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April 25

Ancient Greek Seas

Did the Caspian Sea and the Atlantic Ocean have a specific name in the Ancient greek language? Thank you! 82.52.31.81 (talk) 14:51, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As noted at the Wikipedia article titled Atlantic Ocean (which you linked and presumably read), in the first section after the lead, titled "Toponymy" discusses several ancient Greek names for the Atlantic Ocean. In the Wikipedia article Caspian Sea, under the "Etymology" section, it states "Among Greeks and Persians in classical antiquity it was the Hyrcanian ocean." which is, admittedly, not referenced to a great source. However This source and This source are far better and confirm the name. --Jayron 32 15:09, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your quick answer! How would you write "Hyrcanian Ocean" in Ancient Greek (I mean translated and written in the Ancient Greek alphabet)? --82.52.31.81 (talk) 15:17, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has the spelling of Hyrcania as Ὑρκανία, which matches the Wikipedia article. Presumably something like " Ὑρκανίασ θάλασσα", Herkanias Thalassa, though I'm not 100% sure I have gotten the adjectival form of Hyrcania correct here. Someone who knows a bit more about Ancient Greek can probably correct that better. This suggests the people who lived there were known by the demonym Ὕρκανοι, Hyrkanoi, which in Latin was Hyrcani. this source is an english translation that contains the word Hyrcanian, which in this greek text is written Ὑρκανοὺς, Hyrkanous. So perhaps Ὑρκανοὺς θάλασσα, Hyrkanous Thalassa, would be the best option for Hyrcanian Ocean. --Jayron 32 16:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ancient Greeks called it Κασπία θάλαττα and Κάσπιον πέλαγος and Ὑρκανία θάλαττα.(There's a scanning error or something in that last one on the Pegasus Project page; I've supplied Ὑ rather than Γ as the initial letter.)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Deor (talk • contribs)

Good find. I tried only looking under Hyrcania there. It appears both "Hyrcanian" and "Caspian" we in use. --Jayron 32 16:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm pretty sure the scanning error was much worse than you presumed, φάλαττα is probably supposed to be θάλαττα, thalatta, the attic form of thalassa, ocean. See [1]. The φ, phalatta or falatta seems to be gibberish. --Jayron 32 16:57, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My error as well as a scanning error. I just stupidly grabbed the wrong letter in the dropdown Greek menu at the bottom of the edit window when I was trying to fix up what the reference had. Deor (talk) 17:04, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on whether the sea would have been named after the landscape (Ὑρκανία, Hyrcania) or after the people (Ὑρκανοί, Hyrcanoi), it would be Ὑρκανίας θάλασσα, Sea of Hyrcania, or Ὑρκανών θάλασσα, Sea of the Hyrcanoi. In both cases the case has to be genitive, hence not -ους, but -ων. Another detail is that in this part of the Ancient Greek world, it would probably be θάλαττα (thalatta) instead of θάλασσα (thalassa), cf. Thalatta! Thalatta!. --T*U (talk) 16:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Ὑρκανία θάλαττα the first word is an adjective. This source states, "Ὑρκανία θάλαττα is sometimes used in the sense of Caspian Sea; sometimes it merely indicates the eastern part of it." --Lambiam 21:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is how gendered a language is a measurable quantity?

