Random language thread 6

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-06-25, 16:32

Still sorry for not noticing earlier, though

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-06-25, 16:43

vijayjohn wrote:Still sorry for not noticing earlier, though

There really is quite a lot going on in this thread. :mrgreen:

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby linguoboy » 2019-06-25, 19:34

So I had one of those chilling moments where an obsolete figurative reference suddenly became relevant again.

Last week, Trump announced that there would be ICE raids in ten cities (including Chicago) targeting foreign nationals that had been flagged for deportation. People were sharing information on the legal limits to ICE's enforcement powers and what we could do to stop them. I texted a friend who I know is undocumented to offer my help. I wanted him to know I was serious so I told him "We're friends and I'm not going to leave you in the lurch" but I didn't know how to say that last bit in Spanish. I looked it up and found dejar en la estacada, which literally means "to leave in the stockade".

And then it hit me that could literally be what happens to him given what US Customs and Border Protection is doing these days.
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Vlürch » 2019-06-26, 15:19

vijayjohn wrote:Weird. I see the same. Must be something screwy with Google's search algorithm or something again.

Oh well.
vijayjohn wrote:Possibly some Salishan languages, such as Shuswap. For whatever it's worth, I can't find any evidence yet that those languages have any other means of pluralization.

Interesting and cool. The phonology of Shuswap seems pretty interesting too, especially not having /s/ but instead /ɬ/ which contrasts with /ʃ/. I also really like that it has /ɰ/ since that's a nice sound, and it's hilarious that the Wikipedia article basically just gives up: "most other reduplications are difficult to explain". :lol:
vijayjohn wrote:I know I've said this before, but that smiley does not look to me like someone shrugging their shoulders, dammit. It looks to me like someone getting electrocuted at regular intervals or something. :P

I've always seen it as someone having two hand-cranked drills in their head, even if logically thinking the wrong part is changing for it to actually look like that. :P
france-eesti wrote:Has any of you any tip I could use so as to make easier for her?

If the problem is pronouncing certain sounds, maybe teach her to produce them in isolation first? Or if the problem is not knowing how to make certain distinctions while singing (eg. /iː/ or /ɪ/), the easy solution would be to just ignore the distinction and go with whichever sounds better; that's what I do myself when I sing in English lol, and I'd bet a lot of native Anglophone singers do as well since the issue becomes euphonic rather than phonemic.

Maybe I'm giving bad advice and you should ignore the above paragraph.

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby france-eesti » 2019-06-27, 8:50

So first, sorry I made a mistake by copying and pasting in "quote", sorry Linguoboy and Linguaphile! Next time I'll be careful enough and won't make this mistake again :D
Then thank you so much for your advice, yes I saw 3rd line is a repetition of the end of 1st line so it indeed makes it easier for her, 3rd line is usually good if she could remember the 1st line!

Everyday we rehearse and sing together and her main problem is she is finding it difficult to remember some isolated words:
- choosing
- with (I told her : oui + v, which is really not good but good enough if you sing along with 60 other pupils) :silly:
- sharing
- shaking
- spreading

Once again I find it very difficult they have to sing something they don't understand - and without too understanding how the language works. It wasn't quite early in learning English that we studied the -ing form. So that's a lot of -ing for her and verbs that are kind of away from French. She can easilier remember "dancing" due to the French word "danser" of course :D
anyway her "torture" is almost finished as the school end of year celebration will be held on Saturday and then this song will be all but forgotten :D
Anyway thank you so much for your points of view, it's very interesting! :partyhat:
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby OldBoring » 2019-06-27, 13:01

When I was in primary school, our English teacher wrote the full song in Italian phonetic transcription

Descin tru de snou
In a uan hors open slei
Over de filz ui go
Laffin ol de uei!

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-06-27, 14:54

OldBoring wrote:When I was in primary school, our English teacher wrote the full song in Italian phonetic transcription

Descin tru de snou
In a uan hors open slei
Over de filz ui go
Laffin ol de uei!

Mai boni lai sober da ochan,
Mai boni lai sober da si,
Mai boni lai sober da ochan,
O brin bac mai boni tu mi.

