Talk:Chamois

Two species of chamois

I am about to broaden the article so it covers, much more specifically, the two species of chamois. As yet, Rupicabra pyrenaica does not have its own article so, I'd suggest, this is the right place for it. Have a look and let me know what you think. — Dave (Talk | contribs) 02:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Please undo that. 1st - Pyrenean Chamois indeed has its own article. 2nd - Chamois is the name for Rupicapra rupicapra, not for both.--Svetovid 10:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, you're right. I don't know how I missed that. I shall, indeed,make the changes to separate them out again. The thing I don't understand, though, is this: both animals are known as "chamois" so, in effect, there are two species of chamois, no? Why can't they be covered in the same article just as the two species of chimpanzee are covered in one article? In any case, I'll tease them apart but it still seems odd to me. — Dave (Talk | contribs) 15:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. I think I see how I missed the page on the Pyrenean animal. There is no redirect from Pyrenean chamois to Pyrenean Chamois, as there should be. I think it was the red link that threw me for a loop. I'll make the appropriate re-direct now. Cheers! — Dave (Talk | contribs) 15:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

One is Pyrenean Chamois and the other one is just Chamois (its subspecies; Alpine chamois being the best known one).--Svetovid 21:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Chamois Linked to Gilding, Could use some additional info

On the Wikipedia page about Gilding, chamois is mentioned and directs a person to this page. Then all that is mentioned is basically that a chamois is an animal. If someone has the knowledge and ability to fill this out a little more, I think it would help to make a better article. For instance is the chamois I buy to dry my car made from this animal? Is the leather often used as a filter or can it even be used that way? Just some suggestions. If I erred in the format or content of this post, feel free to delete it. However, I did read the Talk Pages Guidelines before posting and THINK I fall within the realms of a "good post." Remember Don't Bite The Newbies. Bad S Mini (talk) 05:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)Bad S Mini

The "chamois" the you (we) buy for washing cars, was indeed made from the tanned hide of the antelope discussed. Now, a synthetic predominates but is still called a chamois on the package wrapper. It's even dyed the same color as the original leather.

Inside the special shorts made for performance bicycling, there is a central pad to protect our sensetive nether regions. These also used to be made of chamois leather, but are now a variety of synthetic pads. Still widely called chamois. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.83.49.168 (talk) 18:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Following disagreement between me and User:Kwamikagami, I've done some research on the pronunciation (I said it ought to be /ˈʃæmwɑ/, Kwami said /ˈʃæmwɑː/). There seems to be a difference between American and British pronunciation, and I think this is the reason for our disagreement. There has also been change over time.

The OED gives /ˈʃæmɔɪ/ and /ˈʃæmi/, and as a non-British pronunciation /ʃæmˈwɑː/. I presume the first two were predominant in the UK when the OED was written (my copy is the 1931 edition, but the compilation took several decades and they started at A...). However, the first is not now used in Britain, where in my experience it is now always pronounced /ˈʃæmwɑ/ for the animal (note stress on first syllable), and /ˈʃæmi/ for the leather; these are the pronunciations given by the much more modern Concise Oxford English Dictionary. (Incidentally, many of the OED's quotes spell the word "chamoy" or "chamoi", so the /ɔɪ/ pronunciation was clearly widespread at one time.)

I found several American online pronunciation guides, which give /ʃæmˈwɑː/ and /ˈʃæmi/ ([1], [2], [3], [4]). (Sometimes the leather in the audio clips sounds nearer to /ʃæˈmiː/.)

I only found one British English online guide ([5]). This gives the IPA as /ˈʃæmwɑː/ and /ˈʃæmi/. The audio clip of the first is close to my experience, though the last vowel is drawn out more than I've noticed.

None of the modern guides gives /ˈʃæmɔɪ/ for either American or British English.

In summary, it appears that everyone says /ˈʃæmi/ for the leather. For the animal Americans say /ʃæmˈwɑː/ and British speakers say /ˈʃæmwɑ/ or possibly /ˈʃæmwɑː/. Basically, it seems that both Kwami and I were wrong... I also notice that the plural is often given as /ʃæmˈwɑz/ etc, with the "s" pronounced, which I had only heard for the leather version.

