Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Language/2006 August 6

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Humanities Science Mathematics Computing/IT Language Miscellaneous Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions at one of the pages linked to above.

< August 5 Language desk archive August 7 >


Contents

[edit] Pronunciation of Łódź?

A quick request of help for any experts of the Polish language.

Anyone know how to pronounce Łódź? I don't entirely understand the way the Polish language's grammar operates, and the IPA phonetic pronunciation is no help either.

Thanks for any help I receive, and make the answer spelled out simple phonetic style, like "America" would be spelled "um-ER-ickk-uh". Use capitalized letters for stressed parts. Again, thanks!-Andrewia 00:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

you don't need to understand the grammar if what you want is only to know how to pronoune that word... according to our article, it is pronounced as [wutɕ], so it's something like "wOOtsh", though the sound represented by "ź" doesn't exist in English anyway.--K.C. Tang 00:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think Polish voiced consonants become unvoiced at the end of the word. If that's the case, then it would be, in the "simple phonetic style," wootch. If not then something like woodge. Closest thing in English, though, but not exactly accurate. --Chris S. 07:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
If I understand the very brief glace I looked at Polish phonology, it seems like it would be pronounced roughly "WOOJ", or /wuʥ/. However, don't quote me on it because I know nothing of Polish.--Andrew c 00:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
the eng Łódź article gives [wutɕ], the french one gives [wudʑ], which one is right?--K.C. Tang 00:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
My textbook says that final consonants 'often' become unvoiced, so I think there's some room for regional or personal variety. FWIW, my book also indicates that Łódź is one of the words where the consonant becomes unvoiced. HenryFlower 08:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what your textbook means by "often", unless they're thinking of the fact that final devoicing can be overridden by voicing assimilation from the following word. Pronounced in isolation, final devoicing is exceptionless. The word is [wutɕ], roughly "wootch". User:Angr 09:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hijack this question but it is sorta related: how do you pronounce the Polish name Zbigniew? MeltBanana 01:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

zbeeg-NEE-ev? No? That's my guess. Or maybe ZBEEG-nyev.- THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 06:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
ZBEEG-nyef: two syllables, stress on the first, and the second 'i' indicates palatisation rather than a separate syllable. HenryFlower 08:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you everyone, and I'm glad to know that I was sort of right. I thought it was "wudge".-Andrewia 13:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Teaching pronunciation

Hello, Wikipedians. I've been working with a couple of students with English as a second language. While areas like grammar and vocabulary haven't been too difficult for us, we have had problems with the articulation of certain English phonemes. Can anyone offer me some tips about teaching pronunciation? I've tried a scientific approach, showing where and how the phonemes are made by using a diagram of the mouth and throat, but this method has produced poor results. I'm not sure what else to try; after repeating the phonemes over and over, trying to get my students to imitate them, I find myself putting aside the problems for later. My students' L1 is Latin American Spanish, so my saying zeta castilla castillana for /θ/ doesn't help too much. :) Anyway, in addition, the students have many other difficulties mainly because of Spanish's word and syllable structure. Thanks for any advice you can offer.--El aprendelenguas 01:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe...expressing English sounds to your students as Spanish sounds, like "dch" or "di" for "j", eg. "diuc (dchuc) box", etc. Surely it's possible to get away with "f" for /θ/ though? I'm really not sure. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 07:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
The proportion of foreign language learners who attain a native-like accent is so small as to be practically zero, so you're fighting a losing battle. :) Realistically, all you can do is to concentrate on the kind of pronunciation errors which impede understanding. First make sure that they can hear the difference between sounds: minimal pairs and 19th-century style dictation are good for that. The 'scientific approach' can help if you start from a similar sound in their native language, and then tell them what direction to go (more forward, lips more rounded, etc). It should then be possible to get them to produce the phoneme in isolation. Getting them to produce in in words in connected speech is then a matter of lots and lots of repetition. HenryFlower 09:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I've had success getting students to exaggerate physically - for /θ/, for example, get them to stick their tongues out and bite, really over-the-top like. You could also try tongue twisters. If you haven't looked already, Dave's ESL Cafe has an idea cookbook full of good practises. Ziggurat 09:13, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

There are books on teaching pronunciation, such as How To Teach Pronunciation by Gerald Kelly. -- noosphere 22:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Esperanto: Use of the "Ulo" suffix.

When is it appropriate to use -ulo-? For example, trista (dreary) can be made to tristulo (unhappy person). Can I make fisxo (fish) into fisxulo (fish-man)? Also, is the term tristulo gender-neutral, or male, as other words (doktoro, for example) are? Do I need to say Sxi estas tristinulo for "She is an unhappy person"?