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby linguoboy » 2019-06-27, 16:19

I've been trying to find chilacayote (Cucurbita ficifolia) in the markets around here and I'm really getting annoyed by the number of people who think I mean chayote. Yeah, I understand that chayote is like 100 times more common, but these words sound very different! One has almost twice as many syllables as the other! It doesn't seem to matter whether I'm speaking English or Spanish either.
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-06-27, 17:58

linguoboy wrote:I've been trying to find chilacayote (Cucurbita ficifolia) in the markets around here and I'm really getting annoyed by the number of people who think I mean chayote. Yeah, I understand that chayote is like 100 times more common, but these words sound very different! One has almost twice as many syllables as the other! It doesn't seem to matter whether I'm speaking English or Spanish either.

chayote - from Náhuatl (hui)tzayohtli = "thorny gourd"
chilacayote - from Náhuatl tzilacayohtli = "smooth gourd"
:P

At least they are both squash. ("No, we don't have sopes de carne asada today; how about some chicken soup?") :D Sellers don't like to say "no, we don't have that;" even if they know what you meant, they'll offer you whatever thing they do have which they consider to be the closest equivalent or something often purchased by customers with similar tastes, hoping you'll go for that one instead and they'll make a sale. "Welllll... no chilacayote but... take a look at this lovely pile of chayotes!"
This is also why restaurants try to offer me root beer (yuck) when I ask if they have Dr. Pepper (yum), instead of just telling me "we don't have Dr. Pepper". Okay, they are both odd-flavored, dark-colored fizzy American drinks that aren't Coke or Pepsi, but they are not the same and a lack of Dr. Pepper isn't going to make me like root beer any more than chicken soup is going to end my craving for sopes. :mrgreen:

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby linguoboy » 2019-06-27, 18:08

Linguaphile wrote:("No, we don't have sopes de carne asada today; how about some chicken soup?")

That's hilarious.

I understand why sellers do that. The last straw was posting about my quest on FB and having one of my friends be like, "Do you mean chayotes?" BISH, THE WORD IS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU AND IT'S NOT "CHAYOTE".

Relatedly, I've been surprised how tough it's been to find huitlacoche. It's common enough at Mexican restaurants here, but asking for it has gotten me stares of incomprehension at several places. It's like they've never even heard of it before.
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-06-27, 18:28

linguoboy wrote:Relatedly, I've been surprised how tough it's been to find huitlacoche. It's common enough at Mexican restaurants here, but asking for it has gotten me stares of incomprehension at several places. It's like they've never even heard of it before.

My favorite was when I went to a small Mexican restaurant with a friend and she couldn't remember what huitlacoche was called; she tried to ask for it in English this way: "Do you have fungus? You know, corn fungus? Like in quesadillas?" The waiter had no idea what she was talking about; I think he thought my friend was accusing the restaurant of serving bad food. :doggy: (And no, they didn't have any. It's not very common in small-town restaurants around here in the western US. :D )

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby linguoboy » 2019-06-27, 19:50

Linguaphile wrote:My favorite was when I went to a small Mexican restaurant with a friend and she couldn't remember what huitlacoche was called; she tried to ask for it in English this way: "Do you have fungus? You know, corn fungus? Like in quesadillas?" The waiter had no idea what she was talking about; I think he thought my friend was accusing the restaurant of serving bad food.

Even worse, the common name in English is "corn smut". (Or at least it was before the marketing people got involved.)

The store last night had it, but only in 32 oz jars. I felt like I had to buy one after putting them through so much trouble (the stocker scanned the aisles for at least 15 minutes) but that's waaaaaay more than I'll ever use so I offered some to one of my neighbours. Even though he speaks Spanish and has worked in restaurants, he didn't recognise either "huitlacoche" or "corn smut". Finally I showed him the jar and he's like, "Oh, corn truffle!"
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Yasna » 2019-06-27, 20:21

The pronunciation of coelenterate is apparently /sēˈlentərāt/. Is there any rhyme or reason to the pronunciation of that initial syllable? The etymology is Greek koilos and enteron, if that helps.
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby linguoboy » 2019-06-27, 21:08

Yasna wrote:The pronunciation of coelenterate is apparently /sēˈlentərāt/. Is there any rhyme or reason to the pronunciation of that initial syllable? The etymology is Greek koilos and enteron, if that helps.