I often hear that English is less gendered a language than Hebrew or Spanish or Hebrew as for English, boy and girl can be simply switched out in "The tall boy quickly jumps onto the green horse" where in other languages, putting in girl for boy can change other words. Additionally in some languages horse and sheep may be gendered (not the gender of the animal) causing green to have different forms for each. Are there any ways of quantifying this, so that Spanish gets an 8.6, Hebrew a 9.5 and English a 2.4 (to make up random numbers). Presuming there is some way of measuring it (or even looked at subjectively), what languages are "less" gendered than English? Naraht (talk) 19:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If a language has different words for a male parent and for a female parent, is it gendered? Or if it has different words for a male monarch and for a female monarch? Apart from such things, the only aspect in which modern English is gendered is in the singular third-person pronouns and personal determiners (he/she/it, him/her/it, and so on) where the first two of each triple have to agree with the natural (non-grammatical) gender of the implied referent (not counting the affectation of referring to ships as she). In many other languages, all nouns have a grammatical gender, and there may be grammar rules requiring that various parts of speech (articles, adjectives, verbs) "agree" – that is, assume different forms accordingly. For more, see Agreement (linguistics) § Gender. Different gendered languages have different gender systems; see Grammatical gender § Gender contrasts. One measure of how gendered a language is, is the number of genders (sometimes called noun classes). Tuyuca may be the record holder in the number of classes. Another measure is the number of parts of speech that need to agree, but it is not always clear how to count this. (For French, it is articles, personal possessive determiners, adjectives and participles, but one can say they are just all modifiers.) The product of these two measures is an indication of the complexity. There are also many languages that have no grammatical gender at all, including Afrikaans, English, Persian and Turkish. Turkish also has no natural gender for pronouns; the pronoun o stands for he/she/it. --Lambiam 20:32, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam -- As far as I know, just about every language in the world has different basic stems to express the meanings "mother" and "father", except a small number of Polynesian languages, which have one word to express "mother", "father", "uncle", "aunt", and other non-in-law relations of one's parental generation. The Hawaiian word is makua, but of course this can be differentiated by suffixes (makuahine "mother, aunt" vs. makua kāne "father, uncle"), just as English can differentiate "male cousin" and "female cousin". Esperanto has a very unnatural system, where the word for "mother" (patrino) is bizarrely formed by adding a feminine suffix to the word for "father" (patro)! AnonMoos (talk) 10:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've occasionally idly wondered which was more gendered, English of the first half of the 20th century, which had separate "he" and "she" pronouns, but a small and declining number of nouns distinguished by sex, or Finnish of the first half of the 20th century, which had no female/male pronoun distinctions whatsoever, but where it was pretty much obligatory to add the female -tar/-tär suffix onto nationality, occupation, and agent nouns referring to women. I don't have any answer which could be expressed as a numerical point score. AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OP. I know there are some elements of gender in just about all languages, but English seems to have chucked most of them to the curb, though the Turkish o seems to have us beat in that particular area. As an English native speaker (with *minimal* knowledge of other languages), noun classes just make my head hurt.:) Naraht (talk) 14:09, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Japanese, male and female speech often diverge significantly, although that might not be gendering in the strictest sense(?) I.e. the words for "you" differ depending on the adresser, not the adressee. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Same with Thai, e.g. for ”hello”, a male speaker would add “khrap” where a female would add “kha”:

สวัสดี ครับ (sawatdee khrap)
สวัสดี ค่ะ (sawatdee kha)

cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 02:52, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Burmese has two polite terms of address similar to English "sir" and "ma'am", except that in English the choice between them is determined by the gender identity of the addressee and in Burmese by the gender identity of the speaker. Men address people of all genders as ခင်ဗျာ hkămya, while women address them as ရှင် shin. I have no idea what Burmese-speaking enbies do. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 26

English tense of "is eaten"

In the sentence "This type of rice is eaten all over the world." what tense is represented by 'is eaten'? RJFJR (talk) 04:53, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Present tense, passive voice. --Wrongfilter (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More specifically, the simple present. --Lambiam 09:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Damn it, never good enough... But, isn't "simple" more of an aspect? --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC) [reply]

True, but then you could just have said "Present tense", full stop. --Lambiam 14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I could have, but I suspect that the passive voice is what actually prompted the question. I hope you didn't take offense, my comment was thoroughly tongue in cheek. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My seconds will contact your seconds. --Lambiam 20:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These days, we have to say "My seconds will reach out to your seconds. (*vomit*) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see now. I was trying to figure out why that form to be was in there and it threw me. (I was trying to figure out how to explain to a non-native speaker of English why it should be is eaten rather than is ate.) Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 01:57, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Péter Pan

