lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks

Stack Exchange

01:24

0

Q: What, if any, difference is there between long vowels and a double vowels?

What, if any, difference is there between long vowels and a double vowels, i.e. consecutive identical vowels? For example, what is the difference between /i:/ and /ii/? Phonetically, could it be that the former forms one syllable and the latter form two? Or could there be a change in quality ...

RegDwigнt

12:48

So. Hello everyone.

I was thinking about giving us a nice activity boost here.

Wake up people!

And dogs.

@Cerberus, wake up. Make some noise in the underworld.

Anonymous

hɛloʊ!

RegDwigнt

This room already has an incomprehensible title, now throw in our incomprehensible chatting skills and it's a match made in heaven.

@snailboat helas!

So, what was that in-chat bot thing you mentioned?

I see some inlines from one Stack Exchange.

Anonymous

Yeah! Those.

RegDwigнt

But we have that on ELU, too.

Anonymous

But no one talks here.

RegDwigнt

12:51

Though ours writes haikus.

Anonymous

So if you join and talk

RegDwigнt

And I hate haikus.

Anonymous

And then someone checks in a couple days later

RegDwigнt

So I already like it here. Because no haikus.

Anonymous

Your chat has scrolled off already.

RegDwigнt

12:51

Ah. Ah!

Anonymous

It always feels like no one's here. It's psychological

2

RegDwigнt

Yes, yes.

Anonymous

Whereas if you join and you can see someone just typed, oh, one line ago! That's pretty recent!

2

RegDwigнt

He could disable them.

Anonymous

It could just be me.

RegDwigнt

12:52

Who's the owner here?

Anonymous

Yabbut, Alenanno likes them.

Anonymous

I know I spelled his name right!

RegDwigнt

Hm I see.

Lemme scroll up a bit, I didn't really pay attention what it was the bot was advertising.

Hm.

So what's the pattern here?

New questions? Old unanswered questions?

Anonymous

New questions, I think?

RegDwigнt

Ah okay.

Anonymous

12:53

You can change it into a feed that shows up across the upper-left.

Anonymous

That's what we've got in the Japanese chat

RegDwigнt

Also, I seem to be typing too fast for this room. I keep getting the "you can post again in a trillion seconds" nonsense.

Anonymous

Me too.

RegDwigнt

That is discouraging.

We actually had that at one point in the Incomprehensible Room. Or across the network, even.

But it went away just as it had come. Silently and swiftly.

Oh, I forgot all about my tea! Will be back soon.

Anonymous

I had this idea that if you got native speakers to say a without knowing what word comes next, then you show them a card with the word and make them say it, and the word happens to begin with a vowel, some of them will insert a glottal stop instead of an /n/

RegDwigнt

12:56

Ah. I was going go get back to that myself.

That five-dollar word.

Now, I don't know the first thing about linguistics, and didn't even read the sandhi article, so I figured I'd just ask you instead and it'd be faster.

So without further ado, is sandhi about introducing sounds, or also removing them?

I think I saw the intrusive R explicitly linked from the wiki article when I skimmed it.

Anonymous

Yeah, it's there, and liaison in French, which is where I first learned about it

Anonymous

Japanese has some, too

RegDwigнt

I'll tell you why I am asking.

Because the a vs. an thing is not about adding the n. It is about removing it.

Etymologically, at least.

The a comes from an which comes from one. As I'm sure everybody here will know.

Anonymous

Yes, but that's etymology. It may be diachronically true, but is it synchronically true?

RegDwigнt

So, if sandhi is only about things like the intrusive R, i.e. adding sounds, then this article stuff is not sandhi by definition.

Anonymous

12:59

People say a whole nother, even though the n obviously diachronically belongs with the a

RegDwigнt

@snailboat I knew that would be the first thing for anyone to reply.

Etymological fallacy etc.

But I think in this particular case the question is fair.

@snailboat yes, metanalysis. See orange etcpp.

Anonymous

Hmm. I don't know. I do like that epenthesis idea, but it probably doesn't hold water because a glottal stop or a glide would be the natural epenthetic consonant

RegDwigнt

Man, this tea is too strong. I let it sit for too long. Let me add some lemon juice or something.

BRB

And where's everyone else, anyway.

We're actually talking Linguistics for a change. On Linguistics.

Linguistics 101, to be fair, but still. It's a start.

AFK

Anonymous

Japanese is sometimes analyzed as having a bunch of different epenthetic vowels conditioned by context...

RegDwigнt

That you should totally ping @robusto about.

Speaking of which, I wonder if he's been more active on J'Lo in the last couple days.

I keep forgetting to check.