That's SOP for <coe> in New Latin AFAIK. Viz. <coelacanth> /ˈsiː.lə.kænθ/.

Historically, Greek <οι> yielded Latin <oe>, which fell together with plain <e> during the Classical Era. In most cases, the spelling has been changed to match, e.g. <ἐπίκοινον> > <epicoenon> > <epicene>, <κοιμητήριον> > <coemeterium> > <cemetery>, <κοινόβῐον> > <coenobium> > <cenoby>*. But of course there are always exceptions and the element <coel> seems to be one of them. See also <mesocoel>, <haemocoel>, <blastocoel>, etc., all with /siːl/.

* Still spelled <coenobium> in the biological sense of an algal colony functioning as a single organism.
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-06-27, 21:43

linguoboy wrote:The store last night had it, but only in 32 oz jars. I felt like I had to buy one after putting them through so much trouble (the stocker scanned the aisles for at least 15 minutes) but that's waaaaaay more than I'll ever use so I offered some to one of my neighbours. Even though he speaks Spanish and has worked in restaurants, he didn't recognise either "huitlacoche" or "corn smut". Finally I showed him the jar and he's like, "Oh, corn truffle!"

Or "corn mushroom". Just curious... what does it say on the jar? Seems like cuitlacoche is at least as common as huitlacoche in packaging, or more so, even though huitlacoche is what I hear people say. (Interestingly, Goya seems to use both.)
Image
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Yasna » 2019-06-27, 22:56

linguoboy wrote:That's SOP for <coe> in New Latin AFAIK. Viz. <coelacanth> /ˈsiː.lə.kænθ/.

Historically, Greek <οι> yielded Latin <oe>, which fell together with plain <e> during the Classical Era. In most cases, the spelling has been changed to match, e.g. <ἐπίκοινον> > <epicoenon> > <epicene>, <κοιμητήριον> > <coemeterium> > <cemetery>, <κοινόβῐον> > <coenobium> > <cenoby>*. But of course there are always exceptions and the element <coel> seems to be one of them. See also <mesocoel>, <haemocoel>, <blastocoel>, etc., all with /siːl/.

* Still spelled <coenobium> in the biological sense of an algal colony functioning as a single organism.

That clears things up. Thanks!
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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-06-29, 15:33

Vlürch wrote:The phonology of Shuswap seems pretty interesting too, especially not having /s/ but instead /ɬ/ which contrasts with /ʃ/.

I might be wrong, but I think this is pretty common in Salishan languages in general.
I've always seen it as someone having two hand-cranked drills in their head, even if logically thinking the wrong part is changing for it to actually look like that. :P

:lol:
linguoboy wrote:Even though he speaks Spanish and has worked in restaurants, he didn't recognise either "huitlacoche" or "corn smut". Finally I showed him the jar and he's like, "Oh, corn truffle!"

Apparently, it's also called "Mexican truffle."

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby księżycowy » 2019-06-29, 15:57

vijayjohn wrote:
Vlürch wrote:The phonology of Shuswap seems pretty interesting too, especially not having /s/ but instead /ɬ/ which contrasts with /ʃ/.

I might be wrong, but I think this is pretty common in Salishan languages in general.

Of the three I know at least a little about, they all have /s/ and /ɬ/, and two have all three sounds.

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-06-29, 17:51

france-eesti wrote:the school end of year celebration will be held on Saturday and then this song will be all but forgotten

So how did it go for her? :D

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Re: Random language thread 6

Postby Vlürch » 2019-07-01, 19:30

I was just reading about the differences between Spanish dialects on Wikipedia when all of a sudden, through my window, I heard Spanish being spoken outside! :shock:

I'm pretty sure it was Spanish, anyway, even though it's so unlikely that I'm not sure if it actually could have been. I couldn't make out any words since I only heard it for like ten seconds and five of them I had headphones over my ears and was mildly wondering like "hmm, what's that language?" and then took my headphones off and was like "WHOA IS THAT SPANISH????" for four seconds, so I only heard it properly for like one second since whoever was speaking went inside... but it definitely sounded so much like Spanish that I'm not sure what other language it could've been.

Of course, I know it's more likely that it was something else (pretty much anything else) and the fact that I was just reading about Spanish made me think it could be Spanish... but... :o

Yeah, this is among the most pointless posts ever.


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