Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 November 13

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November 13

Spanish Wikipiedias

As far as I can tell from looking at the list, there is only one Spanish Wikipedia. Does this cause more language-variant problems than is the case with English? 86.151.118.91 (talk) 04:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

You mean the Spanish variants such as Catalan? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Taking a quick glance at the Spanish Wikipedia's list of policies and their Manual of Style, I was unable to find anything resembling our WP:ENGVAR. There are pages such as Wikipedia:¿Tú o usted? that mention things like voseo in pasing. So if they are anything like the the editors at en.wp, if they haven't felt the need to make a policy then there probably isn't much of a problem. That may be because, as in English, much of the variation is in pronunciation (ceceo, yeísmo, etc) while the written word appears the same. Even in cases where colloquial sociolects/dialects differ grammatically or lexically, I believe the Spanish of formal education is fairly standardized.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:17, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

A map of the Romance dialects, showing Spanish is closer to Portuguese, and Catalan closer to "Provencal" and Gascon

• The variation between English in Britain and English overseas and between Castilian in Spain and Spanish overseas is very similar, with no difficulty in comprehension between educated speakers of the standard dialects of either. English overseas tends to vary a bit more in vowels, and Spanish overseas slightly more in grammar. I have heard old stories of Spaniards giving New Worlders problems over ceceo, but that strikes me more as a class thing than a lack of understanding. It's certainly no more important than rhotacism in English. Of course, if someone who speaks Ebonics doesn't want to be understood by a Cockney or vice versa... But we don't write wikipedia in Ebonics or Cockney. The same would apply with Spanish. Of course, the Scots language is about as different from Received Pronunciation as is Galician from Castilian, although that's harder to judge, as there are more variables. Catalan is even more distant from Castilian, part of a dialect group that groups with the Occitan dialects of southern France, lying almost halfway between French and Spanish, leaving Spanish and Portuguese more closely related than either is to Catalan. Of course there are separate Scots, Galician, and Catalan wikipedias. But to answer the question strictly posed, there's even less of a problem within Spanish than English wikipedia, as there are no spelling differences in Spanish, and the other differences are almost entirely those of the spoken language. μηδείς (talk) 06:19, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

From what I can tell (not knowing either language), Portuguese Wikipedia seems to have more problems with national language variants than Spanish. Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are fairly divergent, with attempts to paper over the differences with a common spelling system... AnonMoos (talk) 11:00, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

The Lusophones have an entire category currently containing 1,690 articles affected by the national variants' differences, and it includes things as important as countries (Macedónia/Macedônia) and planets (Vénus/Vênus). --Theurgist (talk) 11:52, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, AnonMoos makes a salient point. Introductory classes in Spanish offered in America do not distinguish between a European or American standard. If that's addressed at all, it's at the upper or graduate level. It is not usually announced or thought relevant by the faculty or the students whether a course will be taught by an American or a European. But classes offered in Portuguese will be listed as, say, Brazilian Portuguese 101 from the beginning. μηδείς (talk) 17:13, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Spanish classes in the UK teach the European pronunciation but deliberately include written material from both Spain and Latin America, as well as listening exercises in Latin-American Spanish. English classes in Spain probably do something similar in regard to varieties of English. I know that is done in France. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:31, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

A Spanish professor I know, from Spain, advised she had been taught Received Pronunciation and only took a class specifically in American English when she secured a job heading the language depeartment at an American university. She found to her horror that the class had left her entirely unprepared to deal with American contractions and assimilations, like "Y'r gonna hafta tell'er whatcha wanna do with'at." She said it took her about six months of immersion to master it. ON the converse, it took me probably a year or two of weekend Britcoms and Monty Python when I was a pre-teen to be able to understand any heavily dialectal speech from Britain. μηδείς (talk) 20:06, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting, but I suspect that the problem for the professor was insufficient exposure to spoken vernacular language either side of the pond rather than to the UK/US difference per se. We speak pretty much the same as the example you give, except that we might say wiv'at for with that. A year or two of British sitcoms doesn't surprise me. Remember that in the other direction we have had many, many hours of exposure to rapid colloquial American speech in the movies. When a family member of mine visited the rural USA she had to "put on" an American accent to be understood at all in Walmart. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:57, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

