English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

KannE

12:16 AM

@Mitch Mom! Make him stop! I think you've been put in ping time out.

Cerberus

12:27 AM

@Robusto Excellent!

I've added a little comment to eke out a few more details.

This answer explains the Roman naming system well, and how Octavianus fits into it. The only remaining question is, in what contexts would the name Octavianus have been used? In formal letters, but only as part of the full (tripartite+) name? Among friends? When being addressed by members of the gens Iulia? Would he ever have used it himself as a single name, in any situation? — Cerberus ♦ 37 secs ago

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен +1. took some thought

@KannE ᵖᶦⁿᵍ

KannE

2:05 AM

Only his mom called him that...
when he was in trouble...
until his older brother died...
then she just called him Seven...
all the time...
and didn't bother to renumber the rest...
That's why it's so confusing...
Old Seven was her favorite, you know...
May he R.I.P.

Cerberus

7 of 9?

KannE

@Cerberus Yes!

I wonder if they have those reruns on Netflix. I'm going to miss Eleven...

Cerberus

We've watched most of Voyager on Netflix, but I believe then they pulled the plug, so we had to watch the last few episodes on some vague site.

So it depends on where you live.

Eleven I do not remember?

Incidentally, do you, too, hate the many holodeck episodes?

KannE

Eleven is on Stranger Things. They cancelled it. I loved it...I felt like I was in middle school again.

Cerberus

That I do not know.

KannE

2:14 AM

I got tired of the Borg prison episodes or whatever it was called. I mean how many times can someone slip onto that thing without getting caught? Maybe I'm exaggerating...I haven't seen it in many years.

Cerberus

What prison?

The place where the Queen lives?

That's no holodeck?

So you have no opinion on holodeck episodes?

KannE

I was just saying I got tired of the cube thing...What's the holodeck? The virtual reality thing?

Cerberus

Yes.

By cube you mean the Borg cubes, their ships?

I think they enter a different ship each time.

KannE

I haven't seen it since it aired...and I have memory loss...but weren't they lame? That's all I remember.

Cerberus

But, yeah, the whole transporter thing often seems inconsistent in Star Trek.

@KannE Quite!

A cheap way to reuse old décors Hollywood had lying around from something else, to create an episode that has nothing to do with what people what the series for, which is stuff happening in the Star Trek universe, science fiction.

Not some completely different frame story.

KannE

2:30 AM

I watched every episode, religiously, with my husband...until every scene was shot on that dang Borg thing (again, I'm probably exaggerating), but I got bored with it after that; it broke up our 'date night'...sad.

Cerberus

Aww.

You can skip and/or fast forward episodes that you don't like on Netflix.

We do it, too.

Mainly holodeck and other alternate-reality episodes.

KannE

2:50 AM

I'm not sure if I'm remembering Voyager or Star Trek, but wasn't the holodeck like a school play set...or a prom? I remember a lot of trellises for some reason...and bright pink? I dunno.

Cerberus

3:01 AM

@KannE It was a deck that they could change into any landscape or location whatsoever.

When it was off, you could see black walls with bright lines like trellises.

KannE

Bright pink skies maybe...neon yellow-green foilage...like a very bad Pixar movie...in the background? I must watch it all over again...Yay! Date night!

Cerberus

It's basically just an excuse to reuse an old set from some other television programme or film, or to just record an episode in a real location.

KannE

Oh, I remember that bottom one...they were lame. I must be remembering something from Star Trek...like big ole wicker chairs and feathers...ha-ha, I dunno. I think they were supposed to be groovy, but they were just weird.

Robusto

3:36 AM

Jan 7 '12 at 21:41, by Robusto

@Cerberus — Hence Schopenhauer's chiastic pun upon the death of an old woman to whom he owed money: Obit anus abit onus.

Cerberus

4:16 AM

@KannE They were lame indeed.

I think they were mainly supposed to be cheap and lazy.

(The ellipsis again!)

@Robusto Still nice.

Jan 7 '12 at 21:44, by Cerberus

The vowels are chiastic, while the rest of the words are parallel.

We can just repeat our old conversations! We still think the same things.

Jasper

5:40 AM

@Cerberus That's what I do. I talk to myself about the same things every day.

SmokeDetector

1:03 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected, blacklisted user (229): Help! Is there a word for this? by Will A on english.SE

Færd

1:13 PM

It's die Niederlande in German, not die Niederländer. And it's plural nevertheless.