I have a very important question to ask. I don't speak French but I just noticed that, according to our Wiktionary, péter means "flatulate" and pan can be an onomatopoeic French word meaning "Bang!". Was it ever an issue for the French translations of Peter Pan? 195.62.160.60 (talk) 11:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe so. The French are as familiar with common English first names as the English are with French names like Pierre, and the Greek god Pan, which was the inspiration for the character and the last name, is well known by that name in French. Does it mean that someone wouldn't have made a silly joke? Of course, toilet humor and puns exist in all languages, I'm sure someone thought to make such a joke. But it would not have presented any confusion or caused any sort of misunderstanding. --Jayron 32 12:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although the names of English language characters are often changed in translation, the French Wikipedia article Peter Pan suggests that this is not the case in this instance. Bizarrely, Christopher Robin becomes Jean-Christophe in French, even though they can manage Robin des Bois for Robin Hood. Also there's Janneman Robinson in Dutch, even though Christoffel is a well-known forename in the Netherlands. Alansplodge (talk) 13:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just about every single Bandes dessinées character has a separate name in Dutch... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Captain Hook and his sidekick Mr. Smee are le capitaine Crochet and M. Mouche in the French translations. --Lambiam 15:49, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While not very common, the name Peter occurs as a masculine given name in France (Peter Franquart, Peter Luccin, Peter Sampil), and the name Wendy as a feminine given name (Wendy Bouchard, Wendy Delorme, Wendy Obein). But perhaps these were named after the fictional Peter and Wendy. --Lambiam 15:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Wendy, almost certainly named chronologically after Wendy Darling, if not directly named after them. The modern name Wendy as a girls name was basically nonexistent prior to Barrie's introduction of it (it can be found as a masculine first name and as a surname, though both are exceedingly rare to the point that it is doubtful Barrie had ever heard the name before). Basically, Barrie invented the name out of whole cloth, and any use of it in the modern world comes from Peter Pan (if not directly, then at some point in the chain). --Jayron 32 15:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly agree, but Wendy Wood (born 1891), as a contraction of Gwendoline, slightly predates Barry's play, although whether she adopted the name later in life, I have been unable to determine. Gwendolen is a Welsh name derived from Queen Gwendolen, a legendary British queen and I imagine would be unknown in France. Alansplodge (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to the point, it is unlikely that Barrie named his character after a preteen living in South Africa... --Jayron 32 18:24, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but my point was that "Wendy" may have been a known but uncommon contraction of "Gwendoline" at that time. Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. --Jayron 32 18:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had assumed she was called Wendy because she wends her way. (Aside: Is anything but a way ever wended?) I grew up with the pin–pen merger, which I had to unlearn and which probably still pops up from time to time, so I also associate "Windy" with this name. --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Wendy Darling#The name Wendy. Deor (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WHAAOE! Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes we have even more than one. Much the same points are made in the lead of Wendy. Deor (talk) 18:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting fact: "went" is the past tense of "go" in modern English, but previously it was the past tense of "wend". The past tense of "go" in Old English and early Middle English was more regular (something like "goed" but with various spellings: "ȝod", "ȝodd", "ȝode", etc.) "Went" started taking over as the past tense of "go" sometime around the 16th century. CodeTalker (talk) 00:55, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although "ȝod", "ȝodd", "ȝode" are still irregular formations, and believed to be cognate to Latin eō (ire), Sanskrit एति (éti), εἶμι (eîmi) and Russian идти́ (idtí), from what I can see... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 28

Arabic romanisation of a name

For this person, what's the preferred romanisation? BBC News prefers Julood but The Guardian goes with Jaloud. Blythwood (talk) 03:17, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Arabic script the family name is جلود.^[2] The first vowel is short. There is no standard way of pronouncing the vowels in an Arabic name, which also depends on the variety of Arabic (see also Varieties of Arabic § Vowels), and there is also no standard way of romanizing them. The ⟨u⟩ in the romanization used by BBC News is most likely meant to represent an /a/, which is not a common phoneme of English but is somewhat similar to the /ʌ/ of English hut. An English speaker naively pronouncing an unfamiliar word may produce a better approximation of how the name sounds in the mouth of an Iraqi speaker for the word julood than for jaloud, which might be made to rhyme with aloud. For a French speaker, this would be the other way around. --Lambiam 19:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Blythwood (talk) 03:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of a (probably simple) arabic text on an image