Anonymous

13:08

@RegDwigнt I don't know that it is sandhi.

Anonymous

I think the usual explanation is that a(n) has two allomorphs, two different realizations conditioned by phonetic context

Anonymous

Same with the and the

Anonymous

I'm trying to learn the linguistics of Japanese. It is very confusing going between two languages that people talk very differently about, realizing that there's supposed to be common ground, but that where exactly the common ground is or is not is constantly a surprise

RegDwigнt

@snailboat Well yes. But it all started with one word, not two. And that word had an n in it. That is all I am saying.

@snailboat that of course is a good point.

Which that answer makes, too.

I think I'll go read the sandhi article after all.

Sandhi

Sandhi (Sanskrit: Tamil:pulli or inai ezhuttu "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries (thus belonging to what is called morphophonology). Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words. Sandhi occurs particularly prominently in the phonology of Indian languages (especially Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam language, Marathi, Bengali and most importantly Sanskrit, which have complex sandhi rul...

Anonymous

@RegDwigнt Oh, well, if you say it has two allomorphs, then you're not claiming it's two words. You're saying it's still one word that just happens to have two forms

Anonymous

13:12

Well, one morpheme.

RegDwigнt

Right.

Anonymous

History wins!

Stack Exchange

0

Q: How old is Hixkaryana?

Hixkaryana is a Carib language, spoken by some 500 people, in the states Amazonas and Pará in Brazil. I am interested in the history of this language, but very little is known. Can someone help me to find out when this language came into existence?

language-families

Anonymous

Hello, bot!

RegDwigнt

Hahaha.

That is annoying already.

I mean, if it really does post every single new question, that's what the main site is there for already.

We have that drop-down thingy for those.

And we filter it to only include potential troublemakers.

Anonymous

13:14

Hey, I earned the chat thing on Linguistics! You did that on purpose, didn't you?

Anonymous

For thing | thing = hat

RegDwigнt

Well, not really. I think that's a very important point actually. It's not my fault you split it into two messages.

Anonymous

Oh. Well, I hope you felt your haiku messages were important.

RegDwigнt

I feel all my messages are important. That is a general feeling I have about myself.

This so does not reflect the reality of the site.

Or perhaps in a way it does...

It does reflect the reality of Winter Bash, anyway.

At least hippietrail and Otavio are defending the realm somewhat.

Anonymous

Aww, Mechanical Snail hasn't been here since June

RegDwigнt

13:27

Perhaps he could use some winding up.

Or does he run on solar?

Anonymous

He might just be aestivating. And then hibernating. Without a break in-between

Ice Girl

@snailboat people entertain on the patio with friends, cook over campfires without mosquitoes, or go to carnivals with granddad munching away at the latest candy or snack food. means?

Anonymous

@IceGirl I'm going to go out on a limb and say "no?"

Ice Girl

@snailboat ok

Cerberus

14:06

Ohai.

We used to chat every day here!

@RegDwigнt throws in mad chatting skillz

RegDwigнt

ducks

Cerberus

splat

RegDwigнt

ouch

Well, this linguistics discussion deteriorated pretty fast!

Cerberus

14:23

I'm sorry...

Robusto

14:58

@RegDwigнt I dunno. I had to look up epenthesis, and the Japanese example they gave, "(真っ白（まっしろ）?, pure white)" is rendered in my dictionaries as simply 真白 (ましろ) — mashiro, not ma'shiro. Three syllables, not four. That's not to say there may not be dialects where an extra syllable is interpolated, but I can't really say.

RegDwigнt

I see.

Hm.

I must say it just occurs to me I know next to nothing about Japanese dialects.

How many there are, or indeed that there are any (which of course is endlessly trivial, but still, I just never stopped to think of it).

Robusto

Certainly there are. The main ones, by population are kantou (Tokyo) and kansai (Ōsaka). 関東弁と関西弁と言う。

RegDwigнt

Oh, speaking of which.

Have you posted any questions on J'Lo lately?

To get the bunny ears?

I haven't checked that site. Yet.

Robusto

No.

RegDwigнt

K.

It's just that I realized there's no chance in hell I'm getting them on ELU, but hey, they have that Russian site!

So I thought perhaps you had a similar thought for Japanese.

Robusto

15:14

I'm not sure which bunny ears are these.

RegDwigнt

Ten questions with at least one upvote each.

Robusto

BTW, the kantou refers to East and kansai refers to West. So, eastern and western dialects.

Meh, my interesting in hats does not extend to grinding ten questions. I'm far too lazy for that.

RegDwigнt

That's what I'd normally say.

Until I got drunk yesterday.

Then I started posting like a Stalinorgel.

Katyusha rocket launcher

Katyusha multiple rocket launchers () are a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Multiple rocket launchers such as these deliver a devastating amount of explosives to a target area more quickly than conventional artillery, but with lower accuracy and requiring a longer time to reload. They are fragile compared to artillery guns, but are inexpensive and easy to produce. Katyushas of World War II, the first self-propelled artillery mass-produced by the Soviet Union, were usually mounted on trucks. This mobility gave the Katyusha (and other ...

And here's the kicker. I've actually got exceptionally good answers.

And within minutes, too.

I had thought that site was hibernating.

Little did I know.

Mad props to those folks so far.

Robusto

"My interesting in hats . . . " Geezis, and I've already had coffee.

RegDwigнt

I gave up on spelling yesterday, and never gave back down on it.

Anonymous

15:19

@Robusto That sounds like a typo

RegDwigнt

Don't look back in anger, it's alright.

Anonymous

It should be 真っ白, just like 真っ青 or 真っ赤

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt I think you misspole "over 9000 years ago".

Robusto

@snailboat In which, the dictionaries or the article?

Anonymous

The dictionary, if it said ましろ rather than まっしろ

Robusto

15:20

@snailboat But dictionaries are never wrong. QED

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus see. QED.

Anonymous

There's a neat overview of Japanese dialects on Wikipedia

Cerberus

You know when all you really want to do is sleep, but instead you're looking at a marathon palaeography session?

Anonymous

日本語の方言の比較表

日本語の方言の比較表（にほんごのほうげんひかくひょう）は、様々な地域の日本語の方言の特徴を比較した表である。日本全国の方言を一つの表にまとめると大きくなりすぎるので地域別に分けて示す。近畿から関東にかけて（東海道） {| class="wikitable" |+大阪弁・京言葉・伊勢弁・名古屋弁・西三河弁・東三河弁・遠州弁・静岡弁・相州弁・首都圏方言の比較表 |- ! ! 大阪府 ! 京都府 ! 三重県 ! colspan=3 | 愛知県 ! colspan=2 | 静岡県 ! 神奈川県 |- ! rowspan="2"| ! ! 山城 ! 伊勢 ! 尾張 ! colspan="2" | 三河 ! 遠江 ! 駿河・伊豆 ! 相模 ! |- ! colspan=3 | 近畿方言（関西弁） ! colspan=5 | 東海東山方言 ! colspan=2 | 西関東方言 |- ! ! 大阪弁 ! 京言葉 ! 伊勢弁（三重弁） ! 名古屋弁 ! 西三河弁 ! 東三河弁 ! 遠州弁 ! 静岡弁 ! 相州弁 ! 首都圏方言 |- ! アクセント |colspan=2| 京阪式 | 京阪式（揖斐川以東は内輪東京式、南西部は数種類のアクセントが複雑に分布） | 内輪東京式（知多は中輪東京式） | 中輪東京式 ...

RegDwigнt

Wikipedia has a list of anything.

in English Language & Usage, May 25 at 14:32, by RegDwighт

Just when you thought Wikipedia had a list for everything, it goes ahead and demonstrates that you can't begin to imagine how huge "everything" really is.

List of fish on stamps of Bulgaria

This is a list of fish on stamps of Bulgaria {| class="wikitable" |- !rowspan="2"| Year !!rowspan="2"| Date !!rowspan="2"| Type !!rowspan="2"| Species !!rowspan="2"| Species author !!rowspan="2"| Value !!colspan="4"| Stamps catalogues !!colspan="2"| Taxonomy !!rowspan="2"| Common name |- ! Scott !! Yvert !! Mitchell !! Sta. & Gib. !! Order !! Family |- | 1965 || () || NOR || Dasyatis pastinaca || (Linnaeus, 1758) || 1 ct || 0 || 1328 || 1542 || 0 || Rajiformes || Dasyatidae || Common stingray |- | || || || Sarda sarda || (Bloch, 1793) || 2 ct || 0 || 1329 || 1543 || 0 || Perciformes || Sco...

Cerberus

15:23

@RegDwigнt "Everything" consists mostly of "famous" actresses, football matches, and Siberian villages.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus and fish. On stamps. In Bulgaria.

Cerberus

Really?

RegDwigнt

Wikipedia has lists of things you've never heard of, and it has lists of lists of them.

Cerberus

Has anyone ever made a graphical map of Wikipedia?

Anonymous

Yes! Probably. I bet.

Cerberus

15:23

I do like their lists, yes.

RegDwigнt

Many people.

They all looked crap.

Robusto

@snailboat Hmm . . . you may be right. When I try to type ましろ　I don't get any completions that lead to 真白, only when I type まっしろ I get 真っ白.

RegDwigнt

Like the maps of the Internet.

Cerberus

I have seen those, but they are rather uninformative.

RegDwigнt

When the average degree of your graph is OVER 9000, your layout will look like crap. Graph Visualization 101.

Robusto

15:24

@RegDwigнt Graf Visualization. Was he a Hohenzollern or a Hapsburg?

Cerberus

I would prefer something that shows what kinds of subjects there are the most articles about.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto graafvisualisatie.

Cerberus

@Robusto Those were Kings and Emperors...

Robusto

You are a Van de Graph generator.

Cerberus

Although perhaps there were cadet branches...

Robusto

15:25

@Cerberus But they had cousins.

Cerberus

Quite possible.

listening to Zauberflöte in an attempt to wake up

RegDwigнt

O Papageno Papageno Papageno let me go!

Anonymous

@Robusto I see 真白 listed in some 国語辞典, but the citations are all 古典

Robusto

Checking still another source, I find that both treatments are listed.

Anonymous

Maybe it's the older form, and 真っ白 is the modern form of the word

RegDwigнt

15:27

Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me!

Anonymous

That's just a web interface to EDICT

Anonymous

(EDICT and friends.)

Robusto

I reach for my Crown first, even when I'm at the computer.

Anonymous

Yeah, it's not listed in my smaller 国語辞典 at all

RegDwigнt

Robusto

15:29

What is that a Jinx for?

RegDwigнt

For the future.

I owe you minus one now.

Robusto

OK.

Anonymous

I ordered an XD-N10000, so I'll have 精選版日本国語大辞典 soon :-) I'm excited at the prospect of looking up 真白 there!

Anonymous

I can't tell you how excited I am to get this electronic dictionary. And I can't tell anyone about it without boring them to tears.

RegDwigнt

You could try and bore me to laughter.

Anonymous

15:32

What is that, like, past boredom and out through the other side?

RegDwigнt

In fact, that happens pretty often. Not with you, mind you.

Robusto

@snailboat 高いよ。

Anonymous

@Robusto Eh, li'l bit.

RegDwigнt

@snailboat I think we'll have to invade the Psychology chat for that. Or post on CognitiveDissonance.SE

Anonymous

I've been drooling over the new model for the last year, and I finally caved :-)

Anonymous

15:33

A friend has one, and it's just too neat

Robusto

@snailboat I feel ya, bro. I've wanted one like that for decades, but never thought I could justify the price.

Anonymous

And I think my friend is getting tired of being my historical dictionary by proxy.

Anonymous

@Robusto Hello! My name is Crystal. I am technically not a bro.

Robusto

Hello, Crystal. Sorry, but snailboat seems more like a name a guy would choose. My bad.

Anonymous

Hah.

Anonymous

15:34

It's supposed to be cute, you know. Like a sailboat, but for snails.

Robusto

Oh.

Anonymous

Because snails are cute. As everyone knows

Robusto

Yes. As I said, my bad.

RegDwigнt

The gravatar is too damn small. I ain't making out snails in it.

Anonymous

Robusto

15:35

►

RegDwigнt

@snailboat That's better.

Except that boat would sink, what with all the holes.

Anonymous

Ha

RegDwigнt

Yeah you say ha now, but you will cry later. So save the snail while you still can.

Anonymous

You know, there are real live snailboats. Janthinidae.

RegDwigнt

Actually, can snails swim?

I mean, do they survive underwater?

Anonymous

15:37

Some snails can.

RegDwigнt

Swim is technically not the best word, I guess.

@snailboat I am a bit relieved, then.

Anonymous

My pet snails can't. But they like to sit in a little shallow water dish :-)

RegDwigнt

Everyone likes sitting in a little shallow water dish. In the summer, that is.

Dunno about winter.

Robusto

I have never made a serious attempt to divine the intentions of molluscs.

2

RegDwigнt

Have you made any non-serious attempts?

Robusto

15:38

Many. Most of my life could be characterized as a non-serious attempt to divine the intentions of molluscs.

RegDwigнt

That's good. Very practical.

Anonymous

RegDwigнt

Because then you always know where to search.

Anonymous

That's the baby snail! :-) She just hatched a month ago.

Robusto

Cute.

RegDwigнt

15:40

I mean, I always have that huge chaos on my desk, one giant huge enormous pile of everything. But it is the best solution. Every time I need something, I know exactly where to look: in that one pile. I don't have to think or run around the office turning the furniture upside down.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt We share a dispassion.

Anonymous

Oops, I'm lost. I was looking at snail pictures and forgot to pay attention to what everyone else was saying!

Robusto

Snails don't cuddle you at night, though.

Anonymous

Actually, 真っ青 is especially interesting. Why /s/?

Anonymous

/maQ/ + /ao/

RegDwigнt

15:42

@snailboat wait, we have to pay attention in this chat?

Nobody warned me.

in English Language & Usage, Nov 17 at 16:10, by RegDwigнt

Attention is the worst paid person in this room.

Anonymous

Where /Q/ represents the theoretically contested gemination phoneme

Robusto

I have always depended on the kindness of gemination phonemes.

Anonymous

Somehow it becomes /massao/ when you put it all together.

Robusto

Inscrutable Orientals.

Anonymous

真っ赤 is understandable. 真っ白 is understandable. They both geminate consonants that were already present

Robusto

15:44

ランダムハウス。 Have I mentioned how much I hate katakana yet?

Anonymous

Hehe!

Robusto

Seriously, it turns me into a child, sounding out a word or phrase syllable by syllable, searching for something that sounds like English.

And you don't know where the word boundaries are.

You don't even know if it's English or Japanese or some other language altogether.

Anonymous

That much is true. What's a ペンキ?

Anonymous

It's obviously a... penky.

Robusto

Yes. Obviously.

penky.

Anonymous

15:47

It's from Dutch pek, meaning paint. But assuming for a moment that you happened to know that word in the original Dutch, why does the loan have an /N/ in it?

Robusto

How do they get penky from paint?

Anonymous

At least, I hope pek means "paint". Otherwise that's another layer to the mystery.

Robusto

Because palatalized consonants often acqure an n sound before them?

RegDwigнt

in English Language & Usage, Mar 3 '11 at 21:23, by RegDwight

Well I think we've got some only recently. From Japan. I can't read that Katakana, damn it.

Anonymous

Do they really? Give me some examples

Robusto

15:49

Look at　ですが for example. When you listen to Japanese say it, it sounds kinda like desunga.

Anonymous

Oh, well, that's not palatalized, that's the nasal g

Robusto

Whatever. I'm not a linguist.

I just know what I hear.

But it's damn close to ng.

Anonymous

That's a velar consonant, like k

Anonymous

It is.

Anonymous

It's dying out, though.

Robusto

15:50

Really? I hear it in Japanese movies all the time.

Anonymous

Yeah, people are trained to do it because it's held up as an idealized sound, a beautiful sound

Anonymous

But it's language change in progress--fewer people in fewer areas have it. These days, it's mostly people over a certain age who retain it, or people who were specifically trained to produce it

Anonymous

It'll be gone eventually, most likely.

RegDwigнt

in English Language & Usage, Aug 4 '11 at 18:16, by RegDwight

Unlike that Katakana nonsense.

Robusto

@snailboat I am over a certain age, depending on the reference point.

Anonymous

15:53

@Robusto Hmm. Me too. Stupid nebulous reference points

RegDwigнt

No matter how hard I try, I am somehow always under a certain age.

Anonymous

Personally, I'm glad I don't need to learn to say the velar nasal.

Robusto

Did you like my 兜 by the way?

RegDwigнt

And I'm really really really old now.

Anonymous

It seems like effort.

Anonymous

15:55

Oh, on your avatar?

Anonymous

I'm squinting.

RegDwigнt

The first dream of the year.

Anonymous

My eyes aren't good enough to tell what these avatars are.

RegDwigнt

Robusto, United States

86k 14 175 343

meaning word-choice single-word-requests phrases etymology grammaticality grammar

Anonymous

Hey! How do you get that one?

RegDwigнt

15:55

It doesn't help that he wears the bushido.

Anonymous

Hehe, well, I can see the 夢 but there's no hat on it when it's oneboxed :-(

Robusto

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

I clicked on your head, though, and it made it big.

RegDwigнt

Disclaimer: that is not the actual Rob. He's masquerading.

Robusto

15:56

Hey! That guy stole my hat! And wore it on Wikipedia!

RegDwigнt

@snailboat that sounds like stage direction for a Warner Bros cartoon.

Robusto

@snailboat Stop. You'll give me a big head.

RegDwigнt

Wikipedia always steals all of stuff.

Did you notice how they write every single article using words you invented?

Robusto

i no rite

RegDwigнt

And they are now even collecting money for it. But not to be payen to you.

Ein Skandal.

Robusto

15:59

Ein Kris.

RegDwigнt

Which is an anagram for "kein Sir".

I think that says everything.

Robusto

Or "Rise, ink!"

Or "Ink, sire!"

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