Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 December 15

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December 15

N followed by Consonant - Why stereotypically(?) Sub-Saharan Africa?

I was watching the new Dr. Who and the first name of the New Doctor (Ncuti) brought to mind that in my head there are a lot of consonantal blends at the beginning of words that are N followed by a consonant that I associate with Africa, including Ng(even with the Vietnamese name Nguyen), Nj, Nc Ny and Nj. Is there a reason that this occurs?Naraht (talk) 04:01, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think this article might have some information on that sound: Voiced velar nasal. Schyler (exquirito veritatem bonumque) 05:31, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

That would only apply to the case where an "ng" spelling represents a single phonetic consonant, and can occur at the beginning of a word, as in Vietnamese. For cases where an apparent phonetic cluster of a nasal consonant plus another consonant occurs at the beginning of a word, syllabic nasal and prenasalized consonant would be more relevant. In some Bantu languages, when the vowel of a CV- class prefix disappears in a historical sound change, and the consionant is nasal, then it can become syllabic; that's basically the origin of word-initial syllabic nasals in Swahili. AnonMoos (talk) 12:05, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Might it be that initial N is a frequent case marker or root in some Bantu language you hear? Actually the root of Bantu is *ntʊ̀- --Error (talk) 11:55, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

In Bantu languages, a nominal stem can generally appear only with class prefixes, so the -nt- of Bantu wouldn't occur word-initially... AnonMoos (talk) 21:54, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Is Swahili unusual in having nouns with zero prefix? —Tamfang (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Swahili has a number of cases in which the vowel in a former CV- class prefix deleted due to historical sound changes. This gave rise to a number of word-initial syllabic nasal consonants, but also in certain cases the C- of the prefix disappeared when it became adjacent to the first consonant of the stem. It would be difficult to consider such cases bare stems, since often a class prefix which disappears before some consonants still appears before other consonants, or before monosyllabic stems, or in adjective agreement, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 00:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Holger Czukay - "Czukay, an approximation of the Polish word for 'search' " according to his NYT obituary - what exact form? Case? Verb? Adjective?

Good whatever time it is in your location all,

I've looked through this article's history and talk page and and haven't seen this discussed.

As everyone every nerd fascinated by the intersection of C20 avant-garde and C20 pop music knows, Czukay is the Polish word for "searcher" (source: am nerd fascinated by the intersection of C20 avant-garde and C20 pop music).

This is somewhat obliquely addressed in his NYT obituary here - summary: Czukay took this as his artistic name as, when he was a student, Stockhausen often referred to him as a searcher.

According to en.wp Polish language, it has seven cases.

What would be the exact (if any) form that Czukay took on? And yes, I am fully aware that I am asking social media the reference desk to fact check the NYT. Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:52, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I see there's nothing at Holger Czukay, perhaps unsurprisingly. I'd assume it was a verb case e.g. searches or searching. But am far too less of a Polish grammar nerd to really guess. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:02, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The only thing I can find on Wiktionary that comes close is szukaj (with initial sz-, not cz-). This would be the imperative form ("search!") of the verb szukać. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

May I suggest an inquiry at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland? Alansplodge (talk) 10:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Here's an interview (in German) with Holger Czukay from 2010. According to this Czukay was the original name of the family, changed to Schüring bei Holger's grandfather to avoid problems with the Nazis. In the 60s he was told by two Polish singers that the name meant "search". He interprets it as the imperative, but maybe because he wants it to be the imperative and to convey that meaning rather than from a detailed linguistic understanding. My own name is not a million miles from Czukay's. While I'm not sure of its origins and meaning I'm fairly certain that it is not actually Polish but might come from one of the related languages that occur in the area, maybe Kashubian or Polabian or something. The interpretation as "search" may come from the similarity with the Polish word szukaj but need not necessarily be the actual meaning of the name. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:30, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks for that info, Wrongfilter. I suspect that "two Polish singers in the 60s" may not be WP:RS. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:34, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Almost the only thing I knew about Holger Czukay was that he did some songs with Jah Wobble and Jaki Liebezeit. I just liked the three names together: Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit, and Jah Wobble (make sure to pronounce the J's differently!). -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The closest Polish word is szukaj, which, as Future Perfect has already mentioned above, is the second-person singular imperative form of szukać, 'to search'. The word is commonly found on search buttons on Polish-language websites. Czukay or czukaj doesn't mean anything in Polish or in any other Slavic language as far as I know. I notice in the article that Czukay pronounced his name with a "sh" sound rather than a "ch" sound, which I suppose may have been influenced by someone telling him it sounded similar to szukaj. The name itself sounds to me like it could be of Turkic (Polish Tatar, perhaps) origin, but I've got no source for that. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)