English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

14:01

For example, I cannot remember a route at all. You could take me to a place dozens of times, but it wouldn't work. However, if you will just let me study the map a few times, for a few minutes each time, it is easy.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus me too. grammar is easy. vocab is a bitch. there's no trick to vocab except memorization

kiamlaluno

@Cerberus I have to find the table with all the prepositions. The k stays for question. Kiam is question (k) about time (iam): when.

No, they are correlatives.

For example, kie is "question about place": where.

Matt Ellen Д

@JSBᾶngs or memoisation, which why I carry a dictionary everywhere!

kiamlaluno

Tie is in that place: there.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Well, there is a trick: etymology. My Greek teacher used to give us countless bits and facts on etymology and words being related that I used to jot down in my vocab booklet, and that really worked. And so the more obscure English words become easy if you just know their Latin/Greek ancestors, and many more words can be gleaned from their PIE roots, which are admittedly less easy to recognize.

But knowing those roots still helps to memorize them if you have a list with words and meanings.

JSBᾶngs

14:04

@Cerberus this is a good point. i remember a great many greek and latin words by knowing their obscure english relatives

kiamlaluno

Kial means "question about reason": "for which reason?"

Cerberus

@kiamlaluno As you know, the Romance qu- (PIE kw-) is used for questions and relative/subordinate clauses alike, so that's probably it.

@JSBᾶngs Heh, yes, it works in two directions.

In Greek, kw- has mostly mutated into p- and t-.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JSBᾶngs Many of my english relatives are obscure to me. Maybe that's why I have a hard time memorizing vocab?

Cerberus

They became obscure when they started begging for money?

Understandable.

kiamlaluno

So, the correlatives are composed with a prefix: k, t, nen, ĉ.

Cerberus

14:08

What, four prefixes for one function?

kiamlaluno

For example: nenie means "no" (nen-) and "place" -ie: "nowhere".

Cerberus

I see.

kiamlaluno

@Cerberus No, they have four functions.

Cerberus

Yeah I got it after your last example.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So, Esperanto. Is there a point? Besides, "hey cool? And I also know Tengwar"?

kiamlaluno

14:11

Without prefixes, the correlative mean "some": ie means "somewhere"; iam mean "at some time"; iu means "somebody, someone."

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

(not that "hey cool" isn't a valid reason)

Cerberus

As long as I don't have to learn it, I'm fine with it!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, I'd be willing to learn it if I had a good reason...

kiamlaluno

So, if you want to ask "Who are you?" you ask Kiu vi estas?

@Cerberus And to complete the information, ke means "that."

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I can't think of many reasons apart from beauty and utility...

@kiamlaluno Just as in French, Italian, and Spanish.

And probably Portuguese and Romanian.

JSBᾶngs

14:15

but esperanto is neither beautiful nor useful. it is at best interesting

kiamlaluno

In Esperanto, ke is always preceded by a comma.

JSBᾶngs

@MrShinyandNew安宇 this is a reason i can get behind

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs The former is a matter of personal preference.

kiamlaluno

@Cerberus Ehmmm… That is Italian is che or quello.

"That is my girl" is "quella è la mia ragazza."

Cerberus

@kiamlaluno che ≠ ke ?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:17

@Cerberus Well, I guess, is there any utility in esperanto? The software developer in me likes the idea of a new language that fixes the problems in older languages. But the armchair-descriptivist-linguist in me says "meh"

Cerberus

Wait, Esperanto uses ke for demonstratives too? That would seem confusing.

kiamlaluno

@Cerberus Well, in Italian we don't use k. You can find it in SMS written by young people.

Cerberus

I was thinking phonetically.

Same word basically.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I have the same feeling.

kiamlaluno

Mi scias, ke mi amas mian amanton. ("I know I love my lover.")

Cerberus

Huh it uses c!?

Now that is surprising.

kiamlaluno

14:20

Or sĉias.

Cerberus

(And why the hell won't those people above me stop hammering!?)

I think we discussed diacritics before.

kiamlaluno

The c is used, but its sound is like the English z.

Cerberus

Ah. And the z?

Matt Ellen Д

that sounds like a giraffe

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno i thought that esperanto c was [ts]

kiamlaluno

14:21

Franco means French, and it is spelled like Italian Franzo.

