Language desk
< September 11	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	September 13 >

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.

September 12

Meanings from word boundary ambiguity

I'm trying to figure out if there is a term to describe different meanings that can arise from ambiguity in word boundaries in spoken English. When someone speaks, there aren't pauses between words to indicate where one word starts and the next one begins. The syllables are strung together in spoken English, and comprehension seems to be based on recognizing groups of syllables as words as they stream in.

I can imagine there are situations, and perhaps even whole contrived sentences, where the lack of clear boundaries between spoken words would result in different meanings if different groupings of syllables would result in a stream of different words. A contrived example (sorry I can't come up with anything better): "Every onefold clothing" might be an intended meaning but interpreted as the command "everyone, fold clothing."

Is there a term for this phenomenon? Have there been sentences contrived to take advantage of these word boundary ambiguities? ~Amatulić (talk) 14:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If there isn't, I propose Four Candles --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not precisely what you're looking for, but the article Mondegreen is relevant. Many mondegreens (like the eponymous "Lady Mondegreen") result primarily from the sort of word-boundary mixups that you're referring to, though other factors are frequently involved. Deor (talk) 14:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We also have articles on oronym and holorime; both can be seen as a special form of homophone. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, all those articles appear to be applicable to my question.

I just remembered a passage from some decades ago, which started out something like this "Cap ten! said the captain. Of all his caps, the captain liked cap ten the best." It was a long passage, used in the 1980s as an example of something understandable to humans but would hoplessly confuse any attempts at machine speech-to-text conversion. Googling doesn't reveal that passage anywhere online, though. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems you're right. You can find the whole thing here. --Antiquary (talk) 18:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

THAT'S IT!! It was a letter in Byte magazine. That's probably the very best example of the topic that started this discussion. How did you find it? ~Amatulić (talk) 12:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just Googling variations on some phrases from the "Cap ten" passage as you quoted it. Patience is often the only skill you need for these jobs. --Antiquary (talk) 18:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but how much patience do you need before it's reasonable to assume that the text is too old to find (it does pre-date the World Wide Web by a decade)? I gave it about 15 minutes, myself. Many thanks to you, though, for persevering where I failed. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:35, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"I was musing on the Muse under some yews outside S.M.U.'s museum, when a kitten's musical mews drew me into the museum's mews, which some use (damn youse!) to sniff mucilage for amusement." (Found in a Spider Robinson novel.) —173.228.89.152 (talk) 05:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that this problem also crops up in web site names, since they lack punctuation and spaces to distinguish words. For example, http://www.letstalk.com sounds like a pro-stalker sight, not a pro-talking site (actually they sell cell phones). StuRat (talk) 16:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They don't have to lack punctuation, do they? http://www.let's_talk.com or at least http://www.lets-talk.com would also be a valid URL, wouldn't it? And http://www.pen_island.com or http://www.pen-island.com would definitely be superior to the current state of affairs. Angr (talk) 16:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I read a year or two ago that HTTP was updated so that non-English scripts could be used in both website names and domain names. I don't remember the details, but I think this means that even e.g. http://www.某网站.中国 is a valid URL now. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:45, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have the (very enjoyable) article slurl about website names. DuncanHill (talk) 16:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is interesting, even if not exactly on topic. Bus stop (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Except for the fact that you specified English, the title of Douglas Hofstadter's book Le Ton beau de Marot would be a good example. Spelled this way it means "Marot's beautiful tone," but it's a play on words because it is phonetically indestinguishable from "le tombeau de Marot," which means "Marot's tomb." Indeed, that book might interest you.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 02:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And then there is the chain Petsmart. μηδείς (talk) 01:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of

Is it more correct to say "All my children are playing over there" or "All of my children are playing over there"? Similarly, should "out of" or "out" be used before a noun? (That is, "out of the window" vs. "out the window".) One can hear various examples of both in many places. Inter change able|talk to me 14:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An 'of' should always be inserted where possible. So that's "out of the window". Rcsprinter (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not for "all" though - All the world's a stage, All flesh is grass, All men are created equal. On the other hand, the "of" is needed in "all of us" (but All we like sheep have gone astray). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From Fowler's Modern English Usage (q.v.): "Except before certain personal pronouns (all of it, all of us,..) and in certain idiomatic uses (..all of a sudden) of can normally be dispensed with in nominal phrases, e.g... all the time..." and "all of is often used as a means of separating "all" from a proximate pronoun. It is also used in partitive of-phrases, e.g.... I'd like all of that piece of meat..."--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As for "out of the window" and "out the window", both are 100% correct in American and Canadian English. In other varieties of English, the version with "of" is more common. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although there is some distinction in the use of "out of" and "out": One says "He walked out of his house", not "He walked out his house". I have a vague feeling that "The bug flew out of the window" would tend to reflect the perspective of someone standing outside the window, whereas "The bug flew out the window" would be said by someone who had been enclosed with the bug. Deor (talk) 20:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is definitely a distinction. "He looked out of the window" means he's standing right there, looking out. "He looked out the window" could mean he's several feet back and can see what is on the other side of the window. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 20:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That distinction doesn't exist in British English, where the "of" is almost invariably required to avoid sounding American. Dbfirs 19:47, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interchangeable, in your first example, All is an adjective modifying the noun children. In your second example, the word All is a pronoun denoting a subset (but not a proper subset) of my children. Consider also: One of these things is not like the others. One of these things which are round is not like the others.)