In this article we should give pronunciations that can be reffed.

I therefore suggest the following text, which I think encompasses everything (the refs need adding in):

The usual pronunciation for the animal in British English is /ˈʃæmwɑ/ (approximating the French pronunciation), or in American English /ʃæmˈwɑː/. However when referring to chamois leather (and in New Zealand often for the animal itself) it is /ˈʃæmi/, and sometimes spelt "shammy" or "chamy". The plural of "chamois" is spelt the same as the singular, and it may be pronounced with the final "s" sounded (/ˈʃæmwɑz/, /ʃæmˈwɑːz/, /ˈʃæmiz/). However, as with many other quarry species, the plural for the animal is often pronounced the same as the singular.

I'm inclined to omit the "respelling" versions: they aren't really needed, they make an already complex para even more cluttered, and anyway it doesn't seem to be possible to use this mechanism to distinguish between /ɑ/ and /ɑː/. I don't think it's worth mentioning /ˈʃæmɔɪ/ unless we can find a ref for this as a modern pronunciation. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a distinction without a difference. There is no distinction between /ɑ/ and /ɑː/ in English. What would the lexical sets be?

I'm fine with dropping the latter if it's no longer used. I changed the paragraph per your suggestion, apart from the length on /ɑ/. If that's a distinct lexical set, we need to change the IPA key as well. — kwami (talk) 18:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, an unstressed vowel surely doesn't necessarily follow its lexical set fully, and surely not every vowel necessarily actually belongs to one – particularly as in this case where it's an approximation of another language's pronunciation. (I certainly don't use a long vowel, and my accent is not unusual.) However, as some sources do give it as long I'll let it lie. I wonder if part of the problem is that most British English has stronger syllable emphasis than many American accents? Most of our vowels are schwas... Richard New Forest (talk) 19:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

People certainly do have different allophones in stressed and unstressed positions, even when the vowel is not reduced. But we haven't been transcribing those separately, since we try to stick to phonemic distinctions. If you think it's worthwhile to mark this distinction, you could bring it up at WP:IPA for English. — kwami (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Surely nearly every schwa is a vowel transcribed differently because it's unstressed? How is that different? Richard New Forest (talk) 09:49, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a phonemic distinction. Different dialects may have one to 3-4 reduced vowels, which need to be specified to pronounce a word properly. (We transcribe them /ə ɨ ʉ ɵ/. Many American dictionaries instead use 2ary stress to mark unreduced vowels.) In this case, though, the difference seems to be no more than a lack of stress. — kwami (talk) 10:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think unstressed schwas are strictly phonemic. In most cases speakers know what the full vowel would be, and when circumstances call for it they can emphasise that syllable as part of a "proper" lexical set. For example, "an" is normally pronounced /ən/ in running speech, but when emphasising the word most speakers will say /æn/. Likewise /ðət/ and /ðæt/, /əv/ and /ɒv/, and when differentiating close homophones: both "complimentary" and "complementary" are normally said /ˌkɒmpləˈmɛntrɨ/, but in the phrase "no, I meant complimentary", it would be said /ˌkɒmpˈlɪˌmɛntrɨ/. Richard New Forest (talk) 14:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The grammatical words you list are part of a set that have stressed and unstressed allomorphs, with the stress being due to intonation rather than being lexical. Likewise, the 'complimentary' examples are due to intonation. What we're transcribing are purely lexical differences (except that we follow the convention of differentiating 1ary & 2ary stress, which is intonational rather than lexical). The diff tween the UK and US pronunciations of 'chamois' is lexical, not intonational. The question is, in the UK variant, is there a three-way lexical contrast between unstressed full /ɑː/, partially reduced /ɑ/, and fully reduced /ə/? I don't believe there is. In everything I've read, English has a set of full vowels (/ɪ ɛ ɔː ɑː æ ʌ ʊ ɒ/ plus diphthongs /iː uː eɪ aʊ ɔɪ oʊ aɪ/), which may or may not be stressed, and a set of reduced vowels which vary by dialect. Even in dialects with multiple reduced vowels, /ə/ covers at least /ɒ ɑː ʌ ɔː/. — kwami (talk) 21:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)