Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 September 28

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September 28

A leading question

On a news site I've just seen, an article is headed "COVID-19 now leading cause of death in Australia". That piqued my interest so I read further, and I discovered it's not "the leading cause" but "a leading cause", being number 3.

Apart from the very ambiguous and probably misleading heading, how far down a list of things could something be and still be accurately described as "leading"? Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:20, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Would that not mostly depend on the length of the list? Tenth out of one hundred might well be considered 'leading', tenth out of fifteen wouldn't. It might also depend on the individual values: if first, eighth and ninth out of the hundred were, say, 147, 123 qnd 119 (arbitrary numbers) and tenth was 27, it wouldn't really qualify even though in the ordinal top 10%. I doubt there's a rigid definition, it's a subjective judgement. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.146.221.109 (talk) 02:02, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

This headline is one of countless prime examples of such abuse of language that literally make my brain explode.  --Lambiam 07:37, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

@JackofOz: As far down as is necessary for the publication's editor to achieve the desired sensationalism. Similar to "almost unique" and "identical apart from...". Bazza (talk) 08:13, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

"One of the most..." 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:14, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

"One of the only..." -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 16:29, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

@Wakuran: Indeed! [1] Bazza (talk) 08:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Questions

1. Is there any Romance language where name of letter Y is y, rather than i grec?
2. Why does the Finnish word for chocolate, suklaa, not have /ʃ/ sound at the beginning, unlike most other languages' words for that thing? Suklaa has been borrowed from Swedish choklad, which has /ʃ/ sound in Finland Swedish. The Estonian equivalent, šokolaad, has /ʃ/ sound. It has been borrowed from German Schokolade. So, why Estonian retained /ʃ/ sound, but Finnish didn't?
3. Are there any words in English where ⟨au⟩ is pronounced /aʊ̯/?
4. Are there any words in English with onset /ks/, /ps/, /pt/, /kt/, /pn/, /wr/, /kn/ or /gn/?
5. Are there any words in English with coda /mb/, /mn/ or /lm/?
6. Is there any modern Indo-European language which has retained possessive dative construction inherited from Indo-European?
7. Is there any Romance language with morphological passive voice?
8. Why does the word geology in English not have hard G's, unlike in Finnish?
9. Is there any Germanic language which is pro-drop language?
10. Is there any Slavic language spoken in Orthodox country which can be written only with Latin alphabet?
11. Are there any native words in Japanese which have geminate consonant after long vowel or N-kana? --40bus (talk) 11:38, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 1

In Spanish it is ye or i griega. --Error (talk) 19:38, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 2

2. Probably because Finns had trouble pronouncing that sound. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:47, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

2 -- Maybe because š is considered a rather foreign sound in Finnish? AnonMoos (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

But why Estonian then has /ʃ/ sound in this word? --40bus (talk) 14:39, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

The structure of this section is somewhat confusing, but Estonian seems to have had a lot higher influence from Middle Low German than Finnish, so the sound might not have been considered as foreign, or might have been imported as a frequent sound in loanwords, earlier. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 3

3 – wikt:sauerkraut. To be fair, that's borrowed from German, but is has been used in English for 400 years. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:26, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

wikt:gaur (from Hindi) is claimed to be attested in English since the early 19th century. 51.52.167.242 (talk) 08:30, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 4

5 -- Categorically no with respect to [wr]. The other combinations might be attempted by a few speakers from time to time to imitate foreign languages (Greek, German), but are certainly not part of standard English. AnonMoos (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

This is a reply to 4.  --Lambiam 17:17, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 5

5 — /ɛlm/, /fɪlm/, /əʊlm/.  --Lambiam 17:22, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

5 — bombe. Shells-shells (talk) 17:43, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Somebody set up us the bombe! 惑乱 Wakuran

Question 8

8. I would assume that it was transmitted through French, geo- always has a soft G, as far as I know. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:47, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

8 -- Because the g's were before [e] and [i] vowels in early Romance. The modern English pronunciation of the consonants is faithful to the medieval French pronunciation of them. AnonMoos (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 9

9 -- As has been established in previous discussions here, the answer is "No" with respect to modern standard languages. AnonMoos (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

But of course colloquial English can be pretty close. "Was wondering about you brother." "Came round just the other day. Didn't look too happy." - Jmabel | Talk 03:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

That occurs only in very limited circumstances in certain specific speech styles compared to what happens in real pro-drop language... AnonMoos (talk) 00:30, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 10

I don't think so. I don't think the Orthodox church would stand for it. 2A00:23A8:4015:F501:212D:11FB:1385:13C5 (talk) 14:52, 28 September 2023 (UTC) I was going to say Polish until I read Cyrillization of Polish. --Error (talk) 19:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC) The examples in Pomak language are in the Latin alphabet. The Banat Bulgarian language has its own alphabet largely based on the Serbo-Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet and preserves many features that are archaic in the language spoken in Bulgaria. Banat Bulgarian was codified as early as 1866 and is used in literature and the media, which distinguishes it from other Bulgarian dialects.[3]

Czech language is a minority language in Romania.

Slovak language is a minority language in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. --Error (talk) 20:34, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 12

Are there any words in Finnish where primary stress is not on first syllable? --40bus (talk) 14:39, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Isn't there a song, "Takin' It to the Streess"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:50, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Are there any words in Finnish where primary stress is not on first syllable? --40bus (talk) 14:52, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

[2]. 2A00:23A8:4015:F501:212D:11FB:1385:13C5 (talk) 15:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Question 13

Do all Georgian nouns end in a vowel in nominative singular? Does Georgian forbid codas? --40bus (talk) 17:00, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

In older Georgian, and in some dialects, words can end on a semivowel /i̯/, written ჲ. See Georgian scripts § Letters removed from the Georgian alphabet and in Wiktionary ბუძულაჲ.  --Lambiam 17:04, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Gibberish

If I ask a person that speaks english to say made up gibberish, does it sound like an arabic persons gibberish? Also, do babies or toddlers babbling make sounds depending on the language people around them speak? Janlopi (talk) 21:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

No, and Yes, I believe. Babies are attuned to rhythm. I had heard something about babies tending to pick up various types of sounds in rather fixed orders, discarding them quickly if they fail to get any response, such as using pharyngeal consonants outside an Arabic context. But now I can't find any good source for the claim... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:38, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

I've taken part in games where everybody was asked to speak gibberish. Some sounded Chinese, some vaguely Eastern European, some vaguely Spanish. I'm sure there were others. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:59, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

On a somewhat related note, does anyone know if/how scat singing varies depending on the native language(s) of the singer? 57.140.16.29 (talk) 22:54, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Although it might be somewhat different, the article on speaking in tongues (a.k.a. glossolalia) mentions it generally being made from sounds already known to the speaker. I imagine that, just like with glossolalia, when someone is told to speak gibberish, it would also be most easily done with sounds that the speaker is comfortable vocalizing. GalacticShoe (talk) 23:57, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

In reverse, actors intending to sound like background speakers in crowd scenes (ie unscripted and incomprehensible speech) do not necessarily speak complete gibberish. See rhubarb. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 11:41, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

If you ask Adriano Celentano to make up gibberish, it sounds like American English and he may prefigure rap in the process. If you ask Charlie Chaplin, it sounds like French and Italian. --Error (talk) 15:09, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

It makes a difference whether someone designs a piece of gibberish to sound like spoken L and rehearses it so that they can fluently deliver it, or someone has to improvise for an impromptu delivery. If an improvising gibberer is not familiar with the sounds of L, it is unlikely they will produce speech that sounds like L to someone who knows that language.  --Lambiam 09:46, 30 September 2023 (UTC)