Cerberus

@MattEllenД Oh, interesting.

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno s/spelled/pronounced/

kiamlaluno

@JSBᾶngs Yes, it is quite that sound.

JSBᾶngs

which means that esperanto c is NOT like english z, but like italian z

Cerberus

sigh

kiamlaluno

14:22

Yeah; I got confused by reading the explanation in English, and Italian.

Doesn't "spelled" means "pronounced" too? s

JSBᾶngs

so just to be clear esperanto c = italian z = [ts], while english z = [z]

Grace Note

Not really

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno is this a joke? the two words are practically opposites in English

Grace Note

Read and Read are spelled the same way, but they are pronounced differently.

Likewise viceversa for Leek and Leak.

Cerberus

There is spell out.

JSBᾶngs

14:24

@Cerberus which means to explain in detail

kiamlaluno

Grr… If I catch who I know.

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno yeah, you definitely cannot use "to spell" to mean "to pronounce" in english.

kiamlaluno

I was said by SOMEBODY who is American that "spelling house" meant to say " h o u s e."

Grace Note

That is correct.

Pronouncing house would be to say... "house".

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno i think you misunderstood him. when i say "spell house", it means to read out the letters H O U S E

Grace Note

14:25

As in the full word, not all of the component letters.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Yes, but that comes from its "core" meaning of pronouncing each full letter of a word, doesn't it? As in gee you ee es tee?

kiamlaluno

Yes, but the explanation was "pronounce the single letters."

Grace Note

@kiamlaluno You could sub "speak" in place of "pronounce" there and it'd be the same.

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno this was probably a sloppy use of the term "pronounce"

kiamlaluno

I should kill her.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

14:27

Whoa

kiamlaluno

Or maybe not. :-)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Phew

kiamlaluno

I don't want to be just "kiam la luno."

Grace Note

Well, she's not wrong.

JSBᾶngs

"to pronounce" means to produce the spoken form. "to spell* means to produce the written form

RegDwight Ѭſ道

14:27

@Cerberus Note how you can use Atlas and spells, but there is no way to use Atlas and pronounces.

Grace Note

Just can be confusing since vocally you'd still be doing both.

JSBᾶngs

@GraceNote @kiamlaluno she's not wrong, it seems like you just misunderstood her

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 Fair enough. But hey, Atlas's spell is just so freaking awesome.

kiamlaluno

By the way, did I answer all the questions for me?

Cerberus

I have a nice subjective question with no good answer, but I'd be interested in people's opinions: what determines whether we find a certain language beautiful?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

14:31

Whether we are native speakers of it, to a large degree.

FallenAngelEyes

Man, there's a lotta personal bias in that question.

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 How do you mean?

@FallenAngelEyes Bias?

kiamlaluno

Mi ne sĉias.

Cerberus

I'm just curious.

FallenAngelEyes

@Cerberus As in subjectivity based on our own experience and interpretations.

Cerberus

14:32

The only apparently consistent factor I can discern in myself is that I usually start to like a language better once I get to know it a little better.

kiamlaluno

Oh, it's scias.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus Native speakers of X will prefer that language over any other by a large degree. They will say things like, "our poetry is soooo nice", and "you just can't express thought Y in language Z".

Lexical gaps and untranslatability are all over the place, but your perception of them is limited.

kiamlaluno

Even Esperanto has poetry.

Cerberus

@FallenAngelEyes Well, yes, but I was hoping to go a little beyond that as well, find some underlying patterns.

FallenAngelEyes

For example, I don't tend to think of Dutch as very elegant on the surface, but my father-in-law does. He's also a native Dutch speaker and is certified as a Dutch teacher, so his grasp of the language much deeper.

Cerberus

14:33

@RegDwightѬſ道 I'm not so sure that is true. In Holland, everybody will say that French and Italian are beautiful.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I think some languages sound inherently more musical than others, and thus might be more melodious. Eg. some romance languages vs german; the latter sounds harsher and angrier to my ear.

JSBᾶngs

i have the opposite reaction. i consider unfamiliar languages more beautiful than those i know. i have no particular favor for english or romanian, and greek was a lot more attractive to me when i knew less of it

Cerberus

@FallenAngelEyes Yeah, that fits in with what I said about getting to know a language.

