Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 October 20

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October 20

Ph

In American English, the ph sound is taught that it is actually pronounced like an f. So, philosophy, philanthropy, and pho are pronounced like an f. Phillip begins with a ph and sounds like f, but Stephen contains a ph but sounds like a v. So, Stephen sounds like Steven. Some languages actually have Stefani or Stefan. Spanish speakers probably hear a v, so their version becomes Esteban, with the b pronounced like an English v. So, that means ph really has two different pronunciations v and f? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 02:16, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

In that one word, at least. This is one of those exceptions in English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:17, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

50.4.236.254 -- "Stephen" for what would be more naturally be spelled in English as "Steven" is a classicizing spelling (like the "b" in "debt" and "doubt" etc etc). The letter "f" also has a [v] pronunciation, if you count "of"... AnonMoos (talk) 03:49, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Then there's "aphelion"... Rojomoke (talk) 04:50, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Since it's "perigee" and "apogee" then it should be "perihelion" and "apohelion". But it ain't. :( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:05, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Since it's "face" and "Paul", then it should be "bacebaul". But it ain't. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

As usual, Baseball Bugs is wrong: in Greek, ἥλιος begins with a vowel, so the final omicron in ἀπό is omitted in forming the compound word even in Greek. The rough breathing at the start of ἥλιος serves to aspirate the pi in ἀπό, making it a phi: so the Greek word is really αφήλιον. This is disguised by the later sound change of phi from [pʰ] to [f], but to preserve the morphemes in English the p and the h are often still pronounced in separated syllables, although you will hear the pronunciation with [f] sometimes. Double sharp (talk) 04:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

"As usual"? Citation needed. As for the words, we're talking English, where it's pronounced "ap-helion" not "a-felion". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:02, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The pronunciation [æphiːliən] is certainly the most common in English as far as I've heard, but [əfiːliən] would actually be more classically correct, and is listed in dictionaries (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aphelion -- it's the only pronunciation listed in the American Heritage Dictionary 4th edition...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:06, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The OED has both pronunciations, with /apˈhiːlɪən/ second. Dbfirs 23:28, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Shazam! I guess my physics teacher had it wrong. Oddly enough, my Webster's Collegiate says "a-felion" yet says it comes from New Latin "apo-" plus Greek "helion". Go figure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:35, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

"When a-felion's not engaged in his employment ..." -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:22, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

While [ph] may be a valid pronunciation in English, d:Q1699691 confirms that most other languages spell this term with an f or ф, and pronounce it accordingly. --31.154.101.236 (talk) 06:15, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Is there a term to describe the change in perspective between languages?

One language may view item A as default while item B is special. Another language may view the exact same object but take item B as default! One language may have an ancient idiom that is ONLY understood within the context of the geographical homeland; when this idiom is translated to a different language in a different geographical location, the meaning is lost, but the metaphorical meaning is retained. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 04:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a specific example? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:02, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

In French, "gross" retains it's original meaning of "large", with the modern meaning of "disgusting" being a more recent definition borrowed from English, while in English the disgusting def is now the default (except for financial matters). So, if you said "that man is gross" in the two languages, it would likely be interpreted differently. StuRat (talk) 19:55, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I see. Well, I'm sure there a lot of those. Entrée, for example.[1] Here's what EO has to say about "gross".[2] At some point in one of the sub-articles it says that the usage "forked" in English, and it could be that's a term the OP is looking for. Like the way the Old French word "hostel" forked into "hotel" and "hostel", which are not the same thing, though they serve a similar purpose. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a word which describes your specific situation. The nearest concept I can think of would be some sort of linguistic paradigm shift. --Jayron32 11:21, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

You might be interested in linguistic relativity, and untranslatability137.110.73.234 (talk) 00:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Idiom is the non-literal meaning of a word or phrase in a language. A translation that retains the idiom, but loses the literal meaning would be an idiomatic vs. literal translation. See for example Translation#Fidelity_and_transparency and Yojijukugo. As Baseball Bugs says, a specific example would be useful; it might be described by a specific term within the broader concepts given so far, or possibly something else entirely.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:45, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Commons Category:Paintings by name

"Paintings by name" is ambiguous thus I want to make it a disambiguation page. *Category:Paintings by title (title of painting), *Category:Paintings by by author's name (redirect to Category:Paintings by artist]]) and "*Category: Paintings by subject name" (name of depicted person name). "Paintings by subject name" is a correct and not strange expression? Thanks. Regards--Pierpao (talk) 08:17, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

It's strange. If you really want to restrict it to depicted persons, I offer you Paintings by name of subject. However, some of the paintings have subjects which are not persons, so perhaps just Paintings by subject would be better? Henry^Flower 10:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Being able to find paintings of particular people might be useful - so how about "Portraits by name of subject" Wymspen (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Or "Painted portraits by name of subject" to keep the word "paint" in there, excluding for instance photographic portraits. Bus stop (talk) 19:15, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

• These are all Commons categories, which need to be discussed on Commons, not here. Otherwise I agree with Bus stop. "Subject" is much better than "title", but if poortraits are meant, this should be used. Johnbod (talk) 17:56, 23 October 2017 (UTC)