Language desk
< July 12	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 13

Including an omitted work in an article

I've been trying to include The Facts of Life Reunion in the filmography of Kim Fields. Each time I try, all I got was lines going through the same year, 2001. Could somebody help me out, please? Thank you.2603:7000:8641:810E:A15C:6F88:8C18:19C0 (talk) 03:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. --Lambiam 10:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And format improved. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 17:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much, guys.2603:7000:8641:810E:64CF:598A:534D:65B9 (talk) 05:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What’s with this K-J conversion?

Several proper nouns that have a K sound in English end up with a J sound in Mandarin Chinese. Here are some examples:

Kentucky becomes Kěntǎjī
Canada becomes Jiānádà
Pakistan becomes Bājīsītǎn
Jamaica becomes Yámǎijiā
Kyrgyz becomes Jí'ěrjísī
Kuala Lumpur becomes Jílóngpō

Why does this happen in all these places? Primal Groudon (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because the names weren't borrowed directly from foreign languages into modern standard Mandarin, but into other dialect(s), and then the sounds of those other dialects were converted into the corresponding modern standard Mandarin sounds. There's a little about the sound changes involved at Palatalization (sound change)#Sinitic languages... AnonMoos (talk) 07:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. You can see the same relationship in differing Romanisations of Chinese names. Outside China the Chinese capital 北京 was only a few decades ago known as Peking, but is now known as Beijing. It's not that the pronunciation changed in China, at least not that rapidly. It's that Romanisation was based on one dialect, possibly Cantonese, but is now based on Standard Chinese, i.e. the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Other examples include Nanking/Nanjing, Chungking/Chongqing, Canton/Guangdong. --92.40.33.166 (talk) 10:57, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While this is correct, it should also be noted that Pekin (not a typo) entered English in 1596. At that time, even Mandarin (which was much less accessible to Westerners) had a [k] there. Double sharp (talk) 04:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not only non-Mandarin dialects. Cangxi dialect (in Sichuan) preserves the round-sharp distinction between [ki] and [tsi] (in standard Mandarin they are both now [tɕi]). In Nanjing Mandarin, [ki] has shifted to [tɕi], but [tsi] is retained. This style of making the distinction was preserved in the Old National Pronunciation. Double sharp (talk) 03:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An equivalent palatalisation affected the proper nouns in Albanian: Greece, Cyprus, Macedonia, Turkey became Greqi, Qipro, Maqedoni, Turqi, with ⟨q⟩ standing for [tɕ]. Thus, borrowing via intermediate dialects is not the only way that the [k]~[tɕ] correspondence could arise. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 11:08, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is a process called palatalization, and it has happened at many places and times. It happened in late Latin, so that Sicilia (with a /k/) came to be Sicilia (with a /tʃ/). It happened in Old English, so that Tadcaster still has its /k/ but Manchester has a /tʃ/ (the last part of both is derived from Latin castra "camp"). It happened in Swedish, so the city we call Copenhagen, in Danish København with a /k/, is in Swedish Köpenhamn, starting with ɧ (a sound which is common in Swedish but rare elsewhere in Europe). ColinFine (talk) 16:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary gives the pronunciation /ɕøːpɛnˈhamn/. --Lambiam 11:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm. The "sj-sound" (which varies quite a bit, I believe I pronounce it cloer to /ʂ/) has a lot of spellings, that tend to start with s- or be loans from French, the "kj-sound" /ɕ/ is for words beginning with k, but they are different phonemes in most varieties of Swedish. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]