FallenAngelEyes

I think it could also be influenced a lot by individual cultures and what one thinks of as "beautiful."

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JSBᾶngs Agreed: exotic things are sexy. Once you know it, it's not exotic anymore.

Cerberus

14:34

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yeah I suspect there is something in that too, though it may be a unidirectional thing: Germanic => Romance.

JSBᾶngs

Suomen kieli eli suomi kuuluu uralilaiseen kielikuntaan ja sen suomalais-ugrilaisen haaran itämerensuomalaisiin kieliin. Suomen kielen puhujia on noin viisi miljoonaa i have no idea what this means, but swoon

kiamlaluno

Oh yes, Italians are famous for saying fanculo with a smile upon their faces. Isn't a melodious language? :-)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

example: all those kids these days with Chinese characters tattooed on their bodies. They'd never bother getting the word "rain" tattooed on their arms, but I've seen people with 雨.

FallenAngelEyes

@JSBᾶngs Finnish?

JSBᾶngs

@MrShinyandNew安宇 yep. i'm sure you're familiar w/ hanzismatters.com?

@FallenAngelEyes indeed

Cerberus

14:36

@JSBᾶngs That is interesting. But are attraction and beauty the same? Surely you will appreciate the beauty of certain things in Romanian that you only got to know after a certain degree of proficiency?

FallenAngelEyes

@JSBᾶngs I love that site.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

As for the beauty of the poetry, etc, I agree that it's totally subjective.

@JSBᾶngs heck yes.

Cerberus

@FallenAngelEyes Yeah, I think there must be something cultural at work too.

kiamlaluno

Kieli seems close to Esparanto kiel.

Grace Note

My Finnish is limitted to pyorremyrskyr, and some phrases that I don't know how to spell but which translate to "ALL HAIL FINLAND" and "I like fishsticks".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:37

@GraceNote Those are useful phrases when travelling.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus yes and no... once i know the language the semantics shines through, which is a different kind of beauty that the purely esthetic feeling i get from looking at a paragraph of finnish, which is completely meaningless to me

FallenAngelEyes

I can sing along to a Finnish Nightwish song but that's it.

Grace Note

Oh, I can sing along to caramelldansen, too.

z7sg Ѫ

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Do Chinese people get tats of random Latin characters?

kiamlaluno

I can sing alone.

Grace Note

14:38

But that's Swedish, isn't it?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@z7sgѪ Actually I've heard of that. But I don't know to what degree it's popular.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I'm not saying it isn't subjective; I just think that perhaps there are certain (vague) patterns that might explain our subjective preferences to some extent.

kiamlaluno

That means, if I start singing, all people escape.

JSBᾶngs

there are some sound/meaning pairs in romanian that i love. and others that i hate. zâmbet is a terrible word for "smile", but cișmea is a wonderful word for "drinking fountain"

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Right, there are different kinds of beauty.

kiamlaluno

14:39

(Wow, I am better with gerunds.)

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Aren't there certain bits of English idiom that you like for one reason or another?

kiamlaluno

I like the word order, and those unusual ways to order words.

Cerberus

There certainly are many that I like, and the same applies to Dutch.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus i like the word mellifluous

Cerberus

@kiamlaluno In which language?

@JSBᾶngs See?

Of course form and meaning cannot be separated.

kiamlaluno

14:41

@Cerberus In English, and Esperanto. I could say Italian too, but that is my first language, and I find it less interesting.

Grace Note

I like pyorremyrskyr. It sounds awesome if you say it right. And it translates roughly to "spiral storm".

Cerberus

@kiamlaluno OK.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerb the thing is, when i think of a "beautiful language", i generally think of the form. the meaning gets in the way. this is why i appreciate languages that i don't know more than those that i do

kiamlaluno

For example, in Esperanto vin amas mi and mi amas vin both mean the same thing.

JSBᾶngs

when i appreciate the meaning, it becomes something else, like appreciating literature or poetry or whatever, rather than appreciating the language per se

Cerberus

14:42

I used to find German harsh, stuffy, and ugly. Now I appreciate its beauty, though sometimes the stuffiness is still oppressive.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus german is excellent for a certain milieu. 14th century woodsman cottages, for example

kiamlaluno

In English I like the word order in "so do I."