CowperKettle

> The Department for State Regulation of the Circulation of Medicines of the Ministry of Healthcare of Russia, having examined your letter and attached documents, expands clinical study authorization No. 123 by adding the following medical institutions to the list of medical institutions taking part in the clinical study (Appendix No. 1):

I wonder if this expands is okay

I first used supplements but changed it to expands

KannE

I usually edit them out for you...or sometimes, rather.
I was tired...or am, rather, continuously.
I have these soft returns under my belt though.
But full stops shut down my brain completely when I'm tired or whatever.
(Notice and applaud my success--not placing an ellipsis after *tired*.)
Em-dashes are another matter.
I would say em-dashes indicate I'm feeling bossy and too many ellipses generally indicate I have nothing of value left to say.
Notice and frown--all these soft returns have become your nightmare.

*Em dashes

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto magnum opus ognum mapus

KannE

2:12 PM

As long as "How to prevent unicorns from eating daisies" is the title of the example question in the tour, which implies this--*We're fun! Come join us! It's a big silly party every day! Type whatever and eat a unicorn and/or daisy cupcake at the same time!*--and more...
I think I am perfectly justified in upvoting any question by a user with one point that is downvoted for any reason.
If so, I will begin immediately.
If not, please splain it, Lucy.
SMH...

Mitch

Oct 18 at 14:11, by Mitch

Jun 1 at 19:04, by Mitch

May 17 '17 at 19:08, by Mitch

there's nothing new under the sun

Jul 17 '17 at 14:38, by Mitch

'There is nothing new under the sun' is not new under the sun

Jul 17 '17 at 14:38, by Mitch

' 'There is nothing new under the sun' is not new under the sun' is probably not new under the sun

Here's something new:

blah blah blah

dang it...

more instances than you can count...

Robusto

2:44 PM

@RegDwigнt: I had a dream last night where you were going to be in Las Vegas for some reason and wanted to meet up. So I went there and we had brunch in the mall of some casino. You had a bunch of recording equipment with you, one item of which you left on a chair as we went to find a piano (there were piano kiosks all over the mall).
I was going to show you a piece by some composer who had been dubbed "the French J.S. Bach, only neo-Romantic and somewhat modern," but all the pianos were being used at that time. I could feel the piece under my fingers, but no keyboard available. Then I reme…

@Mitch There is nothing new under the sun that is not new and under the sun.

Apr 29 at 2:45, by RegDwigнt

Sep 15 '16 at 12:55, by RegDwigнt

Mar 24 at 23:08, by RegDwigнt

Mar 2 '11 at 13:43, by Robusto

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

Feb 18 at 10:59, by Robusto

13 hours ago, by Robusto

27 secs ago, by RegDwight

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

Feb 7 at 15:38, by RegDwight

Russell's paradox

In the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction. The same paradox had been discovered a year before by Ernst Zermelo but he did not publish the idea, which remained known only to Hilbert, Husserl and other members of the University of Göttingen. Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R qualifies as a member of itself, it would contradict its own definition as a set containing sets that are not member...

@MattE.Эллен Almost there. You left out the part where it has to actually make sense.

tchrist

2:59 PM

E2LONG

Cerberus

5:34 PM

@KannE You're doing so well!!

RegDwigнt

6:15 PM

@Robusto that is a spectacular story. I need to turn it into an Instagram movie. Also, I googled "piano kiosk" and then spent 25 minutes looking at LEGO pianos, because that's what it gave me.

Sep 24 '12 at 21:12, by RegDwighт

Because you think sense, and they think nonsense. Think different.

hbtpoprock

6:53 PM

Can you tell me whether we can omit this sentence please?
"What's the name of the girl who won the tennis tournament?"
Could it be "What's the name of the girl winning the tennis tournament?"?

Robusto

8:15 PM

@RegDwigнt Piano kiosks in a mall are not really a thing, except in that dream. Basically there was a piano "station" every 30 paces or so in that mall. It made as much sense as the rest of the dream.

Also, if we'd gotten that piece of equipment we would have been entitled to butt in on someone else's piano kiosk. But I woke up before that happened.

@RegDwigнt A dominant chord that never resolves? Where's the fun in that?