—Wavelength (talk) 01:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where are you at?

What is the origin and reason for the existence in American English of a superflous "at" appended to questions about the location of people or things? I'm a South African English speaker and this usage is very intrusive to my ear. Roger (talk) 19:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It has to do with the loss of "whither" and "whence", which were replaced by "where to" and "where from". "Where at" was a natural byproduct of the process in some dialects of English, and persists till today in casual speech. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's horrid English. Everyone knows it should be "Where is you at" or "Where you be ?". :-) StuRat (talk) 22:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Are those examples of AAVE usage? Roger (talk) 10:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Newfoundland English also has this phrase, along with "where are you to?". And even more confusingly, both usually just mean "how are you?". Adam Bishop (talk) 08:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Foreigners also get confused by the common South African greeting "Howzit", which is a contraction of "How is it (with you)?". Roger (talk) 10:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard that here in Detroit, too, without any confusion. StuRat (talk) 03:59, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also in Yat dialect. Deor (talk) 11:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really only used in casual speech? Is it unacceptable in "proper" American English? Roger (talk) 10:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is common in spoken British English, too, but I would hesitate to write it in formal English other than reporting speech. Dbfirs 19:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Where you at?" is an inquiry about someone's physical location. I think it is vernacular but I am not sure that it is "African-American vernacular." I think it is another way of inquiring of someone's location such as when they are speaking to you from their cell phone. Is it grammatically incorrect? "Where are you?" would be the more acceptable way of phrasing that question—but why is "Where you at?" incorrect? Bus stop (talk) 20:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely not AAE, lots of people use it. I don't know whether or not it originally came from there (I would assume probably not). rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re Bus stop: "Where you at" is prescriptively incorrect because you can't say e.g. "I am at where" (i.e., "where" is being used to replace just a noun phrase when usually it should replace a whole prepositional phrase). To me, this seems to have the status of stuff like "Joe and me went to the store is ungrammatical because you can't say me went to the store"—there is some prescriptive logic behind it, but it's common usage. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rjanag—I'm at Macy's. I'm in hospital. I'm at school. There are no prepositions those examples. Addendum: oops: I guess "in" is a preposition. Bus stop (talk) 20:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's my point; you can say "I'm at X" and, by replacement, "I'm where???", but "where" should replace a prepositional phrase (not a noun) and thus you can't say *"I'm at where???". I'm just saying this is the prescriptivist argument; I'm not saying I buy it. Not all structures in natural language need to have a transparent derivation from some "deep structure". rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The question was about physical location, but "where are you at?" is definitely OK lingo when asking about someone's attitudinal or emotional state of play in relation to a particular issue, e.g. "Where are you at with planning your mother-in-law's murder?", or "Where are you at with your massive weight loss challenge?". It ccould also be phrased as "Where are you up to ...?". Simply asking "where are you" in those situations would be asking the wrong question. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 03:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even for location, the tautology of including "at" is very common, though the earliest usage I can find is from 1879. I would just regard it as an idiom, combining "at what place are you?" with "where are you?", used just for emphasis, as with lots of tautology. Dbfirs 09:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Innovative"

The word "innovative" is defined as (1) Featuring new methods; advanced and original. and (2) Forward looking; ahead of current thinking

What if something never works for the person doing it, not now and not ever (for them, at least)? Is the word innovative still applicable, or is it only applied retroactively to history's winners? Suppose, for instance, that Joe Schmoe had opened a restaurant exactly like the one Dick and Mac McDonald did and had independently developed and implemented an absolutely identical system to their "Speedee Service System," (described as "innovative" on the third bullet point here) but by sheer chance, didn't catch on as McDonald's did, could his system be described as innovative?