It's probably true she didn't have enough spoken exposure of any sort. But her "doing a British Accent" was great, and always has people in stitches. (My own problem with Spanish is usually spelling and regional vocabulary, since my exposure has always been oral, rather than written or broadcast.) It is funny you mention your relatives had to "put on" an American accent. Being willing to put on the target language accent (ENGVAR or otherwise) is almost always the biggest thing holding language learners back. They feel funny "speaking with an accent"--but that's half of learning a new language at all. Perhaps the most interesting comment I have ever had in a language course was a fellow student who said he didn't want to be misconstrued, but that he had to say I had the "most beautiful vowels". The point was that I was willing and able to mimic the teacher from the first week, while all the other students were still trying to use English phonemes to pronounce the language we were studying. I assume foreign accent addresses this. μηδείς (talk) 21:12, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks, that's interesting. For some reason I thought the differences between Latin American and European Spanish were significantly greater than the differences between, say, British and American English. 86.151.118.91 (talk) 14:53, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

There is of course the Catalan Wikipedia, the much smaller Extremaduran Wikipedia, and a few others from Spain. List of Wikipedias has a longer list. Astronaut (talk) 19:43, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone classify Catalan as a type of Spanish? I thought it was pretty much a different language altogether (though obviously in the same general family of languages). By the way, if anyone here has the knowledge and motivation, the article Spanish language in the Americas could do with more explicit information about actually how similar/different the Spanish dialects of the Americas are to each other and to European Spanish, in terms of a benchmark that English speakers can understand. Although various analogies with English are given, one can read the whole article and still come away with a deal of uncertainty about how easily a person from Madrid can converse with, say, someone from Buenos Aires or wherever. A statement in the lead such as μηδείς's "The variation between English in Britain and English overseas and between Castilian in Spain and Spanish overseas is very similar, with no difficulty in comprehension between educated speakers of the standard dialects of either" would be so helpful. Can we add it in? Also, unless I accidentally missed it in my skim, the article Catalan language is sorely lacking any information on mutual intelligibility (or lack thereof) with Spanish. Does anyone fancy addressing that? 86.151.118.91 (talk) 20:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

A map of the dialects of Spanish from Spanish dialects. It should be kept in mind all the dialects outside Spain proper are less diverse than those within Spain.

Unfortunately my comments would have to be taken as WP:OR, as they are based on my personal knowledge of Spanish and my study of French and linguistics. Oxford's The Romance Languages is by far the best reference I have read on Romance, and one of the best books on comparative linguistics I own. But it doesn't focus very much on Spanish alone. I am not sure I can provide a source for my own opinion, although I think it is probably very close to that of others here. μηδείς (talk) 21:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Catalan is a separate language. It raises interesting questions in terms of mutual intelligibility. As a near-native French speaker, advanced speaker of Spanish, I can read newspaper articles in Catalan, but I'm sure I would not be able to follow a radio broadcast or take part in a conversation. I could probably manage to read a menu (although most menus would also be in Castellano) and order something to eat. Bugs, could you please hold back from replying when you really know nothing whatsoever about the topic. See how it's led to muddle? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:48, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's the Lord's prayer in Catalan, for those familiar with another Western Romance language (think Portuguese vowels, French consonants, and x = "sh"):

Pare nostra del cel,

sigui santificat el teu nom;

vingui el teu Regne;

faci’s la teva voluntat,

com al cel,

així també a la terra.

Dóna’ns avui el nostre pa de cada dia;

i perdona’ns les nostres ofenses,

com també nosaltres hem perdonat els qui ens ofenen;

i no deixis que caiguem en la temptació,

ans deslliura’ns del Maligne.

