Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 May 30

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May 30

Sapphic thoughts

Sappho in Greek is Σαπφώ Sapphō [sap.pʰɔ̌ː], and Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω Psápphō. That is, the first p is pronounced as a p, and the second p is attached to the h to form the f sound, just like in Apfel Strudel. However, we usually ignore all that and treat the "pph" combination as equivalent to plain "ph", without any real justification. Is there any other word like this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:32, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

One of the "c" letters is ignored in most people's pronunciation of "flaccid". But I'm not sure there would be much point in pronouncing [pf] in the case of "Sappho", because it was effectively a double consonant in ancient Greek, though with complexities due to the aspiration. AnonMoos (talk) 06:50, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The same goes for tth as in Matthew or Pittheus 213.137.65.242 (talk) 07:01, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Sapphire obviously 213.137.65.242 (talk) 06:54, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, now that you mention it ...  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:34, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

"Suggest". — Kpalion^(talk) 08:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I've heard it as both "suh-jest" and "sug-jest". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Bacchus, saccharine, Buddha, Siddartha. In these words the h gets ignored as well as the gemination.  --Lambiam 09:29, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh, if we're looking specifically for digraphs containing <h>, then there's Zaporizhzhia, which has been in the news a lot lately, the <zh> in which doesn't seem to be geminated by English speakers. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:46, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, until about 3 years ago the usual English form was "Zaporizhia", so there was little reason for English speakers to think to do that. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:14, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Most English speakers then relied more upon Russian orthography (single 'zh' in Запорожье) than Ukraininan orthography (double 'zh' in Запоріжжя). In the last few years current events have focused our attention more upon Ukraine's way of saying/spelling [particularly] placenames. – .Raven  ^.talk 23:44, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you're missing Jack's point, as in English in general, ch (as in Chalcis or Munich) is identical in pronunciation to a plain c, and dh (as in Andhra or Riyadh) to a plain d, and (word-internal) gemination is absent altogether, so the words you listed follow the general rules: they're not exceptional in any way. 185.130.86.86 (talk) 12:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The word threshold displays the opposite: the spelling is with -sh- but the pronunciation is with -shh-. --Theurgist (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Well spotted. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:47, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Also compare (at least in RP) eighth.  --Lambiam 23:27, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Is there a term for this phenomenon, the opposite of a silent letter? I guess it's relatively rare, but I'd be surprised if there weren't a bunch of other examples. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't know, "orthographic exceptions"? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:24, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

That's not so much a case of – what do you want to call it, "shouting letter"? – as A Tale of Two Digraphs. Silent -gh- of 'eight' (vs. sounded -gh- of 'enough', and 'ghoti' [fish];)... then later a normally sounded -th- / þ. In both cases -h- marks what's called a lenition of the preceding letter. Irish Gaelic orthography is rife with such. – .Raven  .talk 02:00, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

For those who don't know:

"gh" as in enough + "o" as in women + "ti" as in nation spells "FISH". 2A00:23C0:7984:5101:F221:B1C7:9EB7:BD6B (talk) 14:16, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Question about assimilation

In some Japanese compounds, the end of the first part assimilates into the beginning of the second part. For example, the ち in 一 assimilates into the S in 歳, resulting in いっさい(一歳) instead of いちさい (intentionally chose this example because it was the only one I could think of at the moment that didn’t also have 連濁/sequential voicing). Why is this, and how do I know when to do this? My current working theory is that this is due to the whole compound being borrowed from old forms of Chinese as one unit, as opposed to being assembled within Japanese. The problem with my theory is that it is useless if false and, if true, is just an etymological theory that explains cases of this assimilation, not a rule that lets me know when to or not to assimilate. Primal Groudon (talk) 14:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Japanese phonology#Gemination 2 185.130.86.86 (talk) 14:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)