The quite ambiguously named file File:Unknown image and written language..jpg shows a (likely military related) arabic inscription somewhere in Iraq. I would like to have an English translation of the about 10-15 words visible there. Pittigrilli (talk) 07:09, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the words "Allahu Akbar" in the flag have been painted out, then put back in again. Some of the words have more than one meaning, and I can't really make them fit together in a phrase, but the three words surrounding the map of Iraq are Awakening, Sacrifice, and Steadfastness. The words in the scroll probably mean "the borders of Iraq". The words under the scroll mean "6th Border Brigade", I guess. I'm not going to try to figure out the later graffiti... AnonMoos (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is very helpful, thank you. Where do/did the words "Allahu Akbar" (I know the meaning) stand? The red phrase? As the pic is from 2008, I assume that the whole wall writing is from before the US invasion 2003, hence from the Saddam rule time. As far as I know Saddam Hussein had a non-religious, quasi socialist (while dictatoric) ruling style and most/all religions (including christianity) were treated mainly equal. This would speak against the strong islamic words "Allahu Akbar" being part of the original painting as a symbol of a military unit, right? Pittigrilli (talk) 09:22, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't attempt to decipher the red text, or anything else that was not part of the original design. "Allahu Akbar" is in the flag: see Flag of Iraq. The design was done before the flag change in 2008, or by someone who opposed the flag change of 2008. If you could find out the organizational history of tthe 6th Border Brigade, that might help with the dating, but a little semi-perfunctory Google searching (in English) didn't turn up much. Christians haven't had much equality in Iraq since the 1933 Assyrian massacre -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:32, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, this answers my question. I am quite content with what you translated, so from my side we could close this. Thank you again, Pittigrilli (talk) 17:52, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The indivisible oneness of the trinity

I was recently listening to the song Hey Ladies and for some reason something just clicked to me about their particular choice of grammatical number. In case you're not a patron of the classics, the lyrics are here. The thing is, it's basically sung from the first person singular "I'm..." despite the fact that three people are singing it, either in harmony or in turns. And they're not expressing their individual perspectives (as you might typically find in a duet), but a kind of multi-person singular. Even the line "I'm Adam, and I'm adamant about livin' large" is started by Ad-Rock, but finished by someone else (Mike D, I think) without a change in perspective.

So, I guess my first question is, is this a wildly common form that I've just been oblivious to? Following on that, is it found elsewhere? It's not hard to find instances of multiple lead vocalists on a single song, but my impression is that it's unusual for such songs to take the form of a narrative with a single POV. Matt Deres (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How is this a language question? Nardog (talk) 22:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's ultimately about grammatical number. What's going on in the song is like a reversed singular they. Matt Deres (talk) 13:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The concept has been around for a while: eg "My name is Legion, for we are many." Mark 5:1-10 [3] MinorProphet (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that this is a common and unremarkable form. Consider that choirs and congregations sing hymns with 1st person singular lyrics like "Mine eyes have seen the glory . . ."; barbershop quartets render "I dream of Jeanie . . ."; etc. I suspect examples could be found in virtually any musical genre. Perhaps a vocal expert could tell us if there's a technical term for it, but I doubt it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.18.208 (talk) 02:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Whole classrooms recite in unison, "I pledge allegiance to ...". --Lambiam 17:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pledging allegiance or declaring your love of god are not the same sort of thing that I'm talking about at all. When Americans do their flag ritual, they're speaking in unison, yes, but acting individually. If we all stood together and declared "I edit Wikipedia!" or "We edit Wikipedia!" it would mean largely the same thing: we're Wikipedia editors. But if you and I stood together and declared "I am Matt Deres!" that's a little different, right? You could be stating your solidarity with me, a la Je suis Charlie but if we went on to relate a narrative in the first person singular, that would be different again. That's what's going on in the song. Your point about barbershop is spot on, though; they're doing something very similar and I hadn't considered that at all. What the singers in Moonlight Bay are doing is exactly what's going on in my original example. Thank you! Any other examples out there? Matt Deres (talk) 13:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm too lazy to go check, but if I'm not mistaken the Greek chorus at least sometimes speaks as I. On a basic level I guess it's just the old distinction between the author (or performer) and the lyrical subject: when that distinction is made it shouldn't matter whether the singer is of a different number, gender or whathever than the I in the song. Reminds me of Neil Young's Powderfinger where the lyrical subject is actually dead whereas Neil clearly is not... --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:47, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A slightly related previous thread here discusses what happens when a singer performs a love song originally written for a singer of the other gender. Alansplodge (talk) 09:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Spartacus! --Jayron 32 11:46, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 29

Oleksiy Gai

Can you advise if the name should be Gai or Hay, Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 07:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, Google translates his name (Гай Олексій Анатолійович) as Gai Oleksiy Anatoliyovych. 136.56.52.157 (talk) 07:57, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So should I replace Hay with Gai throughout? GrahamHardy (talk) 08:20, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I got "Guy Oleksiy Anatoliyovych". --Lambiam 17:53, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to Russian transliteration systems (of which there are many), it should be Gai, Gay or Gaj, according to Ukrainian transliteration systems it should be Hay, Hai or Haĭ. This person is Ukrainian, but the subject could be a bit sensitive these days. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:47, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Romanization of Ukrainian recommends the use of the Ukrainian National system of 2010 for the romanization of Ukrainian terms and names in Wikipedia. Using the table given at Wikipedia:Romanization of Ukrainian/Ukrainian National transliteration table, the surname becomes Hai, and the given names Oleksii Anatoliyovych. Here you can see this spelling used for the footballer, and here you can see a different person with the same name using this spelling. --Lambiam 17:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Questions again

1. Are there any languages where relative clause precedes noun and which use relative pronouns? The WALS map does not display any such languages.
2. Why voiced pharyngeal and glottal plosives are not possible?
3. Can fricatives be preaspirated or breatchy voiced? --40bus (talk) 18:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell Sanskrit sometimes had relative clauses (containing relative pronouns) which occurred before the relativized noun, though this was not the only relative construction. Fricatives don't release the way stops do, and so would not have release-specific features, though general phonations might apply. AnonMoos (talk) 21:44, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2: In a voiced plosive, there's an obstruction that gets released only after the airstream past the vocal chords has started, allowing them to vibrate for a couple of centiseconds. During this time interval, the air must accumulate between the vocal chords and the obstruction. In a [b] or [d] this is easy, as those have the obstruction near the front of the mouth, so there's plenty of room for the air to accumulate. For [g] it already gets harder, so this sound is rarer. There's very limited room for the air to accumulate, so the negative voice onset time gets short (or the pressure will build up too much and the airflow through the vocal chords will stall) and the contrast with [k] gets small. It's easier in languages where /k/ is realised with a strong aspiration, like English. In pharyngeal or glottal plosives, there's just no room for the air to accumulated, so no voicing is possible. PiusImpavidus (talk) 00:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As to 1, languages to look at are Amis and Urarina, which combine Relative clause-Noun with VS word order. Some feature such as relative pronouns is needed then to avoid ambiguities. --Lambiam 04:40, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 30

Why do people sometimes respond with "thanks - you too!" after someone wishes them Happy Birthday, or says "enjoy your meal/flight/etc."

