Language desk
< June 7	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 9 >

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

June 8

French: la "langue romane"?

So I'm translating an article and I encounter this sentence: "La viande fumée est appelée carbouclée en langue romane et bacon lorsqu’il s’agit de porc". I'm trying to figure out two things—is there a halfway-decent English translation for "carbouclée" (do they mean "car bouclée"?), and what does it mean by "en langue romane"? I take "langue romane" to mean "romance language", but there are many romance languages, so I highly doubt each one used the same term for a certain type of smoked meat. The sentence is citing an old book called Supplément au glossaire de la langue romane, and I'm trying to figure out if by "langue romane", they mean something like Old French. Can someone who knows more French than I do figure this out? Thanks in advance, /ƒETCH COMMS / 04:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Way out of my domain here, but "carbouclée" seems to be an old word that gives difficulty even to French scholars. This book translates it as coal. I suspect it derives from something like "charcoal", but who really knows? Looie496 (talk) 05:08, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(after edit conflict}: Look at the title pages and skim through the "Avertissement" and the two long philological/etymological essays to get an idea of what's meant by "la Langue Romane"; it does look to me (who has no strong knowledge myself of the history of the French and allied languages) that it means something like Old French, or perhaps something in transition from Vulgar Latin to Old French. I'm sure a look at French-language Wikipédia could clear most of that question up. However, all of the foregoing may just be blind, ignorant flailing on my part, as both Larousse and Harrap's French-English dictionary translate "roman[e]" in this sense as "Romance (language)". ¶ As for carbouclée, just look on page 62 of the Glossaire itself (not the introductory essays, whose pagination makes it a bit difficult to navigate through the Google Books version) where it says CARBOUCLÉE : Viande fumée, evidently treated as a noun (f.?) rather than as a feminine adjective. I presume the most obvious English translation ("smoked meat") would be reasonably correct, although I don't know if "viande" and "porc" are mutually exclusive here (would "carbouclée" include "bacon", or is it only that smoked meat which is not bacon?) My 2004 Petit Larousse Illustré does distinguish between "viande rouge" (red meat), coming from cattle, sheep and horses, "viande blanche" (white meat), coming from veal, pork, rabbits and poultry or fowl, and "viande noire" (black meat), coming from game. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even older than Old French. My Petit Robert defines it as,

(1135, « langue commune » : le français d'alors [ancien français], opposé au latin ; XVIᵉ, en ling.). Ling. Langue courante, populaire parlée autrefois en France, opposée au latin qui était la langue savante, et antérieure à l’ancien français. ... Une décision du concile de Tours (813) invite les prêtres à prêcher en roman.

A secondary meaning (dating from 1870) is Vulgar Latin as spoken in all of Romania (the Romance countries), and the Romance languages from the 5th to 10th centuries. — kwami (talk) 06:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, OK, so it seems that carbouclée is just something I'll have to put in quotes, as that's what they called smoked meat, and the langue romane is some sort of pre-Old-French common language. Thanks all, and guess I'll need to buy a better French dictionary! /ƒETCH COMMS / 17:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And from some more digging, I think langue romane is referring to Lingua Romana, also called "Romance", or some sort of vernacular version of Old Gallo-Romance. Or maybe something close to wikt:Proto-Romance. By the way, kwami, your Petit Robert seems like a good ref for the beginning of the first sentence at Old_French#Earliest_written_Old_French. Cheers, /ƒETCH COMMS / 17:40, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could try posting your query at the "français" counterpart of this page (listed on the left-hand sidebar), but as there doesn't seem to be an exact equivalent to Ref desk/Language in fr.Wikipédia, you'd want to avoid asking at an purely administrative Project talk page discussing things like correct Wikipédia grammar or the propriety of using flag icons in Information Boxes. While I was navigating around the portal, it seemed like the "Café des Linguistes" looked most promising. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Emigration