This should be simple. "-ulo = a person characterized by the root". Also, -ino = female. Tristinulo should do for a female (or tristulino ?] Beware that word formation leaves you with the risk of being misunderstood : any periphrasis could be enough. --DLL 17:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Tristulo ought to be gender-neutral, and that's what I'd use. If you want to be extra specific, use tristulino, not tristinulo. It's best to put the affixes such that each modifies the one on its left. "Female" (-in-) is a property of "person" (-ul-) and not "dreary" (trist-). --π! 00:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, about "fiŝulo", you can generally only use "-ulo" with roots that default as adjectives. As such, fiŝulo (if it was a word) would refer to a "fishy person". If you want to refer to a fisherman, the proper term is fiŝkaptisto. A "fish-person" monster might be a fiŝviro. --π! 08:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] translating a sentence into Spanish

Hello There, I work in the stores as a sales rep. I don't speak Spanish and really need to know how to say the following correctly in Spanish so I can make a nice sign. Thank You very much! The sentence is," Please help us by putting CD's back in correct spot after looking at it. Thank you very Much" This is stupid, but I have tried everywhere to find out. Thank youy so much. Helen......

"Por favor, ayúdenos a poner los CDs en el lugar correcto después de mirarlos. Muchas gracias." --jh51681 19:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't that mean "Please help us to put the CD's in the correct place"? I'd expect something like "ayúdenos poniendo los CDs", or "ayúdenos y ponga los CDs". --LambiamTalk 06:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
The "emos" tense generally requires a transitive "estar" verb first. Danny Lilithborne 06:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
And be careful with the accents (although that probably shouldn't create much misunderstanding). 惑乱 分からん 19:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
...unless it's in upper case, which writing on signs usually is. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 06:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
A consideration is also how a phrase sounds in another language or culture. I often recognise phrases in Dutch used by especially US companies as being a direct translation from English. I suspect the 'ayúdenos' might sound strange because it's a typical 'Americanism' (US-ism?). After all, you've already said 'Por favor' and 'Muchas gracias'. No need to overdo it. The 'a' after it also sounds wrong, but that was already pointed out. 'en el lugar correcto' may have to be 'en su lugar'. And I wonder if there is a word for 'put back'. My dictionary doesn't tell, it could be 'reponer', but I won't bet on that. Finally, the English sentence mixes up plural and singular. So, sticking to plural, my suggestion would be
"Por favor, ponen los CD's en su lugar después de mirarlos. Muchas gracias."
The last 'n' in 'ponen' could sound a bit too formal, so that could be made 'pone', depending on the kind of shop. Having said all that, my Spanish is a bit rusty. :) DirkvdM 06:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
According to http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD, Spanish doesn't seem to use any separating accents, thus "CDs". 惑乱 分からん 10:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name of Swedish pronounciation symbol

I'm trying to figure out the name of the two dots over the 'o's and 'a's in the Swedish language. I'm not sure how else to descibe this symbol but it looks like a pair of eyes over the letter. What do you call this? Thank for your time 66.178.163.177 17:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC) Here is an example: ö Ä

I never can tell : diaeresis or umlaüt ? --DLL 17:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
According to the Ä and Ö, articles, for Swedish, seemingly neither. For German, where it often symbolizes a grammatical function, it's an umlaut, and for languages where it marks that the vowel should be pronounced separately, it's called diaeresis or trema. Since Ä and Ö are considered separate letters in Swedish and Finnish, and not variants of A and O, the dots don't have a name. I'm also confused. 惑乱 分からん 17:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Either, or trema. See Umlaut (diacritic). · rodii · 17:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Our Swedish alphabet article is quite insistent that it's not called anything. You might as well ask what the straight line on the left of an n is called. HenryFlower 18:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Correct. They are considered separate letters in Swedish, and are alphabetized at the end (...x,y,z,å,ä,ö). Swedes say the alphabet has 28 letters (because v and w are not really distinguished in Swedish). One can describe the appearance of the letter in English by saying something like "a with a diaresis" or "a with two dots over it"; IMO the term umlaut should not be used. (BTW, the Swedish word omljud refers to a phenomenon in Swedish similar to umlaut in German, whereby a Swedish noun's vowel changes when it is pluralized, or a verb's vowel changes between the present and the past tense; e.g., man --> män; bok --> böcker; ryker --> rök. But omljud refers strictly to the phenomenon, not to the letters involved.) --Tkynerd 14:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Note. In order to follow international standards and due to a few minimal pairs in Swedish, such as tvist (dispute, argument; quarrel) and twist (dance), Svenska Akademien decided to disunify the letters V and W this year, and currently the Swedish alphabet is generally considered to have 29 letters. 惑乱 分からん 14:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Oooh, interesting news (and if I were still living there, I'd gradually be less irritated by Swedes' inability/unwillingness to distinguish these letters in English)! :-) But are there any plans to distinguish the pronunciations (for words like tvist and twist)? --Tkynerd 20:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Swedish phonology lacks the w, and therefore Svenska akademien isn't in the position to force the sound upon people speaking Swedish. Just as with native English and other speakers, correct pronunciation of foreign words is a voluntary task for each individual. 惑乱 分からん 22:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] identifying language of subtitle (and possibly translating) from clip on net

Hello,

I have a downloaded file (funnyownedcompilation5) which is a compilation of all sorts of freaky accidents with some music.