I must admit that I've slipped up and done it a couple of times. Always felt stupid afterwards - brain on autopilot moment. Just been googling around and it seems that it's quite a common thing. Iloveparrots (talk) 18:35, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've done it and felt stupid immediately afterwards for not paying enough attention to what the other person said, or what I said. It's usually a case of being too preoccupied with what is going on to to formulate a correct response. I don't think anyone has taken it amiss - flight attendants must hear this multiple times a day, for instance.Acroterion (talk) 18:43, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't suppose it's too bad if you're saying it to a flight attendant who's on the same plane as you. The person at the ticket desk on the other hand... I've personally said it to waiters before and then had to laugh at myself and offer a "sorry, man". Iloveparrots (talk) 18:52, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, mostly a reflex, I guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Autopilot" is a good explanation, responding in kind without thinking about it first. One funny example is in the movie "The Naked Gun", when the two stars get together for a date. Priscilla Presley tells Leslie Nielsen, "I'm a very lucky woman!" He responds, "So am I!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

England's use of the word 'again'

Which English accent says uh-gain for again, rather than uh-ghen? 86.130.77.121 (talk) 19:10, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of Brits ranging from Rex Harrison to Adele pronouncing it "uh-gain". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:55, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In which accent are YOU speaking when you say uh-gain and uh-ghen? (And what's that h doing there?) HiLo48 (talk) 22:08, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I assume the h is there to fend off a reading "gen as in Gen X". —Tamfang (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So it's a silent h? Nothing to do with chickens? Not very helpful. It could mean anything. HiLo48 (talk) 00:03, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's a common way of clarifying the value of g before e or i, presumably inspired by Italian orthography. Our respelling key does it. Nardog (talk) 02:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Irish and I say uh-ghen. 86.130.77.121 (talk) 19:33, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let's use IPA; that should make things clear. For people who don't know IPA, just read the article. I think the question is about /ə'gɛn/ vs. /ə'geɪn/. Not being British, I can't answer the question. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:07, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am (an English English speaker, mostly southern), and my usage is mixed depending on context, position, emphasis and a load of other linguistic stuff that automatically happens. /əˈɡɛn/ is probably my prevalent pronunciation. Bazza (talk) 09:17, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, no, not again.^[4] --Lambiam 14:27, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

/e/ refers to DRESS in British usage and to FACE in American usage. And using /eɪ/ inevitably implies exclusion of those with monophthongal FACE or without vowel duration contrast, even if your intention is to include them. The IPA does not make things any clearer than any other form of transcription. Providing enough context to identity the underlying conventions and the level of abstraction does. Nardog (talk) 15:19, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to associate it with Received Pronunciation. --Jayron 32 11:16, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly learnt Received Pronunciation in my English classes in Sweden, but I wouldn't really say the RP pronunciation is /ə'geɪn/, if anything it might be a glide. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:04, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's a spectrum of RP accents, see U and non-U English. The feature strikes me as symbolic of "non-U RP". It's also rather old-fashioned. --Jayron 32 15:36, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What "might be a glide"? A diphthong like [eɪ] is already composed of a nucleus and a glide. Nardog (talk) 16:00, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of something similar to /eː/ ~ /eːi/, I guess... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:31, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In 1982 Wells was writing that FACE was more common than DRESS in again (and the opposite in ate), but his 2008 dictionary reports 80% of BrE speakers preferred the latter and "Many British English speakers use both pronunciations." Nardog (talk) 15:46, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

After thinking, I wonder if the OP might have mixed up /eɪ/ and /eː/, where the latter sound mostly seems to occur in Scots and possibly Northern English varieties. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:54, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The fictional characters I've heard say uh-gain were... Auntie Mabel (Lynda Baron from Urmston, Lancashire), Tom Oakley from the countryside village Little Weirwold (John Thaw from Gorton, Manchester) Mary Poppins in London (Julie Andrews from Hersham, Surrey) and the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith from Northampton, Northamptonshire). 86.130.77.121 (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 1

German May Day

Between the terms "Erste Mai", "Maifeiertag", "Maitag", "Maifeier", and others, which one would carry the least connotation of Labour Day, labour unions, political movements, social justice and all that, and more of the "pagan summer solstice" meaning/implication (assuming there is an understood difference between all these terms)? 72.234.12.37 (talk) 11:42, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

