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August 15

German ui

Today I learned that the German pronunciation of the name Guido is /ˈɡiːdo/ and not something like /ɡuido/ (the pronunciation I was expecting). Basically the ui part turns into a long i sound. Is this a normal phonetical phenomenon in German? Should it be added in the vowel section of our article about German orthography? --151.41.134.222 (talk) 13:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't the "normal" way to pronounce "ui" in German. Example? "Ruine". I don't know the history of the German pronunciation of Guido; names of French origin containing "ui" might retain this pronunciation in German (e.g. Guillaume). But why with Italian names? Maybe it's a hypercorrection based on French pronunciation. In some German-speaking areas"Guido" is pronounced "Goo-ee-do" though. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict] No, this is not a regular feature of German orthography. This falls into the category of Fremdwörter, or foreign words, whose orthography and pronunciation follow that of their language of origin, not German. This is an especially strange case, because German apparently uses French orthographic rules for the pronunciation of an originally Italian name. Marco polo (talk) 14:00, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Then there’s Duisburg [ˈdyːsbʊɐ̯k].—Emil J. 14:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty strange! I've always considered Guido among those Italian-sounding names such as Bruno or Aldo that were totally "naturalized" as German given names to the point of not being recognized as particularly foreign. Another funny thing about Guido is that, while imported from Italy, it has actually a Germanic etymology! The current German adaptaton being Veit. I guess that the same Fremdwörter explanation also works for Guinea-/ɡiˈneːa/. I too was going to ask about Duisburg-/ˈdyːsbʊʁk/ :-) --151.41.134.222 (talk) 14:23, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See also wikt:Quittung (IPA: /ˈkvɪtʊŋ/, [ˈkʰvɪtʰʊŋ]).

—Wavelength (talk) 14:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well I think that the "Qui" starting words are special cases under the qu-[kv]/[kw] rule. Is it possible that sometimes the ui is just an antiquated/historical way to write ü/ue? That could possibly work for placenames like Duisburg or surnames. For example Siegfried Uiberreither looks like his surname could be spelled in a more modern way as Überreither. In some way it could work similarly to the old fossilized spelling tzsch in Nietzsche. I'm just guessing... --151.41.134.222 (talk) 14:36, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be some dialect spelling?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:01, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No. The first sentence in Guido: "Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German word widu/wido (wood)" is nonsense. The German name Wido came to Italy with the Guideschi in the 9th century and came to be spelled in Italian Guido. Later, perhaps in the 19th century, I do not know when, it came back and is now pronounced (according to de:Guido) /ˈɡiːdo/ in Germany and /ˈɡuiːdo/ in Austria and /?/ in Switzerland. No need to add this in German orthography. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 17:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've always assumed the /w/-less pronunciation was due to ignorance of the spelling-to-pronunciation rules of Italian and the application of those of French and Spanish instead, assisted by the absence of the phoneme /w/ in German and the danger of an attempt at /"gwi:do/ coming out as ["gvi:do] instead. The native name Veit is extremely rare nowadays, I think. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:36, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite sure I follow that. /gvido/ is not in any obvious way worse than /gido/, as an approximation of the Italian pronunciation. I'd actually call it just slightly better. --Trovatore (talk) 20:59, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it in Guido. It was misquoted from the reference given there. I see, however, no relation between the first names Vitus/Veit (allegedly from an Italian martyr) and Wido/Guido (allegedly Germanic). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 18:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The etymology of Guido/Vitus seems very complicated! According to „Dizionario dei nomi di persona“ by Emidio de Felice, the name Guido derives from the Germanic name Wito or Wido of Longobard and Frankish tradition in Italy. It comes from the Germanic root *widu- “wood” or *wida- “far away”. This root is present also in other names such as Widbald, Widberht and Widman. The name Vito is the continuation of the late (IV century) Latin name Vitus, perhaps from vita “life”, and also of the Germanic Wito/ Wido with a probable superimposition of the two names.
According to “I nomi di persona in Italia. Dizionario storico ed etimologico” by Alda Rossebastiano & Elena Papa, Guido has pretty much the same etymology. Vitus was used particularly among Christians to allude to the afterlife and, since the Early Middle Ages, the interference of Wido assured its diffusion.
According to “Duden - Das große Vornamenlexikon” Guido is a romanized form of Wido but it doesn't state if the etymology is from *widu- or *wida-. The name was revived at the beginning of the 19th Century by the romantic movement. Interestingly it has both the readings. Vito=Vitus=Veit is said to have an uncertain etymology (perhaps from bītus, Thracian for “from Bithynia”).
According to “A Dictionary of First Names” by Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, Guy comes from an Old French name, of Frankish origin, originally a short form of compound names starting with witu ‘wood’ or wīt ‘wide’. In Old French initial w- regularly became gu-. The usual Norman forms of the name were Gy or Guido. In medieval Latin it is found as Wido.
Also look here: http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Guido http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Wito http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/VID http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Vitus--151.41.134.222 (talk) 19:52, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, come on, Pp.paul.4, did you think I did not know Guido was from Italian? I said about the spelling of Duisburg etc.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:49, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I did not mean to comment your post. I was talking to the OP. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 21:41, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Duisburg. Originally the "ui" represented only a long [uː] sound rather than the fronted [yː] sound normally used in the pronunciation now. This Dehnungs-i was an indicator of vowel length rather than umlaut and typical - along with a similarly used "e" - of regional spellings in the Lower Rhine (see Troisdorf and Grevenbroich for examples where it still has this function). It survives only in proper nouns such as place names and surnames (e.g. de:Voigt) rather than standard orthography. It appears that Duisburg and several other places beginning Dui have developed a spelling pronunciation in modern times. See de:Dehnungszeichen#Dehnungs-i. Valiantis (talk) 20:52, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Valiantis, it reminds me of the "lengthening i" from Scots.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:53, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Read more" or "more" sentences inserted into online news articles