Being a UKite, most folk who move countries are described as emigrating (cos that's what folk mostly have done from the UK I presume). Today's main page refers to folk immigrating which appears to be the US usage (presumably because that is what is common in the USA). In the UK we only really use Immigrate as a noun "He is an immigrant" - everything else is Emigra... Are my presumptions correct and what do other countries use as their expression? -- SGBailey (talk) 09:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC) Emm -> Em -- SGBailey (talk) 11:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moving from one country to another is the act of emigrating (one m) from the one and immigrating (2 m's) to the other. The prefixes come from Latin: ex = out of, in = into. In practice, which term is used comes down to the perspective of the speaker. Australia has a Department of Immigration (and other things), which deals with people who have immigrated to Australia from elsewhere. Those people have emigrated from wherever they came from. It does not have a Department of Emigration, but if it did, that would cover Australians who leave to go and live in other countries. If I decided to go and live in the UK, I would emigrate from Australia and immigrate to the UK. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 10:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right, but what's interesting is the sentence on the main page today: "Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family immigrated to the United States when he was ten." The sentence is written from the American point of view. If it had been written from the Canadian point of view, it would have said "Hartman and his family emigrated to the United States". But both sentences have the same meaning, and the only way to write it from a completely neutral point of view would be to use a different verb entirely, like moved (which, however, doesn't necessarily imply the same sort of permanance that {im/e}migrate does). —Angr (talk) 11:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slight tangent... The normal Brit Eng usage would be to say that that they "moved to.." the United States - permanence is not a factor. ("Migrated to..." would not be used of individual humans, because of its wildlife connotations, although demographers talk of "migration" when it refers to collective population movements.) I get the impression from various edits elsewhere that, in Am Eng usage, the more usual terminology for an individual or a household would be "relocated to..." or "moved home to..." Am I correct about that? Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the verb "to migrate" is indeed used of individual humans. When it's obvious it's from country A and to country B, it's not always necessary to use the prefixes. And we certainly have "migrants". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:32, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, of course it can be used that way, but in Brit Eng it's unusual. If someone relocated within the UK, we would say they had "moved to Scotland", for example; if they relocated to Australia, we would say that they "emigrated". In neither case would we normally say that they "migrated", although they would be classed as "migrants" in collective statistics. The generic term "immigrants" is widely used, of course, at least by some. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I expect "migrate" is a lot more common here, particularly in colloquial parlance. It's one thing to have formal expressions and government agency names using "immigration" etc, but if we're just talking among ourselves, we generally prefer to simplify things, so "Did you hear Harry's migrating/moving to Thailand?" would be much more likely to be heard than "Did you hear Harry's emigrating to Thailand?". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously we need Australian and British English differences. :) Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Perhaps there is a regional English difference going on, then. "Did you hear Harry's moving to Thailand?" sounds most natural to me, with "emigrating to Thailand" in second place. If someone said "Did you hear Harry's migrating to Thailand?" to me, I'd say, "What is he, a bird?" —Angr (talk) 12:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I don't agree that "moved" replaces "immigrated" / "migrated" even in Brit Eng. There is a technical (legal or administrative) meaning to "immigrate" / "emigrate" / "migrate" which is not identical with "moved". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, in Am Eng, is it correct to say that someone would "move" from New York to California, but "migrate" from Toronto to Detroit? Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Colloquially, I'd use "move" in both cases, but in the latter case I might use "immigrate" (never "migrate") if I wanted to put some emphasis on the permanence (or at least long-termness) of the move from Canada to the U.S. I doubt I would ever say someone "immigrated from Toronto to Detroit"; at best I would say someone "immigrated from Canada to the U.S. and settled in Detroit". (And even then it might conjure up a mental image of a little old lady in a babushka speaking in an Eastern European accent and mournfully referring to Canada as "the old country".) —Angr (talk) 12:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have to say that what you all are seeing is incorrect usage of "immigrated" which managed to get into featured article status without that mistake being caught. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article said "migrated" which is also poor usage. I changed it to the more simple form "moved". However, the main page still says "immigrated". I guess they wisely(?) use a frozen copy of the article for the main page, rather than the actual article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how "immigrated" is actually incorrect in this sentence. However, it has the feel of having been written from a US perspective (as mentioned above), which may not be appropriate in Wikipedia. 86.160.219.84 (talk) 11:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) How is the use of immigrated incorrect? It seems perfectly correct to me, when uttered/written from the perspective of the U.S. —Angr (talk) 12:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I don't see what's incorrect about "immigrated". As Angr pointed out, that's fine from the receiving country's perspective. And "migrate" being "poor usage" is a matter of opinion. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 12:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But why should it be written "from the perspective of the U.S."? Global encyclopedia and all that. I've raised it at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:10, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No matter where you are, it is not incorrect to say that his family immigrated to the United States, and I don't understand why that version would be considered "from the perspective of the U.S." either. It's simply a factual statement. Sure, 'moved' would work just as well...or saying they emigrated from Canada to the US, but this seems like silly searching for an argument. --Onorem ♠Dil 12:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, sorry, you're right. You "emigrate from" and "immigrate to/into". I still think "moved" is better. But the main page article is OK. "Migrated" sounds like migratory birds, so it's not really appropriate for the actual article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Onorem: The use of the word "immigrated" in this way is, quite simply, alien to a British English speaker. I don't doubt that it is used in the US in the way you say (and I'm certainly not "searching for an argument"), but its usage in a WP FA on the main page is poor, at best. You don't "immigrate to" somewhere; you can "emigrate to" there, or "immigrate from" the other place. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:47, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... Yes, Ghmyrtle is exactly right from a UK perspective. We might, very rarely, say that someone "immigrated (to here) from (a foreign country)" but the construction just sounds very odd, and possibly insulting, in British English. Perhaps this is because the word "immigrant" tends to have pejorative connotations here? Dbfirs 07:46, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is starting to get confusing, hence a good reason to simply say "moved". Please note these Entymology Online definitions:[1][2] I'm beginning to think my original assertion was correct. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that the Etymology Online definitions (words, not bugs) are of the Latin words, not the modern English words. —Angr (talk) 13:40, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indian pronunciation