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Yeah I get that feeling, more or less. But the experience of beauty then shifts from basic sounds / letter combinations to syntax or something deeper.

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno this is a very common feature of languages with good case systems. the same can be said of latin, greek, russian

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus German is an incredibly beautiful language. You can quote me on that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:44

@RegDwightѬſ道 beautiful in what way? in the "hey look, I can make noun-piles into one big-ass word, nya nya nya?" :)

kiamlaluno

Italian is good if you want two words that mean two different things, but with a different accent on a vowel.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs ... and older versions of English.))) It sacrificed cases for a more fixed word order...

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno s/vocal/vowel/. vocal is an adjective in english

z7sg Ѫ

@MrShinyandNew安宇 You have noun piles in your big ass?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I can't remember the last time I saw a noun-pile in German.

JSBᾶngs

14:45

@RegDwightѬſ道 nah, we sacrificed our cases to appease the stern elder gods of our ancestral island

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs I'm not so sure you can separate those two. Sure, a certain phrase may be appreciate more for its "content" than another phrase; but I think content always plays a part, even in admiring the most basic patterns. Association is also related to content.

kiamlaluno

It's what happens my other half of brain kicks in.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MrShinyandNew安宇 You have the exact same noun piles in English, too. Control flow graph visualization software developer.

It's the exact same thing as in German.

kiamlaluno

Vocale is the Italian word. :-)

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 <= Hear, hear!

JSBᾶngs

14:46

@Cerberus well, OK. i cannot imagine beowulf being written in anything other than anglo-saxon, for example, despite the fact that many of the translations are quite good

@kiamlaluno yes, and romanians often make the same mistake

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwightѬſ道 I was just teasing. I'll admit that my knowledge of German is limited. Basically, I've read the Mark Twain essay on learning German, and listened to the song Du Hast.

FallenAngelEyes

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Rammstein is somewhat more enjoyable when you don't understand what they're saying.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Oh I know you were teasing. But I am here to inform not just you, but everyone who will ever read the transcript.

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 Agreed 100 %. And in English it is much uglier and harder to understand. On the other hand, the use of English noun adjectives in any but the most basic form is usually considered bad style.

kiamlaluno

Romanian is the second language closer to Latin.

JSBᾶngs

14:48

@kiamlaluno don't understand. please rephrase.

@FallenAngelEyes +1 to Rammstein being better when you can't understand them

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwightѬſ道 People READ that? yikes. :p

RegDwight Ѭſ道

May 27 at 19:30, by RegDwight

What, you didn't read the entire transcript????

FallenAngelEyes

@JSBᾶngs They're quite silly and don't take themselves too seriously though, which I can respect. Honestly, I actually enjoy the music.

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 It will be read for generations, no doubt.

kiamlaluno

There are two languages that are closer to Latin; one of those is Romanian, which uses cases similar to Latin, as far as I remember.

z7sg Ѫ

14:50

German, for my taste has either too much inflection or not enough.

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno what's the other one? romanian has only preserved the dative case, which has merged with the genitive, but most of the other romance languages haven't kept any cases at all

Cerberus

@FallenAngelEyes Agreed. They have this one song with a clip about a fascist leader or something that might be a bit tough on certain people.

kiamlaluno

The other language is Italian. There are no wonders they make the same mistakes an Italian would do. (It was a joke.)

JSBᾶngs

actually, romanian also preserved a form of the vocative

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs Moldavian? Harharharhar.

Cerberus

14:51

@JSBᾶngs The vocative? How?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Hey Russian has vocative, too.

Cerberus

Yeah, yeah, you have everything.

kiamlaluno

O sole mio, sta in fronte a meeeeeeeeee…

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Отче, старче, княже...

FallenAngelEyes

@Cerberus Yeah, but if you're easily offended, you probably shouldn't be listening to Rammstein in the first place.

JSBᾶngs

14:52

@Cerberus quite easily. masculine vocative in -e (just like Latin), feminine vocative in -o

kiamlaluno

Isn't that dative?

Cerberus

But I suppose Romanian may have taken its own vocative from Slavic languages, or at least kept it under their influence.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus they don't have the illative, or the adessive, or any of the better cases

Cerberus

@FallenAngelEyes True!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs Hey we went for the goldene Mitte.

