Tristan

I think it's very unlikely that this is the explanation, but is there a chance they are just translating their name (e.g. if their name is Abdullah, Theodoulos, Obadiah, etc)? I think this would still be odd, but it is probably less unprofessional than otherwise.

Similarly, German tends to prefer Indogermanisch over Indoeuropäisch, whilst in English we do the reverse, preferring Indo-European over Indo-Germanic.

@HungarianMan a term being common in one language doesn't mean that the calqued term is common in another. Palatalgesetz may still be in common use in German (I don't know, my German isn't good enough for keeping up with the literature in German to generally be worthwhile for me), but that doesn't mean that "Palatal Law" has to be in English.

@JanusBahsJacquet no, the law mentioned by Jesperson is a palatalisation, and not a vocalic merger, it's just that the palatalisation also established that there had in fact been a vocalic merger (i.e. the palatalisation was a secondary split that only became phonemicised by the vocalic merger)

This shift was important to the history of the science of linguistics in allowing historical linguistics to supplant philology, but from a perspective that starts from a modern historical linguistic framework it has no significant bearing on our reconstruction of PIE

The early Sanskritistic reconstruction of PIE was never well-founded by modern historical linguistic standards, but this isn't surprising as it was developed using philological tools instead.

it was important at the time, but from a modern PoV we can see that the evidence outside Sanskrit was already more than sufficient to demonstrate their independence (in particular the fact that all the non-Indo-Iranian branches agree on the distinction between e and a/o, and of those branches that distinguish a & o generally agree there too).

@HungarianMan uhhhh, I know what palatal means, and what the palatal law is.

@HungarianMan that footnote makes no claim to this law being considered fundamental the way you seem to be saying. In fact the footnote just discusses who the likely discoverer was, it's the actual body that discusses its significance, but even then the significance is a matter of the history of our reconstruction of PIE, not to our modern reconstruction itself (which ofc has now progressed for over a century beyond its state in Jesperson's day)

in this particular case it seems that Jesperson is now more commonly called "second palatalization" (a term also used for a similar, but distinct shift in Slavic)

@theodor I would recommend that in future, if you come across unfamiliar terms in old works and want to find out what something is in more modern terminology that you phrase the question more like "what is the modern term for what so-and-so calls XYZ?", making sure to give a full and accurate reference to the work where you found the term. You should also include an indication of what prior research you've done towards an answer.

your ability to hear like a native Spanish-speaker is actually detrimental here

the phonetics are what's relevant here, not the phonemes

"you, like most people who know a language, are hearing the phoneme, and not the actual phonetics"

if you do not understand this then you are profoundly ill-equipped to discuss a question of loanword adaptation

the fact he uses the wrong allophone doesn't cause any issues for a Spanish-speaker understanding him, but a non-Spanish-speaking English-speaker will hear it differently than they hear the same word pronounced by someone using the correct allophone

so their adaptation of Spanish words depends on the phonetics not the phonemes in the word

the majority of English speakers are not Spanish speakers

people who do not know a language hear only the phonetics

you, like most people who know a language, are hearing the phoneme, and not the actual phonetics

you are profoundly missing the point if you think I am making a claim about transcription, and not his pronunciation

as I asked before

or do you believe that a [g] is correct here?

do you believe he is pronouncing a [ɣ̞] rather than a [g] then?

in the Spanish, he uses the wrong allophone, and his selection of the wrong allophone is pertinent to someone trying to understand how English might adapt a Spanish word

and again, I am talking about his Spanish pronunciation

he uses the right phoneme, but the wrong allophone ([g] not [ɣ̞]). His French accent is colouring his Spanish, in a way that is especially pertinent to the question here

you will also note that the RAE are using a non-standard transcription based on Spanish orthography rather than IPA, as evidence by their transcription of g + e, i as /j/, unless you seriously believe this is a palatal approximant and not the velar (or even uvular) voiceless fricative every phonetician agrees it is. Likewise, ñ is not a "nasal n", r is not a trill (but a tap) except word-initially, z is never voiced, etc etc etc

@Lambie the RAE are giving a phonemic transcription, not a phonetic one. That /g/ is pronounced as an open continuant [ɣ̞] rather than a stop [g] post-vocalically (actually any position other than post-pausa or after a nasal) is a well-known and understood fact of Spanish phonetics (the fact this continuant pronunciation is the default is why I, and many other linguists prefer to transcribe this phoneme /ɣ/ even in phonemic transcription). Read literally any linguistic description of Spanish and phonetics and this will be discussed in detail.

@Lambie his Spanish pronunciation is [ni.kaˈɾa.gwa] not [ni.kaˈɾa.ɣ̞wa] it is incorrect as Spanish-speakers will universally use the open pronunciation of the /ɣ/ in this environment, and not the stop. Do you think he does pronounce it as a [ɣ̞], or do you think a [g] is correct here?