As he uses images from Eurosport, I think the creator is European.

There is a collapsing building in it, and the top of it crashes into a pole. There are subtitles saying

"Tio procent bor pa bondgardar en sillra/siffra/silfra son/som faller."

(The quality is rather poor so when I wasn't sure I used /) It is possible there should be some umlauts (¨) that I couldn't see because of the poor quality.

I know for sure it isn't English, German, Dutch or French.

Maybe Romanian? Or a Scandinavian language? I seem to recognize "falling" "chiffre=digit" en "ten percent" but for the rest...

Thanks! Evilbu 17:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It's Swedish. "Tio procent bor på bondgårdar. En siffra som faller." Directly translated it means: "Ten percent are living on farms. A number that's decreasing." The joke is that "faller" could mean both "falls"(collapses) and "decreases". Just a very bad pun. 惑乱 分からん 17:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

As I said, the video was of poor quality, and I thought if I missed a sign it was an umlaut, apparently it is a ° (does that have a name?). Thanks, it makes perfect sense now! Evilbu 19:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Apparently not, since Å is considered a separate letter, otherwise compare ring (diacritic) or kroužek. 惑乱 分からん 19:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Kroužek is the name of it in Czech, where it exists only with a ů. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 22:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English to French slogan translation

Hi

I've got the slogan of a local flying school which I must translate into the French equivalent.

The slogan is 'The sky's not the limit'.

I can find the literal translation which is 'Le ciel n'est pas la limite!', although I very much doubt it is correct.

Is there such a saying in French? If there is please tell me how it is said.

Thanks 81.107.59.131 18:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of a cognate idiom. I would translate "the sky's the limit" as "tout est possible", but that doesn't afford any translation of "the sky's not the limit." No obvious French equivalent comes to mind, and I don't work at searching for one for free. Normally, a bilingual ad agency would do this kind of work. You could try the Montreal yellow pages. --Diderot 20:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
better check with the french language academy before you do anything rash.
L’Académie française is the limit, it seems. --Ptcamn 01:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Au-delà des cieux (beyond the skies) could do. Par-delà les nuages (over the clouds) is less precious. --DLL 19:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How many languages are there in the world?

The number I hear most often is 6000 but I don't believe I've ever seen it sourced. It's obviously a round number and I realize that there's some difficulty in counting the languages of the world because of dialects, logistics, and other issues I haven't even thought of but some one must have sat down and come up with 6000. I'd be interested in finding out how that person(s) arrived at the number. - Pyro19 22:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The counter of languages most often cited is the Summer Institute of Linguistics' Ethnologue, but this is not without controversy (of course - mentioned in the article). They currently list 6,912 languages, and the count arises from the fact that they aim to list every documented language. Ziggurat 23:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Am I to assume they sort of scour literature to find mention of languages? Is there any estimate of how many languages there are out there that aren't documented? - Pyro19 23:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
They include some undocumented languages, actually. For example, Sentinelese has an entry in Ethnologue, even though nobody has managed to get close enough to study their language (they're hostile to outsiders). But presumably they speak something.
It's also worth noting that they seem to only include extinct languages if there is a bible translation for that language. --Ptcamn 23:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I've heard some weird criteria, but this one takes the cake. :) DirkvdM 07:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
there's a reason for it, but! SIL International is listing languages so that they can translate the Bible into all of them. Kind of like how the best genealogical databases are compiled by Mormons with the aim of baptising the dead. Ziggurat 07:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Does the 6,912 figure include extinct languages? - Pyro19 23:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Not intentionally, but the data Ethnologue is based on is sometimes dated, and so languages it lists as living are actually extinct. --Ptcamn 23:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
This takes constructed languages into account then? 6,912 sounds about right though, when you take the number of language families and the usual number of languages contained within a family... - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 06:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Programming languages (+ dialects)? Mathematics and Logic? Baby talk? Sign language? Animal languages? The sky is the limit. DirkvdM 07:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
You may calculate anything with a good programming language, but you cannot express anything. Try the Bible! There is a true limit, related to distinct enough groups of human people. Remember also that UK English and other countries' Englishes do differ more and more.--DLL 19:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
A computer is a logical machine. A programming language can therefore express anything that Logic can, which is everything (not entirely sure about that last bit). Anyway, the question was about languages, without further specifications. DirkvdM 06:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)