from the very helpful site Convent of Pater Noster with samples in 1763 languages. μηδείς (talk) 21:25, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not like personally PN as an example of different languages, as it too short and has specific context and grammatical structures, it would be better if more neutral texts like The North Wind and the Sun were used. Unfortunately there is not a site with this fable in many languages, sometimes I think of creating of the site-compendium which would collect the fable in all the languages of the word.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 13:33, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It has the benefit that many people know it by heart, although, yes it is somewhat artificial. But the Concise Compendium of the World's Languages is even worse, it uses the first paragraph of the Gospel Of John: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." μηδείς (talk) 16:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Любослов Езыкин -- A traditional advantage of the Lord's Prayer is that it exists in almost all European languages which are reasonably well attested at some time from ca. 325 A.D. to the present (Gothic, Old Church Slavonic, etc.) -- see chapter 11 of ISBN 0-09-095581-1... AnonMoos (talk) 06:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I wanted to answer nearly the same to Medeis. I think the reason why they chose John's Gospel is that the New Testaments is one of the most translated books and it is easy to find. Though it were better if they chose some other more narrative part of the NT.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer is likely to be attested even if a full New Testament translation doesn't exist (as with Old English). Not sure if the same is true of the beginning of the first chapter of John (which is also more abstractly philosophical than the Lord's Prayer). AnonMoos (talk) 10:05, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

What about Wessex Gospels?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:27, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I mentioned Old English because it's a language I knew of which has various Christian texts, but not a complete New Testament... AnonMoos (talk) 16:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the case, the first chapter of John's an absurd choice to showcase a language, given its extreme repetitiveness and artificial, metaphysical language. I do think it was chosen because it was easy for the book's editors to find without effort. Some short text with a lot of words from the Swadesh list woud have been better, but there won't be any such free text available in languages without written literatures. μηδείς (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• I have added a map of the European Romance dialects above. Note there are three dialect groups across Iberia and France: Ibero-Romance (Spanish through Portuguese), Occitano-Romance (numbers 6,7, and 8--Catalan, Occitan (aka, Provencal), and Gascon), and Gallo-Romance. The entire diversity within New and Old-World Spanish is too small even to show on this map.)

It seems quite obvious from the map as well as from the recent history the Iberian peninsula that in the time when its southern and central parts were under Arabs the Ibero-Romance languages took shelter and were prevailed predominantly in the North, and from these northern dialects the modern Iberian languages/dialects were evolved. So some centuries ago there was a rectangular "chain" of mutually intelligible dialects stretching smoothly from the North-West to the North-East. In this situation Castilian did not side directly to Catalan but there was an intermediate dialect represented by Aragonese. But during the Reconquista Castilian went deep into the South, while Catalan went along the eastern shore, both leaving Aragonese aside. Hence not initially directly intelligible Castilian and Catalan have met with each other. We cannot say that Catalan is a dialect of "Spanish" in the sense of Castilian, because it's not, but we can quite say that they are both two of "dialects" with established literary standards of the one Hispanic/Iberian macro-language, despite Catalan being grouped with Occitan.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 13:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

To further Lüboslóv's comment, see also Mozarabic. μηδείς (talk) 17:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Pronounciamentos

A writer whose manuscript I'm editing uses the word pronounciamenta ("we propose to examine the editorial pronounciamenta in reverse order"). Is this is correct plural of (I'm assuming Latin) pronounciamento? Googling suggests the Italian plural would be pronounciamenti, so I suspect Latin would be the same? (The OED gives only pronounciamentos, in their illustrative quotations, which is rather ugly.)--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

The only word I can find in the OED that is similar to yours is pronunciamiento (note the lack of a second 'o', and the inclusion of a second 'i' - though it gives pronounciamiento and pronunciamento as historical variant spellings), which is Spanish, and in that language has its plural in '-os'. If it came from Latin (which historically it probably didn't) it would have the form pronunciamentum, a neuter noun which indeed would form its plural as pronunciamenta. --ColinFine (talk) 17:48, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

According to wikt:pronuntiare, the seventh letter of the Latin infinitive prōnūntiāre is t.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:06, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

The only solution here is going to be to ask the original writer what he's on about; if this is a coinage of his, a misspelling, or if he has a source. If, as it seems, he is trying to make up a pseudo-Latin phrase for pronouncements, he should just stick with the English. There certainly would not be a "nounce" syllable in any word from actual Latin or French. μηδείς (talk) 20:13, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Unless the writer in question is trying to be funny (like when Bugsy calls someone an "ignoranimous"), then he's botched it, and should just go with "pronouncements" or some other less fancy-schmancy English term. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:48, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks all, Colin was right: I had mistyped it.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:32, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

So, what's the actual word? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC)