@snailboat Am tired right now, but if you ask me when I'm around, I think I have a quite good answer about that :)

Ah, Google Translate. Never stop trying: digitaltrends.com/web/…

Ahhh. It's quiet today.

The Angkor Wat question makes me wonder about the origin of the word "wat" (วัด).

It seems like it has no clear origin, possibly วตวา (vtva) in Pali, or วัตร (vatr).

Another related word is วต ("vt" or วตะ "vta"), which is related to พรต (prt, meaning "religious routine", according to a dictionary).

> คำว่า “วัด” เป็นคำเรียกชื่อศาสนสถานแบบคำไทย โดยที่มาของคำว่า “วัด” นี้ ยังไม่มีข้อยุติ ด้วยบางคนอธิบายว่า มาจากคำว่า “วตวา” ในภาษาบาลี แปลว่า เป็นที่สนทนาธรรม บ้างก็ว่ามาจาก“วัตร” อันหมายถึงกิจปฏิบัติหรือหน้าที่ของพระภิกษุที่พึงกระทำ หรือแปลอีกอย่างว่าการจำศีล ซึ่งวัด(วัตร) ตามนัยยะนี้จึงน่าจะหมายถึงสถานที่ซึ่งพระภิกษุสงฆ์ใช้เป็นที่จำศีลภาวนา หรือสถานที่ที่พระภิกษุสงฆ์ใช้ปฏิบัติภาระกิจที่พึงกระทำนั่นเอง

> แต่ก็มีบางคนสันนิษฐานว่ามาจากคำว่า “วัดวา” อันหมายถึงการกำหนดขอบเขตของดินแดนที่สร้างเป็นศาสนสถาน เพราะวัดกับวามีความหมายอย่างเดียวกัน คือการสอบขนาด หรือปริมาณของสิ่งต่างๆ เช่น ความยาว ความกว้าง เป็นต้น วัดในนัยยะอย่างหลังนี้จึงหมายถึง พื้นที่

> phuttha.com/…

(Sorry about the text without translation. It's a bit too long. The text is about the origin of the word "wat", which is unclear.)

Hmmm

I think we should try not to jump to Pali and Sanskrit too fast, unless it is very obvious or we have no other options.

I've seen enough examples of people being wrong about etymology just because they gave Pali-Sanskrit too much credit.

> wat (n.) Thai Buddhist temple, said to be from Sanskrit vata "enclosure, grove."

> etymonline.com/index.php?term=wat

Not sure who wrote that entry.

@Fantasier Indeed. I wonder what the word for "wat" is in Sri Lankan.

The Royal Institute dictionary doesn't give the origin for the word.

I guess it's not settled yet.

The thing I like about the RID is that, if the origin is still controversial, it won't be included.

Oh, they use vihéra.

@Fantasier I suppose so.

Lately I've seen some people criticize the RID for not putting too many etyms (not enough for him/her anyway), and I'm kinda sad.

I'd love it if the RID becomes a little more like the OED though.

A little would be okay, because we have very few lexicographers and etymologists.

BTW, In Hollywood movies, Thai speech is quite outstanding to me! I guess it's the same for you.

I've never seen any Hollywood movies with Thai speech U_U

I have 'The Beach' on my TV in the background. I don't pay attention to it much. A moment ago, there was a scene that some Thai speakers said something, and my ears caught that even when I wasn't trying to listen to it.

Oh, that happens all the time.

Foreign languages always require more concentration.

Indeed.

You have to parse which syllables go in which word.

hard if you don't have much vocabulary down.

I don't really have to pay much attention to understand English in news and most movies, but I still have to pay some. It's still different from my first language.

Songs are different. Some are pretty easy. Some are virtually unintelligible!

That reminds me that I should start reading 'Native Listening' this weekend.

Anyway, my Intro Ling class got to the phonology part this morning.

The exercises were very difficult lol

Yay!

I'm still scratching my head over my homework...

Oh! Could you give me some examples?

Umm

I guess I'll have to let you take a peek at my handwriting.

Typing everything in here would be too much work lol

LOL -- I'll try to be brave.

The instruction asks us to try to determine the phonemes / allophones in each set of data, judging from Complementary Distribution and Contrast in Analogous Environment. Every set tells us what sounds we have to pay attention to.

The problem is not with the instruction. That's pretty common.

The data sets, though... They are too realistic lol.

Wait for my slow internet connection to upload the image.

@Fantasier Real data is always better, though. :-)

Yeah

What I meant by realistic is that we got no minimal pairs. Well, we didn't even get anything that's close.

Here it is: drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Hp2Y4BMxdwdThhNjlhQ2F6Uk0/…

That's one of the easier ones.

The transcriptions are phonetic, right?

Yes

As I said, we have to determine the phonemes and allophones.

Oh, also the conditions for the allophones.

list all the allophones of /t/ in (North American) English

Ehh, I don't know :-) Perhaps [t] [tʰ] and [ɾ]?

Not sure if that's all of them, but certainly all that I can think of.

Glottal stop too, I think.

Oh, yes.

Are you solving the problem? @DamkerngT.

I can spot the pattern [u(ng)].

I pronounce "writer" and "rider" as homophones.

flapped

I have no idea what language it is, though.

@DamkerngT. Usually it doesn't matter in exercises; they just want us to familiarize with analyses, so that we know how to deal with real data.

They love indigenous languages though. Fascinating features.

Does the exercise list the phonemic transcriptions of these words too?

At least it should tell you where to look, I think.

Oh, I see. All the nasal sounds.

No. We are supposed to find out which are the phonemes. If they do that, it kinda spoils the point.

Oh, yes, I should've emphasized that they want us to look at certain sounds.

Hmm... I think allophones of a phoneme are about that specific phoneme, so I think we should know what phoneme it is first.

@DamkerngT. Well, in real research we don't know. We get as detailed a transcription as possible and try to figure out what should be phonemes (from a sea of phones) and what should be their allophones.

(e.g. if all speakers pronounced "leTTer" with a flap /t/, and thought of "T" as a different consonant sound from "t", the flap /t/ shouldn't be an allophone of /t/.)

I remember a guy who claimed to pronounce both T's in "button" on ELL/ELU

his speech must be stilted.

I actually tried to pronounce how he claimed it, and it came out ugly!

@Nihilist_Frost If he pronounced "t" as a glottal stop, it could make sense.

@DamkerngT. Well, but we do see the phonetic similarity between the flap /t/ and [t]. They also appear in complementary distribution (in AmE).

That's why we can consider them (complementary) allophones.

For example, his /t/ in "letter" could be twice as long as his /t/ in "baton".

funny that the flap T is a rhotic in several other languages

@Fantasier Yes, but what if it were in another language.

@DamkerngT. What would be the difference?

That flat and non-flap "t" are allophones in one language, but not in another.

Uh-huh

So we look at the phonetic data and analyze it.

That's sort of the point of the exercise?

No, data doesn't tell us what the speakers of the language think.

Oh, yes.

We should also take the speakers' opinions into account.

But they aren't always right about their intuitions, as you are already aware :-)

For example, a mockup language could allow speakers to pronounce X as either [m] or [k], so their "Xat" could be either [mat] or [kat], and [m] and [k] could be allophones!

@DamkerngT. Well yes, but that's very unlikely, and it would be a very bad constructed language.

Because it's very unlikely that two very different sounds could be allophones of the same phoneme.

I'd argue that it's possible. :-)

Snailboat, how would "Thames" be written in katakana?

Ha! I just learnt that today!

I know, I know. Because the lack of phonetic similarity!

Except when you run into debuccalization like glottal T's

Are [d] and [ð] considered allophones in some dialects of English?

@snailboat Now try "Toews".

What? My keyboard typed itself!

Haunted keyboard.

@Fantasier Did you order it from Pizza Hut?

@DamkerngT. Why?

independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/…

Whaaat

:P

> Pizza Hut is in the process of re-branding, and launched a new menu in November. It overhauled the old one and includes new menus with honey Sriracha sauce, salted pretzel crusts and sliced banana peppers.

I haven't eaten it for 2 years.

@DamkerngT. Honey Sriracha sounds like a bad idea

too much grease.

I mean, foreign Sriracha is already sweet enough, I think.

Ah, I haven't tried any exotic Sriracha.

Pizza Hut's pizza is too greasy.

feels greasy, tastes greasy

In Ontario there is a chain called Pizza Pizza

I've moved on to there.

4 years ago I used to eat KFC, snarfing down Double Downs every time it became available.

Pizza is pretty heavy. One pizza for a German guy is a pizza for two Thais. :-)

I have it like 40+ times a year.

Subway is good, I think. Not sure.

Good (in terms of taste), I think.

I've tried it only a few times. Maybe more than just a few times.

Not sure if it's healthy.

But certainly healthier than McDonald's...

@Fantasier At least I can see where my veggies are clearly!

@snailboat I guess you have fajitas at least once a week, perhaps more. :P

I tried Thai chili peppers, I ended up eating six ice cubes.

@Nihilist_Frost LOL

Thai peppers are good.

They were raw Thai peppers

I can handle them when mixed with something else

except you sweat like melting ice

I like spicy food but I don't have peppers raw either...

you stink afterwards

@Nihilist_Frost Hmm... Was it the pepper or something else?

I guess it might've been some kind of Som Tam.

@snailboat I see, I see :-)

I've eaten pickled peppers many times, they're less spicy than raw or dried peppers.

salt drowns it away

When I was a child I didn't like hot and spicy food, I like it now. But I guess here most people have to at least be able to cope with spices anyway...

I have less and less spicy food.

@DamkerngT. Ahhh, my mother is the other way round. She used to hate chili, but now I see her having it more and more.

@Fantasier Oh, so she has a stronger stomach than me.

@snailboat Yay!

When I went to the US I figured Thai restaurants weren't very hard to find. What's really hard to find is the good ones.

There is another problem with spicy food which I'm reluctant to mention it, but everything that goes in will go out sooner or later. :P

Lucky you!

@Fantasier Ahh

@DamkerngT. Some ingredients are impossible to find (according to one owner), like กะเพรา (Thai basil), so they had to make do with something else.

@Fantasier I remember that I had the same problem when I was in Frankfurt too.

several times I eat hot food just-served and my alveolar ridge ends up sore for a week.

@DamkerngT. Makes me want to have some sausages.

@Nihilist_Frost Hot as in hot hot, or hot as in spicy?

@DamkerngT. As in temperature.

@snailboat I think that's a great thing! I mean, it's better if we can enjoy things easily right? Makes life much easier.

@Nihilist_Frost Oh, right. Happens to me sometimes too.

Whaaat?

@Fantasier My friend spends several thousand dollars (converted from baht) on his stereo sets. I don't have to, because every song sounds good enough for me on almost all relatively cheap loud speakers.

sometimes I end up having stomach acid come up to my velum... how burning

Oh, but I had pizza without any cheese on it once. Not as bad as I expected.

@Nihilist_Frost Oh, reflux? (I think that's what it's called.)

@snailboat It usually is dim sum in my case. :-)

@snailboat That sounds so crazy with the other sense of the verb burn.

I have this image of people holding in their hands slices of pizza with blazing fires on them, and the people are trying to burn themselves with the pizza.

@snailboat That's wise. For me, some dim sum dishes are deceptive. They look not very hot on the outside, but it's freaking hot on the inside!

@DamkerngT. I usually do that when I am either disgusted at a smell/food. An annoying reflex

Hmm... I don't know either, except that they have to use a special kind of tool that I don't have.

If it's possible, I'd order iced chrysanthemum tea or any kind of iced tea for that matter, just to be on the safe side, when I have dim sum.

Chrysanth-what?

เก็กฮวยเย็น :-)

Oh, I see

Discussing food in the middle of the night is too dangerous for me. It could lead me to midnight feasts...

I'd better go to bed. Good night everyone!

LOL

Good night!

It's quite common in dim sum restaurants.

I remember a girl whose name is pronounced /dɛstɪni/ (Destiny) and is spelled "Desteenie"

Odd.

Why would they make an /ɪ/ with an "ee"?

probably to make it look cute.

So that she's always a teen? :P

i100.independent.co.uk/article/…

I hope to see my country on that map in ten years.

Ran into any "Jaime"s so far?

Looks familiar, sounds familiar, but i can't recall where I've seen or heard it.

Game of Thrones?

Hmm... I haven't watched GoT that often.

(But the episode that a giant man crushed the skull of his opponent in a fight was quite gruesome. I guess I can remember that scene for a long time.)

A lady in my mom's company is named "Jaime"

Oh, it's a female name?

@DamkerngT. Was it the Oberyn Martell vs Gregor Clegane fight

@snailboat Well, I think they don't include native speakers in the chart. :D

"Jaime" is unisex.

@Nihilist_Frost I can't remember their name. I jumped in only in the latter part of that episode.

@Nihilist_Frost Oh, yes! That very scene!

The crushed guy reminds me of my brother in badminton. He usually slowed his plays when we seemed to have an edge over our opponents in our games, even though when our edge was only slight.

I had to keep reminding him, "No mercy. If you don't want to be regret later in the game." :-)

@snailboat I have all the A Song of Ice and Fire books.

Ever heard of Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

My parents once told me that my surname came from what they call "Truong Phi". It took me and my mom some research to find out that he was Zhang Fei.

Somehow in Vietnamese translations they change the names dramatically.

Oh, the little brother of the three.

@DamkerngT. of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei?

His name is known as "Tiew Hui" over here.

@Nihilist_Frost Yes.

I've only started reading again.

Lol I deleted it right when you answered

:-)

Guan Yu is highly regarded over here; many think of him as a god. (Because of his high morality.)

And then you have people who mispronounce the names of Three Kingdoms people because English orthography influences laymen to assume the wrong rules.

"Cao Cao" rats the ignorants out.

It's in pinyin, I think. I pronounce his name "Jo Cho".

I'm a quarter Hokkian, by the way.

dialects cause variations

\o

o/

How is it going today?

I've been in here for only a few hours.

Well, I decided something yesterday.

I think I should stand by it.

It's the system that's not perfect. You could try writing more answers instead, like the one you wrote yesterday.

I should skip to generalizations and nice and touchy remarks.

@jimsug Oh boy . . .  O___O

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with online communities. People pretend they're bound by precedent, when really they're not. I believe that their concern for learners is genuine though, and that they're really placing their interest first, if somewhat mixed with apprehension of the work that would be involved in uprooting the status quo.

@jimsug Yes.

This happened because of the censorship: What th-huck is a hybrid animal?

Yes!

They muted the "f" sound, and apparently the schwa in the process.

Alpinist! (Yay!)

I had Google on my side. :-)

Oh, I learned a new term: radar serial numbers on bank notes

They're palindrome numbers on bills.

People still use bank notes over there, right?

This is weird. (It could make a good conversation at Legal.SE, but I post it here anyway.)

> bgr.com/2015/11/02/ashley-madison-hack-lawsuit-5-million