Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 December 9

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December 9

Transcription of a french song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOANvfYoTAk&t=4s7

I want to Google the lyrics, also, if you can identify it, please do so! Languagesare (talk) 09:43, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

The video this links too has no lyrics, just music, so it would be pretty hard to google them. --Xuxl (talk) 16:37, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I distinctly heard lyrics sung in French (with a strong accent) going something like this: "Rêve blanc / et le froid dont je rêvais / depuis longtemps / Noël blanc / et le coin auquel je pense / si souvent ..." I believe this song was made for the ad and doesn't exist in its own right. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:51, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Sluzzelin.

Languagesare (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Sluzzelin, what kind of accent? 50.0.136.56 (talk) 02:09, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

I am a native French speaker and cannot be sure. It could be Hungarian native speaker, given that it is a Hungarian add, or a Slavic or Latin accent. I am pretty sure it is not an English-speaker's accent. It is probably not a from a native speaker of a tonal language. Also not Japanese or Korean. The melody in a song often erases features of accents. --Lgriot (talk) 15:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I couldn't say either (familiar with various accents of French, though not a native French speaker). In addition to what Lgriot mentioned about how sung text can distort or mask accents, the singer also seems to be emulating her impressions of the art of French chanson (including Piaf), and then there are odd nasalizations happening too, I'm at a loss too, sorry 50.0. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:43, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

writer/rider

I hear sometimes they are pronounced exactly alike. Am I right? Does it depend on dialect? Omidinist (talk) 16:44, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Flapping describes this phenomenon in some detail. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

But here in London, a glottal stop is used for the "t" in "writer", making the two words quite dissimilar. It does depend on dialect. Alansplodge (talk) 17:27, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, especially for hinting to that 'flapping' phenomenon. Omidinist (talk) 18:28, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

See Canadian raising.

The underlying forms of the words differ in the consonants: /raɪtər/ vs /raɪdər/. But two rules are then applied in many North American dialects. The first is the raising of /aɪt/ > /rəɪt/, which is a change to the /aɪ/ before certain voiceless sounds like p, t, & k. The second rule, applied after the vowel in writer changes, is the neutralization of /t/ & /d/ to the flap [ɾ]. So the final effect is that the consonant tee mutates the vowel, then the tee and dee become indistinguishable, yet the words remain distinct.

This varies by dialect, contexts such as careful speech, where tee is not flapped, and othe circumstances. Most laymen who exhibit this phenomenon continue to presume the consonant, and not the vowel remains the distinctive feature.

μηδείς (talk) 19:07, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks, Medeis. Omidinist (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

For me, in addition to the distinctions Medeis notes, I have a longer vowel (in the sense of Vowel length) in rider than in writer. Writer is more like /raɪɾər/ and rider is /raɪ:dər/. --Jayron32 21:29, 9 December 2016 (UTC)