -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 21:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You think that's bad, explain me why the French spell the very easy word "bishop" évêque? μηδείς (talk) 21:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Correct me if I'm wrong (as happens rather more often than I'd like to admit) in this case, the little hat the second <e> wears indicates an <s> used to be there (unlike English where when the sounds disappear, the bloody letters remain). Looks to me like it would be from epísk(opos) with the p -> b -> v or p -> f -> v in some process the people who really do know about this will probably be able to name? --Shirt58 (talk) 06:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, now you have "ruined" my joke by explaining it. Yes, your explanation is spot on. The pair is often used as an example of how words from cognate sources can evolve to be very different, since these don't share a single sound or letter. Oh, and p>b>v is the proper sequence, likesapere to savoir, with Spanish saber showing the middle state. μηδείς (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In Bulgarian, the letter щ is regularly /ʃt/. I don't know whether there are Russian dialects in which that is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me. When I studied Russian at school forty years ago, we were taught that щ was a palatalised /ʃ/, and only pronounced /ʃt͡ʃ/ in very careful speech: I have since read that this is a Muscovite localism. --ColinFine (talk) 23:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
bamse: Regarding your two particular examples, see Sonority Sequencing Principle and Sonority hierarchy. It is generally normal that asonorant like /r/ or /l/ should stay closer to the syllable nucleus than a stop like /t/ should, but as they said, each language has its own patterns and limitations of combining sounds. The initial /kn/ cluster has now been impossible in English for centuries, but is still very much possible in most other Germanic languages. There are pockets of languages worldwide where any initial consonant clusters are forbidden and "unpronounceable", and that's why, for example, you can sometimes hear someone in Turkey referring to Bill Clinton andBrad Pitt roughly as "Bill Kill-lin-tawn" and "Beer-rat Pitt". An initial /ŋ/ (ng) might be giving Westerners hard times mastering it, but is a perfectly regular thing in many languages of Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands. Examples are as many as you'd like. --Theurgist(talk) 22:21, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about Canadian French, which might be the variety that Jayron and Medeis know best, but in France the r of quatre and the l of table are frequently omitted. It is regarded as a marker of working class speech - normally - but not, I think, if the speaker is a learner of French with a cool/cute/quaint English/American accent. Jayron, I'm sure there's no call to be self-conscious; it's a courtesy to make the effort to speak your listener's language. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My French is school-learned and conservative, meant to be broad enough to be clearly understood throughout francophonia. I did explicitly qualify above: if the r is pronounced at all. When it is, /fǝnɛːtʁ/ and even /katχ/ for quatre are possible, with ʁ and χ being fricatives. μηδείς (talk) 04:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you did say that. Relevant to the discussion on consonant clusters is that the r isn't dropped if a vowel follows. Quat' personnes but quatre enfants. (Quatres enfants is regarded as uneducated.) In accents of southern France and in West Africa r's are rolled. Itsmejudith(talk) 07:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We were instructed that in graded recitations, American r's would be marked wrong, but trilled r's would be acceptable for those who couldn't do the gutteral r. (Not that I remember anyone finding that any easier.) We were told to expect the trilled r in poetry and song (along with silent e's being pronounced) and given Edith Piaf to listen to for an example. I never did go to France though, touring the German Alps instead when I had the chance. I have probably spoken 10 hours of French over the last 10 years, and all with Africans and Haitians. μηδείς(talk) 15:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There's a commercial in France at the moment (or, at least, over the past couple of months) where a kid is cooking for his parents and calls them to dinner, "à tab'!" When they don't come (they're looking at cars or something) he enunciates it more fully, "à table", pronouncing the normally silent -e. For words like "quatre" it's definitely convenient for non-native speakers like me that you don't have to pronounce the -re. Otherwise when the "r" is an important part of the word, sometimes French people had no idea what I was saying (I could never pronounce the name of my bank counsellor, for example). Adam Bishop (talk) 12:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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