JSBᾶngs

14:52

@Cerberus the romanian masculine vocative is clearly inherited from latin. the feminine vocative may be from slavic, or may be an innovaction

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Russian has not too few, not too many of anything and everything.

Exactly right.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Oh that is funny, I had no idea. I'd have thought the vocative was the first case to go, considering its weakness in Latin and Greek.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus it ain't particularly strong in romanian. only used for names, mostly. and the feminine is nearly extinct

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Yeah perhaps we should make a new language with just cases for everything.

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus too late. they made it and called it finnish

RegDwight Ѭſ道

14:54

Haha. You should totally drop that and just use cases.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Even so it is remarkable. In Latin, the vocative is only visible in masculine sg. in the second declination; and even there Latin has several other options to use instead, such as nominative and accusative (accusativus exclamationis).

But you know that.

kiamlaluno

What is a poem that uses only the vocative case?

It's an "Oh del."

(OK; I am still not ready to go to Zelig.)

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno @Martha please thwack this

kiamlaluno

(Go figure; I thought of that in a fraction of second.)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I don't even get it.

Marthaª

15:04

I'm with Reg: huh?

Grace Note

Can I join in the not understanding? Because I don't understand.

kiamlaluno

I think it's something they do in tirolen.

Yodel, oh del.

Don't forget the south part of Tirol is in Italy.

Yodeling

Yodeling (or yodelling, jodeling) is a form of singing that involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or chest register (or "chest voice") to the falsetto/head register; making a high-low-high-low sound. This vocal technique is used in many cultures throughout the world. History In Alpine folk music, yodeling was used in the Central Alps as a method of communication between alpine mountaineers or between alpine villages, with this non-musical multi-pitched "yelling" later becoming part of the region's traditional lore and musical e...

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Feb 23 at 15:14, by Kosmonaut

I like to tell myself that if you have to explain it, it means it was sophisticated.

kiamlaluno

It was not sophisticated; it was quite plain.

It's just that you have not been in South Tyrol. :-)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

How would you know?

JSBᾶngs

15:12

he knows everyone who goes to South Tyrol. it's his job

RegDwight Ѭſ道

What if I only ever visited Südtirol?

Matt Ellen Д

if that was all you did, you'd not be here now

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Hey, we have tubes in Tirol, too.

Matt Ellen Д

but you wouldn't be doing the tubes, you'd be doing a visit

kiamlaluno

@RegDwightѬſ道 Nein, nein! Verbotten!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

15:14

I won't be taking advice from this room whom I should or should not do.

Cerberus

How narrow minded.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@kiamlaluno one T, please.

It's a long O.

kiamlaluno

@JSBᾶngs I am the guard there; I check the borders since 1998.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 you've presumably been taking your own advice so far, and look where that's gotten you

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs to a wife, a gigantic 10-inch screen, and an imperial ton of LEGO.

Cerberus

15:16

10 inch? Wowie.

kiamlaluno

@RegDwightѬſ道 I have eaten two T-bone steaks; that is why I use two T's.

JSBᾶngs

i think it was at least 1994 before i had a 10-inch screen

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Sorry, 12-inch.

> Between our frozen dinners and our bedtime 9:15
We snuggle watching Lucy on our big, enormous 12-inch screen

Cerberus

And we're still waiting for the wife to poke her nose around here for proof of her existence.

JSBᾶngs

well, that's a whole different matter

RegDwight Ѭſ道

15:18

@Cerberus At least she can prove her existence, unlike your wife.

kiamlaluno

It's like the wife of lieutenant Colombo.

JSBᾶngs

hey @Bogdan we were just talking about cazul vocativ în limba română

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Poor Peter Falk.

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 But my wife is perfect. So each has her merits.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs No flirting!

kiamlaluno

15:19

I said "Lieutenant Colombo," not "Peter Falk."

Bogdan Lataianu

@JSBᾶngs thanks but I have to google what is vocative

RegDwight Ѭſ道

O Bogdan!

JSBᾶngs

Bogdan -> Bogdane, Ana -> Ano

adica: Bogdane, ce dracul faci acolo?

Cerberus

Hah.

Robusto

@Cerberus — ZOMG I just realized Cerberus uses his doggy persona to mask his real identity as a pro-human military organization in the Mass Effect series. You are so busted, dude.