This is awesome:

NRA - Sunday with Lubach

►

I presume they're speaking Dutch.

Cerberus

9:07 PM

@Robusto He is indeed.

Now among the most popular programmes on public television (or any any Dutch television).

Sep 24 '12 at 21:25, by Cerberus

That song has once been sung on an Apple device.

Cerberus

9:50 PM

@RegDwigнt Is this Lego?

The delta commission have apparently made a model of the dikes and other elements of water management in the province of Zeeland.

The PM is pointing at some detail.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto you should ask that to Haydn. Or Schubert. Or any number of other jokers who were into that kind of thing.

@Cerberus well it's whatever bricks they are using. Could be a cheap Chinese knockoff for all we know. Can't tell from a picture alone.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Ah, OK.

Well, if it can be Lego, then it probably is, because the department of infrastructure should have enough money for that.

RegDwigнt

10:08 PM

@Robusto I figured as much, but googled regardless. You never know with you Americans. Like, the NRA actually is a thing. Or imperial units. So for all we know, there's actually a piano kiosk every 30 paces all over Kansas. Who's been to Kansas, ever.

And I'm not even mentioning that other example you keep scolding me for every time I bring him up.

SmokeDetector

10:19 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body (97): To capitalize, or not to capitalize inside the quote by YBG on english.SE

RegDwigнt

Well, there's someone with "mus" in their name who's more into maths and physics rather than music. That's curious.

Then again, music is just maths and physics. So what do I know.

And since when does Feeds spam the same question twice.

Is this part of the new design?

Cerberus

10:40 PM

Music is from Muse.

And there are muses for exact sciences, such as Urania, the Muse of astronomy (Greek Ouranos, Latinised Uranus, is heaven (and the god of the heavens, the father of Zeus)).

RegDwigнt

Music is from Euterpe, you philistine.

But of course you'd know all about Uranus instead.

Cerberus

Philhellene, rather.

RegDwigнt

Phil Collins - Father To Son

►

Phill Jupitus on Overreacting - Live At The Apollo - BBC

►

Dr. Phil To Guest: ‘Do Not Insult My Intelligence’

►

Cerberus

10:59 PM

Your Google seems to be stuck.

RegDwigнt

I was just typing "but enough of these shenanigans" this very moment.

I need to do a whole lot of cooking tomorrow morning, so I better get to bed.

Пуфф!

Cerberus

Oh?

A party?

Double phi, even?

RegDwigнt

Jesus you're so slow.

I was out of the room already.

Cerberus

Oh, I see.

RegDwigнt

Yes double F.

Cerberus

11:04 PM

You're always out of the room when you reply.

Y?

RegDwigнt

Cuz.

Cerberus

Oh, of course.

RegDwigнt

You can use one as well I guess.

But that'd be you.

And I am I.

Cerberus

And boy do we know that.

RegDwigнt

Anyway yes hopefully a party. Or maybe just some violin and vodka for eight hours straight.

we'll see.

Cerberus

11:05 PM

Whom have you invited?

RegDwigнt

I've not invited anyone.

Cerberus

Eight hours is a long time.

RegDwigнt

People constantly invite themselves.

Cerberus

Ah.

That can be ффуn.

RegDwigнt

Феноменально.

Cerberus

11:08 PM

но?

Is that some adjectival suffix? An ending?

RegDwigнt

Anyway. My bro is showing up, and I actually don't know if he's coming alone or with people.

@Cerberus adverb.

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

x2

RegDwigнt

Like the -al, for that matter.

Cerberus

The -al is Latin.

RegDwigнt

Yeah.

Cerberus

11:09 PM

But the know I did not но.

RegDwigнt

So rather than going phenomen + no, they took the whole detour via phenomen + al + no.

Silly people.

Cerberus

ноu

So like phaenomenally. That's not so odd.

RegDwigнt

At any rate tomorrow I will be playing my next waltz for the first time. World premiere. Though I think I will need to add 8 bars in one place.

We'll see.

Cerberus

Cool.

You still have all night.

RegDwigнt

No I need like ten seconds.

Then maybe a minute to scribble it down.

Cerberus

11:12 PM

P.S. I do want at least a perfunctory chuckle over my "But the know I did not но.".

RegDwigнt

It was funneh. But chuckle, that's a tall order.

Cerberus

They always say it'll only take a minute...

hangs heads

RegDwigнt

And then it takes five seconds.