Hi. In online news articles, there can be "read more" or "more" sentences sprinkled throughout the article that link to related articles.

Examples:

Is there a name for these inserted sentences? I looked at call-out and pull quote, but neither seems quite right. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You might find an answer in one or both of these resources.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:44, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, no such luck. But I did find the term "refer," which means "A small statement boxed off in a story that will refer the reader to a related story elsewhere in the publication." according to this site. I'm not quite sure this is what I want, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:17, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Definitions of jump line - OneLook Dictionary Search.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Similar, but not quite the same. :-) The "read more" or "more" links I'm referring to link to entirely separate articles, not a continuation of the same article.

I came across the term "pointer" as a possible candidate, but no term I've found seems to be a perfect fit. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:01, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See "Cross-reference" and wikt:cross-reference.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:14, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right, but this isn't really cross-referencing. Looking at the examples provided should give you a better sense of what I'm describing. It's a somewhat common practice in online journalism to insert sentences directly into (or throughout) an article that point to other related articles. I'm trying to determine if there's a name for these sentences. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:21, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How do the inserted sentences in your examples differ from cross-references?

—Wavelength (talk) 16:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What does this sign say?

Someone translated the phrase "Dragon Dojo" into what he claims is Japanese as a favor for me...I'm now starting to doubt that it's done right - and maybe it's not even in Japanese, Here is a picture of the sign board:

 http://sjbaker.org/DojoSign.png

The first symbol does seem to mean "Dragon" (it kinda looks like a dragon too). What does it actually say - and what language is it really in? SteveBaker (talk) 23:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's Japanese. 竜挌技場. "竜" is "dragon", "挌技場" (literally "striking technique place" is a dojo. The real linguists will appear soon, OP. "Nihongo ~~pera-pera~~ hera-hera Pete" aka --Shirt58 (talk) 11:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The word 挌技 redirects to the 格闘技/Martial arts page at ja:WP. Japanese 挌技 would be Budō. 場 is place. "Dragon Dojo" is ドラゴン道場 in ja. 竜挌技場 is understandable, but a bit unnatural to a native speaker as dojo/道場 is usually used with a name of martial art like Karate dojo, Kendo (no) dojo. [1] Oda Mari (talk) 17:23, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK - so not 100% perfect - but not crashingly awful either? It's supposed to be the title of an imaginary business - so I suppose that using slightly odd wording might not be all that surprising. I was mostly concerned that it might translate to "Steve is a jerk" or something like that! I guess we've all seen those websites where people who got pictogram tattoos belatedly discover that the words emblazoned permanently across their backs and arms actually means something totally inappropriate! :-)

Many thanks guys! SteveBaker (talk) 19:16, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]