Bogdan Lataianu

15:20

is it like imperative?

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu it's the form you use for direct address. romanian has it, must most other romance languages don't

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah I have many heads. I am also an international hedge fund.

@JSBᾶngs Use an example?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus Sonic?

1 min ago, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

O Bogdan!

JSBᾶngs

1 min ago, by JSBᾶngs

adica: Bogdane, ce dracul faci acolo?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Jinx, I guess.

Cerberus

15:21

@RegDwightѬſ道 hog ≠ hund

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 that's actually not a proper romanian vocative, as you don't have the -e which is the entire topic of conversation

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus Sonic is not a hund, geeeezis.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Ah sorry missed that.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Then don't mention him.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs SORRY THAT I USED ENGLISH IN THIS ROOM, FOR ONCE.

kiamlaluno

O sole mio…

RegDwight Ѭſ道

15:22

Won't happen again.

Bogdan Lataianu

@JSBᾶngs normally it's "Bogdane, ce dracu faci acolo?" I suppose you're not a Romanian native

RegDwight Ѭſ道

See, JSB, he just won't let you discuss the actual matter.

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu i'm not, but what's the difference btwn what you said and what i said?

Cerberus

Perhaps the vocative is taboo in Romania.

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu you left off the -l, but the ending -ul is (almost) always pronounced as just -u

RegDwight Ѭſ道

15:23

@Cerberus But taboo itself contains two vocative particles!

JSBᾶngs

yesterday, by random

This room was placed in timeout for 2 minutes; the topic of this room is "aka The Incomprehensible Room" - conversation should be limited to that topic.

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 That analysis is beyond me.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus Many things I say are beyond you.

For example, washing vegetables.

Or Häßlehoff.

kiamlaluno

Test, test, test...

JSBᾶngs

@kiamlaluno nu-i voie

kiamlaluno

15:25

What is this timeout?

Bogdan Lataianu

@JSBᾶngs I think the "l" is often removed in direct speech, and no "ul" is not pronounced as "u". Remember , thankfully, Romanian letters are always pronounced

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 Very true.

Marthaª

@kiamlaluno Hey, nobody warned me there'd be a test today.

Cerberus

@kiamlaluno It sometimes happens by mistake.

kiamlaluno

@Marthaª Nobody warned me the room would be placed in timeout, if I were going to appear here!

Marthaª

15:26

@kiamlaluno Eh, that was yesterday. Old news.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Also, the two minutes were over after just two minutes.

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu if you think that -ul is pronounced w/ the -l, then you are woefully misinformed about your native language. the definite article ending -ul is almost NEVER pronounced as -ul, outside of singing and very, very careful speech. so the difference between writing dracu, dracu' (cu apostrof) and dracul is pretty much nil

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Hohohoho....

kiamlaluno

Oh, I thought it was happening now.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 i'm just reminding you that incomprehensibility is part of our charter

kiamlaluno

15:28

Somebody told I was going to appear yesterday, so they timed out the room just in case.

Robusto

@Cerberus — So where do you hide the other heads when you go out in public?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs Sorry, in that case I must clarify that the two minutes were over after just 120 imperial hogs.

JSBᾶngs

@RegDwightѬſ道 much better

RegDwight Ѭſ道

But the key is that they still were. And in fact still are.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Are you sure there isn't some (affected) accented that does?

@Robusto I tuck them into my shirt. Or put funny hats on them.

Bogdan Lataianu

15:30

@JSBᾶngs perhaps I am wrong about pronunciation, but not about writing. The writing will be "dracu", not "dracul" in that context

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus the key word here is "affected". yes, in affected, hyper-pronounced registers the /l/ is still there. but in normal speech it's always gone. the only exception i can think of is tatăl where the -l is usually pronounced, which is a special case being the only common masculine noun that ends in -ă

also words that end in -ul as part of the stem, ie. where it's not a definite article ending, such as destul, do pronounce the -l

@BogdanLataianu noted. i'll make sure to drop the -l when swearing in romanian chat in the future

Robusto

Speaking of wacko languages, does anyone here have any familiarity with Thai?

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs I have been (indirectly, by reading some article) assured that my pronunciation didn't exist. People, including linguists, are often simply unaware of certain accents that do not exist in their own circles.