Cerberus

Or five days.

RegDwigнt

You could write fifty waltzes in five days.

Cerberus

11:13 PM

I'm just fixing this one little bug, I won't be long.

RegDwigнt

Well, maybe not you.

Cerberus

Indeed not.

KannE

@hbtpoprock Omit it or change it? Anyway, won if the tournament is over; winning if the tournament is in progress.

RegDwigнt

You could learn it in five days, though.

And then write them all in the remaining five seconds.

Cerberus

But not with feeling.

RegDwigнt

11:13 PM

Feeling-schmeeling.

Cerberus

A mechanical exercise, what good is that.

RegDwigнt

You can have feelings when you're dead.

Cerberus

You, perhaps, when I bite you as you're trying to escape Tartarus.

RegDwigнt

That's another one they've borrowed. Тартарары.

Used in the meaning "where the sun don't shine".

Cerberus

-ar(something)?

(I don't know how to translitterate ы.)

RegDwigнt

11:16 PM

Maybe just pure prosody.

Not a productive suffix or anything.

Cerberus

The suffix has no meaning?

RegDwigнt

The Y is the plural.

Cerberus

OK.

Is ы always translitterated as y?

So why did you choose this suffix -ar-?

If it has no meaning.

RegDwigнt

I chose nothing. I am reporting on the choices others made.

Cerberus

Oh.

RegDwigнt

11:18 PM

I said they borrowed.

Cerberus

This is in common use in Russian?

RegDwigнt

I didn't say I am about to.

Cerberus

I misread, thought you said "I borrowed".

RegDwigнt

Yeah, катиться в тартарары or some such.

@Cerberus it's okay, wait a couple minutes and you'll forget all about it.

Anyway. If anything people keep complaining about all the feelings. All that melancholy and depression. We discussed.

Cerberus

Katit( )sha?

RegDwigнt

11:19 PM

To go. Literally to roll.

To roll to all hell or whatever.

Cerberus

Oh.

That's nice.

How should ь be translitterated?

RegDwigнt

Sometimes you'll see an apostrophe.

Sometimes a y

I usually leave it out altogether.

Cerberus

Depending on the linguistic environment, or only on the author?

OK.

KannE

@hbtpoprock See Reducing Relative Clauses (by adding -ing to the verb). writingcenter.unc.edu/relative-clauses

RegDwigнt

Depending on the standard they are using. There are ISO standards and French standards and whatnot.

Cerberus

11:21 PM

OK.

But those who choose to translitterate it will use the same sign for it in any word?

RegDwigнt

But in Russian it never has a sound anyway, only changes the sound before it, and in a way that most languages can't even reproduce, so I don't see a point in transcribing it at all.

@Cerberus I am not too familiar with the standards. Could be that they do do different things in different contexts.

The y is horribly overloaded anyway. It transcribes like two letters already.

Cerberus

> it does not represent an individual sound but indicates palatalization of the preceding consonant

That's why I forgot...

RegDwigнt

It's the soft sign.

There's also the hard sign.

Cerberus

So a more palatal t.

RegDwigнt

And between them in the alphabet is your ы.

Cerberus

11:24 PM

Perhaps the Russians think that sign will make their language more palatable.

Hmm I thought y was /u/?

But so it can also be something else?

RegDwigнt

Which is usually rendered as y. Which can also be just a glide, i. e. й. So whenever you see like ый, which is in like every other word, you have no idea what to do. So some people actually write yy, others just one y.

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

RegDwigнt

Don't make this unnecessarily complicated. Y is not /u/. У is /u/.

Cerberus

Yes, that.

So you meant it the other way around, with the actual 'Latin' y representing two Cyrillic sounds/letters.

RegDwigнt

Well yes.

Is what I'm talking about the whole time.

Cerberus

11:27 PM

I somehow thought we had switched to Cyrillic У, but no.

RegDwigнt

So the very first two words of the USSR anthem, союз нерушимый, you have it right there. Nerushimy or nerushimyy? People can't decide. Both kinda suck. No good third option, either.

Cerberus

So ы is always translitterated as y?

@RegDwigнt I have seen the double yy on occasion.

RegDwigнt

Yeah well there's no other way to represent it really. It's not part of anyone else's phonotactics.

Cerberus

Thought I don't remember in which words.