@Lambie when I said he pronounced it incorrectly I was talking about when he gives the Spanish pronunciation. His English pronunciation is essentially correct, although his accent does still come through

it's worth noting that the speaker in the video has a French accent, which affects not only his English, but also his Spanish, and he incorrectly pronounces the g of Nicaragua as a [g] not as the [ɣ̞] it would be (almost?) universally in native Spanish speech

@OrangeDog I think this is actually an issue with RP phonology. Whilst he definitely does pronounce the éo of Théoden as a disyllable there, he pronounces it as a monosyllable in éored and Éomer albeit with the triphthong of mayor rather than the diphthong of bear. In RP, this triphthong could contextually be either reduced to that of bear or expanded to the two syllables of payer. I suspect this is exactly what's going on here, with the emphatic tone of Théoden's speech causing it to expand, but the appendix's note to use the vowel of bear based on the reduced form

@OrangeDog excellent link! That corroborates my reading of the appendices, that taking Pronunciation of Words and Names out of context without considering what he says in On Translation is the wrong way to go about it

@Randal'Thor this does now answer the question. I still disagree with the conclusion though, given the fact he chose to render them in using his translation convention (rather than in any in-universe language), which indicates to me that he would have intended them to be read as in that language (likewise the names from Rohan or Dale). I suspect the appendices do not accurately reflect his intent in this regard, but of course cannot show this (I am unable to find any audio of him using these particular names)

@OrangeDog sure, but unless the answer quotes the relevant passage (in particular including the section you gave in your comment about the personal and place-names of Rohan, which are the most relevant to this case, them also being rendered by the translation convention as Old English) it is irrelevant, because the answer does not establish any reason to believe we should expect this name to follow Quenya or Sindarin orthography

@Randal'Thor regarding the use of an acute to mark that a sequence of two vowel letters should be pronounced as two distinct vowels rather than as a diphthong, Spanish ía could be argued to count. Regardless, Jeff is undoubtedly incorrect, that's not what Tolkien's doing here

Sméagol is neither a Quenya nor Sindarin name though so this answer fails to actually address the question. It's rendered as Old English (in the same way the personal and place-names of Rohan are), so the explanation of the pronunciation of those is infinitely more relevant than the explanation of the pronunciation of Quenya and Sindarin.

in English the spelling is the only source of confusion, and the current spelling exists for historical reasons (in particular because the orthography was adapted from Latin, which has sp but no sb), not phonetic ones. If we had always spelt these words with sb (as is done, for instance, in Welsh for loans from English) there would be no confusion

If you cut up audio clips, it's easy to show that English speakers interpret [pæt] as "bat" (and [pʰæt] as "pat") by removing the [s] from the start of someone saying "spat". See this video from Geoff Lindsey youtube.com/watch?v=U37hX8NPgjQ (also these other two videos from him on aspiration in English youtube.com/watch?v=6PSdlctYBsw & youtube.com/watch?v=xe6MIo816jo)

@mikerodent ah true, it is of course not currently spoken (but then neither are Ancient Greek, Classical Armenian, or Latin)

depending on how important indigeneity is (it is after all only a parenthetical requirement), Punic might also count. It had a three-way system between voiceless aspirated, voiced, and a third series that was presumably at one point emphatic (likely ejective), but seems to have lost that feature entirely at some point, essentially reducing to the same system as in Ancient Greek

Welsh is another that, like Scottish Gaelic, has a pretty clear aspiration vs non-aspiration system. The overall picture seems to be that such a system is (today) an areal trait in the North Sea. In terms of other European languages with a three-way distinction, educated Latin seems to have had this, although that's almost exclusively as a result of Greek loans (or words that were adapted by folk etymology on the model of a Greek word with an aspirate)

@barmar that's why I said "or who are attending events where it could reasonably argued that showing their views, or what ridiculous things they'll agree to is in the public interest"...

@Barmar they're typically interviewing people who are already public figures, or who are attending events where it could reasonably argued that showing their views, or what ridiculous things they'll agree to is in the public interest. That's a far cry from what the guy who filmed the "hawk tuah" girl video was doing, just interviewing drunk people on a night out until one of them says something funny. I don't think anyone could really argue that she was already in the public eye or that sharing her sex tips is in the public interest

I struggle to see how such videos are likely satire or parody or journalism. I can see how the person doing the interview might try and defend it as journalism, but many of these youtube channels and tiktok accounts are pretty transparent that their videos exist for entertainment value. Whilst satire and parody may be entertaining, arguing that such videos are satire & parody would seem to require them to be a satire or parody of something and it's extremely unclear what that something could be

(noting ofc that in practice peasants had no choice in whether to enter some form of tenure, only limited choice in its form, and any court deciding a dispute between peasant and lord would be biased towards the lord, such that the peasant had little recourse should their lord fail to meet their obligations towards their tenants)

@ohwilleke you seem to have moved the goalposts from the people being owed protection by their rulers (as posed in the original question) to peasants being free. Whilst the latter certainly wasn't true (although I think you are somewhat oversimplifying the various different forms of peasant tenure and focussing on some of the least free), the former absolutely was and that protection was a key part of the peasants' contracts of tenure

@uberhaxed precisely. Divine right and absolute rule was a reaction to the rise of parliaments and assemblies and developed in the early modern period. It postdates them (and the idea of the monarch owing protection to the people) rather than predating them as this answer incorrectly claims

@uberhaxed try ~1500 onwards. Circa 1200 monarchs may have ruled "by the grace of God", but they didn't rule as absolute monarchs as we tend to understand rule "by divine right" today