JSBᾶngs

@Robusto a very, very small amount of familiarity i have

Robusto

Would you recognize whether words were real or faked using the Thai alphabet? I mean could you tell real text from gibberish?

JSBᾶngs

15:34

@Robusto well, my remembered thai vocab is close to zero, but i could maybe tell real text apart from gibberish

Robusto

►

Please look at the subtitles in this weird video and tell me if you think they mean anything at all ... (This is from the latest episode of Breaking Bad).

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus sure. i was just worried that our friend Bogdan was propagating a mistaken prescriptivist idea that the -l is supposed to be pronounced, which is not really the case

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs Yeah, could be. Both things happen. It's just hard to tell without an actual (natural) speech sample.

JSBᾶngs

@Robusto it's real enough to fool me. the vowels are all in plausible places, the tone marks are correct, and there are a handful of real words that i can spot

mostly just one real word

Robusto

@JSBᾶngs — Thanks. Which word, btw?

JSBᾶngs

15:40

/ra/, and i can't copy paste the thai for that from the video. and don't ask me to type it.

also /mai/, which is visible as the first word inside the quote at 0:29

the circumfixed vowels are also correct, as far as i can remember them. thai has some vowels which are written with a digraph, one element of which comes before and one of which comes after the consonant. the logical equivalent of {ora} = =/rao/. anyway, if those are messed up it's easy to spot, but i don't see any

but it's possible that i'm not remembering the rules for circumfixed vowels correctly

oh, and i just spotted the name "Tom", spelled correctly in Thai

so yeah, i think it's real

Robusto

@JSBᾶngs — Muchas gracias.

Cerberus

@JSBᾶngs That ora/rao sounds pretty twisted...

JSBᾶngs

@Cerberus you have no idea. thai has the most twisted alphabet that i've ever seen

but supposedly its alphabetic weirdness is not uncommon in that corner of the world

i should mention the tone system. thai has five tones, and the orthography actually indicates the tones completely. but the rules for deducing the correct tone from the spelling are... byzantine.

Marthaª

Why does this question have a full dozen answers?

10

Q: What would you call someone who makes no lasting impression?

What word would describe someone who doesn't generally leave much of an impression on people?

word-choice

(Maybe it's time to protect it? Not that most of the answers are from low-rep users...)

Grace Note

I don't think protection will really affect it.

That said, I'm likewise confused as to its number of answers. And how quickly I can scroll through them.

Robusto

15:54

@GraceNote — Yes. Almost as if they make no lasting impression. Interesting.

kiamlaluno

Who answered has a reputation higher than 10; protecting the question doesn't help.

Grace Note

@Robusto They're quite unimpressive.

kiamlaluno

I mean, it would not sort any effect.

Marthaª

Protection has a psychological effect sometimes. Maybe.

JSBᾶngs

it's been multicollidered for no good reason. hence all of the attention

Cerberus

15:55

@JSBᾶngs Five tones, no less? How modest. And other languages in its (small) family have similar complexities? How do they even manage!

JSBᾶngs

i'd just as soon lock it, but meh

@Cerberus five tones is not so many. there are languages with as many as seven. i believe that closely-related Lao is about the same

Tai–Kadai languages

The Tai–Kadai languages, also known as Daic, Kadai, Kradai, or Kra–Dai, are a language family of highly tonal languages found in southern China and Southeast Asia. They include Thai and Lao, the national languages of Thailand and Laos respectively. There are nearly 100 million speakers of these languages in the world. Ethnologue lists 92 languages in this family, with 76 of these languages being in the Kam–Tai branch. The diversity of the Tai–Kadai languages in southeastern China, especially in Guizhou and Hainan, suggests that this is close to their homeland. The Tai branch moved south...

Cerberus

Seven!? But how do those tones work? I am only used to up, down, and up-down. I suppose down-up would fit in well, but the others...

JSBᾶngs

thai has low, medium, high, falling, and rising

Robusto

@Cerberus — If a language has more tones than we have quarks, it's too many.

JSBᾶngs

if we number the tone registers from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) those come out to low = 22, medium = 33, high = 45, falling = 52, rising = 14

actually, falling is more like 452. a high rise followed by a fall

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