How is the Indian surname Datta pronounced? --75.40.204.106 (talk) 19:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to our article Dutta (surname), the surname is most common among Bengalis, Punjabis, and Assamese; I bet the pronunciation is different in those three languages. Also, when I perused some of the articles about people with this name, it looked like some people are named Datta and other people are named Dattā, and those two variants will have different pronunciations. Since the only Indic language I ever learned was Sanskrit, I'd pronounce Datta [ˈd̪ət̪t̪ə] and Dattā [ˈd̪ət̪t̪ɑː], but people who speak Bengali, Punjabi, or Assamese will probably pronounce them differently. —Angr (talk) 05:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is pronounced as Dattā [ˈd̪ət̪t̪ɑː] in all of the three languages mentioned above. If you can read Hindi, it is same as दत्ता. When transliterated to English, they go by two different spellings, 'Dutta' as well as 'Datta'. A variant to this surname is pronounced as Datta [ˈd̪ət̪t̪ə], but is written in Hindi as दत्त, removing ा from दत्ता. - DSachan (talk) 06:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[ʒ] in English

Hello all. How would the sound [ʒ] be classified (linguistically) in English? It is not quite an allophone of /dʒ/ because wherever it appears it is interchangeable with [dʒ], based on speaker (example: prestige), but it is not quite in free variation either because in words such as judge it would be incorrect to switch [dʒ] with [ʒ]. Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 19:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think "pleasure" and "pledger" are a minimal pair for [ʒ] and [dʒ], so that means they are distinct phonemes, right?. —Bkell (talk) 19:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they are different phonemes, as Bkell's minimal pair shows. However, there are many words in which the speaker can choose either /ʒ/ or /dʒ/ and still be (descriptively!) correct, such as prestige, garage, genre, etc. Other words, like judge, can take only /dʒ/, while others still, like pleasure and vision, can take only /ʒ/, so the two phonemes are not always in free variation. (PS: Some Americans pronounce pleasure and measure with /eɪ/ rather than /ɛ/; for them, measure and major provide a minimal pair.) —Angr (talk) 19:56, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And there are the British English pronunciations of leisure and ledger. Marco polo (talk) 20:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To me, prestige would sound really odd with /dʒ/. Who says that, exactly? --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a list of names, but I know I've heard it. —Angr (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As have I, in England. The OED (1989 edition) lists both pronunciations. --Antiquary (talk) 20:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it primarily a British variant? Can anyone attest it in the States? --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The /dʒ/ variants are listed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and don't sound too wrong to my American ears, although I can't personally recall ever hearing it. Lexicografía (talk) 21:18, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would hazard a guess it's the predominant variant in Australia. The /ʒ/ version would be a tad suspect here - the speaker would probably be regarded as someone deliberately trying to sound educated and superior. We don't have much truck with that stuff. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to say the same thing for Estuary English (which to me sounds like the BrE accent closest to AusE), even "mirage" would be pronounced with /dʒ/ by most cockneys. - filelake shoe 21:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An American, I have /ʒ/ in prestige but /dʒ/ in prestigious for some reason. —Angr (talk) 05:22, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... same in British English. I have heard prestige with /dʒ/ here, but wouldn't use it when "talking proper". Dbfirs 07:32, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here in sunny London, the /dʒ/ is used by me and nearly everyone else (to rhyme with "siege"). The Frenchified version would sound un peu prétentieux. I'm with the Aussies on this one. Alansplodge (talk) 17:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The variation seems to occur only in words of French origin. In these cases, the pronunciation reflects the degree to which a given loanword has been assimilated into the English language. — Kpalion^(talk) 08:37, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly, here in the United States, which like Australia tends to be anti-intellectual, I think the final /ʒ/ really is more common. It certainly doesn't sound pretentious in the Northeastern United States. By contrast, final /dʒ/ in these words sounds frankly uneducated to my Northeastern American ears. Or, rather, it suggests that the speaker might have come up with the pronunciation after reading a word he wasn't used to hearing. Marco polo (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Marco's experience on all counts. On the other hand, I get the funny feeling that the Northeastern United States itself is viewed as the very definition of pretentious by the rest of the country... ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 20:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Angr, out of curiosity - do you have a regional or ethnic pinpoint for speakers for whom measure and major form a minimal pair? The only thing I can come up with in my head is a (pretty stereotypical) Spanish accent (i.e. a non-native speaker). ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 20:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, to whom are you attributing the /eɪ/ vowel in measure? A reference would be nice. μηδείς (talk) 20:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On Angr's behalf, I would point out that my grandfather, who grew up in rural Missouri, spoke that way. I don't have an external reference, but this is mentioned here. Marco polo (talk) 23:07, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My choir director, who's from Montana and a native speaker, is constantly telling us what "mayzhur" to start singing from. I know that's only anecdotal, but I don't have time to look for sources right now. —Angr (talk) 05:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was confused for a moment, and thought you were saying your director was talking about the key ("which major") until I recalled that "measure" is American for "bar". --ColinFine (talk) 18:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know Brits don't call them measures. Americans can call them either measures or bars; the two terms are perfectly synonyms and both quite common. The lines that separate them are always called "bar lines" either way. —Angr (talk) 22:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. My mother is from the South, and pronounces the girl's name Sarah as SAY-rah, but I don't ever recall her saying MAY-zhur. --Trovatore (talk) 06:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My father pronounces measure "may-zhure". He's from southwest Missouri (The Ozarks) and says it is somewhat of "Okie" thing, not a southern thing per se—though I have heard it as far north as Indiana, as well as here and there across the US (a professor in Seattle spoke that way, but was from Oklahoma). I have also heard it across the High Plains—Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, etc. With my father, who is a Shakespearean professor, it can sometimes sound a bit funny, as in "May-zhure for may-zhure is a major play." There's your minimal pair right there! I can't find a Wikipedia page about it offhand, but it is quite real. It comes out in "treasure" too--TRAY-zhure. Also, from the list in the section linked by Marco Polo above, North American English regional phonology#St. Louis and vicinity, my father also says "Washington" as "Warshington". The other examples he does not have. He does, however, leave out the -l- in "wolf" and "golf"—woff, goff. I'm guessing there is some term for this dialect, but I'm not sure what it is. I'd be interested to know. Pfly (talk) 08:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is one example (with viewers commenting on the pronunciation of "maysure"). ---Sluzzelin talk 08:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only one person commented on his pronunciation of dimensions ([dɪˈmɛnʃiənz] in four syllables), and no one commented on his pronunciation of height as [haɪtθ]. —Angr (talk) 16:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

amazing, aside from "maysure" and "heighth" this guy talks pretty normally, when I read this discussion I was expecting some strooong bible belt accent like my friend's Georgian aunt who pronounced "age" as three syllables ([ˈeɪjəˌdʒə]) and the kind who generally throw diphthongs anywhere, even pronouncing "and" something like [æɪnd] or [æɪjənd].. on this subject, does this accent have a more NPOV name than "the redneck accent"? - filelake shoe 17:02, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heighth is not all that odd, its just a non-standard analog of width and depth, not a phonological phenomenon. I can certainly imagine Holly Hunter or Sarah Palin saying mayzher. I am familiar with merry being pronounced Mary, but assumed that is colored by the /r/. My curiosity was for a reference which would name the phenomenon or explain whether it is lexical variation or phonologically motivated. μηδείς (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly suspect that the vowel in question is a survival of a pronunciation from a 17th-century West Country dialect, a variant that would have developed during the Great Vowel Shift. Most forms of rhotic American English are largely derived from early modern West Country speech. Marco polo (talk) 19:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See also http://www.onelook.com/?w=*zh*&scwo=1&sswo=1 for words containing zh.

—Wavelength (talk) 06:04, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]