@RegDwigнt OK.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus is what I'm saying. You see it. Sometimes. And sometimes you don't. Because either way it kinda sucks.

Cerberus

11:29 PM

What does Soyuz(?) mean anyway?

RegDwigнt

Union.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Yes, I am just expressing my affirmative thoughts.

@RegDwigнt Noted. And is that the right translitteration?

RegDwigнt

An indestructible union of free republics forever united the mighty Rus.

Cerberus

(Yet another use for y?)

RegDwigнt

And there you have it, the Rus in Russian has that soft sign at the end. Русь.

Cerberus

11:31 PM

Ah.

RegDwigнt

So what do you do now? Some write Rus'. Others Rusy. And you're already seeing all the problems with that.

Cerberus

And there is no way to render сь as opposed to с?

@RegDwigнt Ah, yes, I remember seeing the apostrophe in that word.

Not the -y, though.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus Well how do you render it in English, when English does not have that distinction?

Cerberus

How would it be rendered in IPA?

Maybe I can remember if it is a sound that's used in some other language I know.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus yeah it's a bad example actually. At the end of a word you'd not use the y really. But in the middle, you see that all the time. Still with the same issue that if you don't know the word, you might think it's supposed to be a й or an ы or whatever.

Cerberus

11:33 PM

OK.

I presume the s is not palatised all the way to /ʃ/?

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus palatalized sounds in IPA is typically a superscript J.

Cerberus

Okay.

RegDwigнt

But that in turn leads to problems. Because people go ahead and just pronounce that as /j/. A proper glide.

Cerberus

Yes.

RegDwigнt

Which is how you get all the horrible Western names like Katya and Tanya and Sonya and Tonya.

That is not at all how the names go originally.

It's a soft N and then straight away an A. No glide in-between. No J.

Cerberus

11:35 PM

@RegDwigнt So those are all ь?

RegDwigнt

Ah no, those are all я.

Cerberus

Ahh, that makes more sense.

RegDwigнt

You see, Russian has six vowel sounds, but ten vowel letters.

Cerberus

But the я does the same thing to the preceding consonant?

Confusing.

RegDwigнt

а и о у э ы are the basic vowels. But these make the consonants before them always hard.

Cerberus

11:36 PM

I know Russian has extensive vowel reduction.

Ah.

RegDwigнt

So if the consonant is to be soft, you have to indicate that by using a different letter. я for а, е for э and so on.

Cerberus

I know e makes the preceding consonant soft.

But I also thought o did that.

(And I believe those letters also add some sort of sound at the beginning when they are the first letter in a word?)

RegDwigнt

My key for the O one fell off.

Cerberus

Oh.

RegDwigнt

It's е but with the two dots above it.

Cerberus

11:38 PM

Ahh that one.

So you don't often type Russian?

RegDwigнt

I constantly have to google for hedgehogs or spruce because of that.

If I need that letter.

Then I can copypaste it off the google results page.

Cerberus

You might want to create a simple Autohotkey script.

RegDwigнt

I might want not to.

The funny thing about that one letter is that it's fine never to use it and use е instead.

A native speaker will parse right past it and replace it in their head.

Kind of like with ss instead of ß.

Cerberus

Huh.

RegDwigнt

Though not really. But kind of.

Cerberus

11:41 PM

And that is not considered a soloecism?

RegDwigнt

I think it was Catherine the Great who even introduced it in the first place. Before that, everyone just used e all the time.

And sometimes you'd say "ye" and sometimes "yo", and everyone knew when to say what.

Cerberus

:*?:eqq::ё

RegDwigнt

But she decided to give the second one its own letter.

Cerberus

This will render ё whenever you type eqq.

Then I wonder why she didn't use e.g. ö.

RegDwigнt

I dunno, but the state the Russian alphabet was in at the time, they had like 90 letters already, so the ö probably was taken.

Cerberus

11:43 PM

Weird.

RegDwigнt

I'm only joking but then again not really.

I really don't have the time to go into any kind of detail on any of this.

Cerberus

Now I'm hungry.

Go cook.

RegDwigнt

There are like fifty tangents of interest that we've already blazed right past.

Cerberus

As always.

RegDwigнt

You keep asking new questions while I've not even answered like 1% of your very first one.

It's a vast field.

Cerberus

11:44 PM

I know.

I'm not a patient dog.