1 May has no association with summer solstice. I think you're thinking of May Day. Bazza (talk) 12:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was, yes. The general festivities associated with the coming of the summer season practised by Germanic tribes before Christianity became the norm. 72.234.12.37 (talk) 16:37, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that none of those options has the connotation of Labour Day. That would be "Tag der Arbeit". -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 13:38, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've been told that many of those terms have since become synonymous with "Tag der Arbeit" since around the 1970's, especially amongst second-class citizens and people who lived in the DDR/East Germany. So I've been meaning to ask which term is the least likely to incline towards that meaning, and refer to the rural/folkloric celebrations of the arrival of summer. 72.234.12.37 (talk) 16:37, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That may be due to the fact that it was a much bigger deal in the GDR with parades. I am from West Germany and only slightly associate "Erster Mai" with "Tag der Arbeit" because they are sometimes used together: "Erster Mai: Tag der Arbeit". But the other terms I associate if anything with customs like maypoles and Maienstecken.[5] -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the context of the struggle of the working class these terms are synonyms, but in the absence of a context the term Maifeier used as a plural is perhaps most likely to evoke the connotation of folkloristic customs such as maypole dances. Conversely, without context Erster Mai may be the most likely to be interpreted as the International Workers' Day. --Lambiam 13:42, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The pagan celebrations are in the night before 1 May, Walpurgisnacht. —Kusma (talk) 15:37, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ivan with an "ee" or "ai"

This is something that has always peeved the back of my head whenever I hear it: Why do English speakers pronounce the name Ivan as "ai-ven" (/ˈaɪːvən/) instead of "ee-van" (/ɪˈvɑːn/), when virtually every other language in the world including the native Slavic uses the latter pronunciation? Or how did that pronunciation come to be? When would've been the first time that the "ai-ven" pronunciation entered widespread usage? I guess the same or similar type of phenomenon with the name "Michael" ("mai-khol" (/ˈmaɪkəl/) versus "mii-khell" or "mii-ka-el" (/ˈmiːkäel/)) happened but I'm more fine with that for some reason, perhaps because that name is more commonly encountered... 72.234.12.37 (talk) 11:42, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A big part of it is likely due to the great vowel shift, during which the "i" vowel (pronounced "ee" as you note) changed into the modern English pronunciation the diphthong /ai/. Lots of English words (not just Ivan) were formerly pronounced "ee" and now are pronounced "ai". --Jayron 32 12:16, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Admittedly, I did suspect the Great Vowel Shift might've been an influence for a bit, but for some reason I didn't think that phenomenon would affect names as well. I always assumed it affected mostly normal everyday words, such as "knife" and "light". 72.234.12.37 (talk) 16:37, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It probably could depend somewhat on how long the names have been around in the Anglo-Saxon world or how foreign they feel, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's going to affect many words that use an "I" in the spelling, even those which came into the language later than the dates of the vowel shift. English speakers will tend to verbally use the conventions of English vowel sounds, even when those words are pronounced differently in other languages. This kind of thing happens all the time., where non-English words are changed in pronunciation to fit English phonology, and isn't particularly limited to the name Ivan. --Jayron 32 17:41, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General ignorance/just don't care? The English are well-known for mangling place and personal names and words of other languages. Consider Oleg, which actually sounds most like Al-yék, (Alec, Alexander) when said in Russian, which most people pronounce as if it were written as it sounds, Oh-legg. Some people say ice- cream, others say ice-cream. Also eg French Reims (we say "Reams") or Metz (they say "Mess") MinorProphet (talk) 14:09, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And foreigners are well-known for mangling English names and words. People who don't speak a language are often pretty bad at speaking that language. DuncanHill (talk) 18:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why wouldn't we pronounce it "ai-ven"? I can't think of an English word that starts with "i" pronounced as "ee". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:44, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The name Ian? --Jayron 32 17:57, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You got me there. But even that is not absolute, see Ian Ziering. User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A greater similarity is to the Anglo-Norse forename Ivor, or the Welsh version which is Ifor. Possibly related is the Anglo-Norman Ivo. All of these start with an "ai" vowel in modern English (or Welsh). Alansplodge (talk) 18:51, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or the name Igor, which is usually but not always pronounced "ee-gor" in English. CodeTalker (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]