So I'll try to translitterate ь as nothing, and ы as y.

In English.

RegDwigнt

So anyway. This one thing I will mention because I almost did. We were almost there.

8 mins ago, by RegDwigнt

So if the consonant is to be soft, you have to indicate that by using a different letter. я for а, е for э and so on.

So the names for those letter pairs are just "ya" and "a", and "yo" and "o" and "ye" and "e" and "yu" and "u".

Cerberus

(But I would translitterate a word starting with e- as ye-, right, as in Yekaterina thingy blah?)

@RegDwigнt That makes sense.

RegDwigнt

And when there's no consonant in front of all those y-variants, you just straight up pronounce the Y. Like, еда, food. Pronounced yeda.

Now, here's the thing.

Sometimes you still want to do that even when there is a consonant before it.

Cerberus

Right.

RegDwigнt

So you need to indicate a sort of glottal stop, if you will. Say the consonant, then say the vowel, complete with the y, rather than letting the y make the consonant soft and disappear.

Cerberus

11:48 PM

@RegDwigнt To be distinguished from when you merely want to palatise the preceding consonant?

Right.

RegDwigнt

And that's one other use of that soft sign, ь. And the hard sign ъ.

Cerberus

Ahh.

Other uses.

RegDwigнt

So for example, drive-in would be въезд.

Cerberus

Why not use э there?

RegDwigнt

You have the root for "drive", езд, and you have the prefix for "in", and you want to combine them.

Cerberus

11:49 PM

I think I heard that э is somehow mainly used in foreign words.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus because the root is езд. With the Y pronounced. It's part of the root word. The root word is not "ezd", it's "yezd".

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt And for some reason you don't want the glide-like/palatal sound in the compound?

RegDwigнt

You might still want it.

That's what the soft sign is for.

вьезд would both keep the V palatalized and preserve the Y of the vowel.

Cerberus

So there are three possibilities: hard consonant, soft consonant, consonant + /j/.

Right?

@RegDwigнt OK makes sense.

RegDwigнt

Hard consonant, soft consonant, hard consonant + /j/, soft consonant + /j/. Four.

Cerberus

11:52 PM

Ah, OK.

RegDwigнt

So for example, the French word métier, you'd write that as метье.

Cerberus

But you would never want to use hard consonant + /j/ with that root езд?

RegDwigнt

Likewise, monsieur would be месье.

With the last letter optionally getting the two dots above it.

Cerberus

So schwa and /e/ are both something like e?

Ah.

RegDwigнt

Argh, did I not say no new questions.

Cerberus

11:54 PM

I apologise.

It's just so complicated.

RegDwigнt

This is like the hugest field of them all. Every vowel in Russian is a schwa if it's unstressed.

So let's leave the schwa out of this just now.

Cerberus

Right, right, the vowel reduction.

I was just surprised to see French o rendered as e.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus Exactly. So don't make it even more complicated.

@Cerberus that we just discussed.

Catherine went and said, you must use a different letter when the ye is actually a yo.

But before that, and even after that, everyone just uses e regardless.

Cerberus

But you said the last letter, not the first e.

RegDwigнt

Ah okay.

Cerberus

11:55 PM

Well, let's get off the reduction tangent.

RegDwigнt

Yeah well that's vowel reduction alright.

You don't have nasal in Russian.-

I guess Polish would render it with their little cedille under the vowel.

Yes, let's get back.

@Cerberus yes, you would want to use that, and indeed that's what my example was all about.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt (It isn't nasal in French either—though perhaps it was in the 18th century?)

RegDwigнt

Let's not start discussing French on top of all this galimatias.

Cerberus

What language is galimatias!

RegDwigнt

That's another word Russian borrowed. Галиматья.

Note your favorite combo at the end.

Cerberus

11:58 PM

It's French, apparently.

RegDwigнt

T, softened, but the A afterwards still keeps its Y in front of it.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Which still does sound like -ya?

Right.

RegDwigнt

Yeah, like the German word tja.

Cerberus

Okay.

RegDwigнt

Galima-tja.

Cerberus

11:58 PM

Or the Dutch word tja.

RegDwigнt

I don't know that one. Sounds made up.

Also for all I know you pronounce the T in yours completely differently, so let's not drag Dutch into this.

I can only vow for German.

Cerberus

Dutch tja is a resigned way of saying ja.

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