Is "innovative" about content or purely results? I mean, if I spouted out a random sequence of words that had never been spoken in that order or did a random sequence of things that had never been done in that order and somehow something about that caused Homo sapiens around the world to buy my complete garbage product, would I be innovative simply because what I did was new, original, and successful? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would think "innovative" could be used negatively, too, as in "The accountants at Enron were too innovative for their own good" or "My students have some rather innovative reasons for why their homework wasn't done". StuRat (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's a requirement for anything innovative to be useful or successful; e.g. the Edsel is often described as innovative, despite being one of the biggest flops in the automotive industry. On the other hand, if something is a failure, it can be hard to tell the difference between innovative, eccentric, stupid, or accidental. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The "nov" in there means new; it doesn't mean "it worked" or "it caught on". --Orange Mike | Talk 13:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think innovative refers to "breaking new ground", figuratively speaking. In that sense it is successful even if a commercial flop. Bus stop (talk) 21:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Coincidentally, only last week this very topic came up in discussion with some coworkers of mine. Several had the sense that innovative also connoted some vague positive value. By their reading, calling Hitler's methods innovative would require either extreme violent racism, or at least strong irony. Perhaps because I tend to use words more precisely than most speakers, I argued that novelty and quality are logically independent concepts, so both of innovative and old-fashioned could perfectly reasonably be paired up with either of beneficial and detrimental without any of those four pairings causing any cognitive dissonance. Of course, I must admit that Madison Avenue is a far better judge of how actual human psychology works, and for them (who have a lot of money on the line), New! very definitely succeeds in conveying "better."—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 02:03, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And Madison Avenue is actually responsible for perpetuating the myth that "anything new is better", regularly used to tell us our old clothes and cars must be discarded for "innovative" new ones. StuRat (talk) 18:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Crêpe

Is the correct French pronunciation of this word [kʁɛp] or [kʁɛ:p]? A ref would be nice, if possible. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 12, 2011; 19:48 (UTC)

It depends on the dialect. The phoneme /ɛː/ has been replaced by /ɛ/ for many in France, but it is maintained in certain regions of France, as well as Belgium and Québec. See French phonology#Length. On this specific word, here's what the Trésor de la langue française says: "[kʀεp]. A long vowel, corresponding to the disappearance of the former -es- in crespe (replaced by ê), is indicated in Barbeau-Rodhe 1930 and, as a half-long vowel, in Passy 1914. The vowel length is regularly noted in the oldest dictionaries such as Land. 1834., Littré, et DG. The tendency is for it to disappear." Lesgles (talk) 20:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I suspected it is a dialectal thing. Thanks much for so detailed an answer (and the refs)!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 12, 2011; 21:35 (UTC)

Nice/niece/knees

Today at a meeting at work, I mentioned having just come back from a holiday in Nice, and then mentioned in passing that one project was older than my niece. One person thought I was saying "Nice", and another thought I was talking about my knees. Is there any way in spoken English that the words "Nice" (the city, not to be confused with the adjective "nice"), "niece" and "knees" can be distinguished? JIP | Talk 20:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can't say for all but with my standard British English, "Nice" and "Niece" are the same, with "Knees" having a more "z"-like sound. Perhaps the Nice/niece distinction is possible if only we pronounced "Nice" closer to the French, I don't know. But it could certainly sound more French if you try :) I'm not great with IPA, but it looks as if the French pronounce it shorter than I (and what I know of other Britons) would.Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We Finns know the distinction between short and long vowels very well, with the distinction forming numerous minimal pairs in words that would otherwise sound the same. So pronouncing "Nice" with a short /i/ and "niece"/"knees" with a long /i/ is no problem, and would certainly disambiguate between them to native Finnish speakers. On the other hand, the /s/ vs. /z/ distinction about the plural ending "s" is much more difficult for us to grasp. We Finns think that if the ending is written as "s", it should be pronounced as /s/. Perhaps pronouncing "knees" with a /z/ sound would help with native English speakers, but with native Finnish speakers (or with native speakers of many other non-English languages) it wouldn't help. JIP | Talk 21:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my (British) English, "Nice" and "niece" are homophonous, but readily distinguishable from "knees", which has a voiced final and consequently a (non-phonemically) longer vowel. I am surprised that there is an English anywhere where "niece" is confusable with "knees". --ColinFine (talk) 21:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have I been pronouncing the word "niece" incorrectly with a long /i/? Should it be pronounced with a short /i/, just like I was saying "nis"? JIP | Talk 21:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No and no. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my American English, Nice and niece sound alike. Knees though ends with a 'z' sound. I'm also surprised to hear that any variety of English pronounces knees in a manner confusable with the other two words. LadyofShalott 21:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with both ColinFine and LadyofShalott that "Nice" and "niece" are homophones, and "knees" is distinct in that the final consonant is /z/ rather than /s/, which makes the preceding vowel longer. (Once someone did misunderstand me when I was whispering and thought I had said "My niece" rather than "My knees". Voicing distinctions like that between /s/ and /z/ get lost in whispering.) Angr (talk) 22:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am a Canadian English speaker, and in my dialect all three are easily distinguishable: nice is pronounced [nɑɪs], niece as [nis], and knees as [niːz]. Hence, I've never had any problem with them and can't answer your question, but noting the differences between dialects is always interesting. Inter change able|talk to me 23:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's "Nice" as the French town Nice, not "nice" as in "pleasant". I too can't think of any real English dialect in which "niece" and "knees" are homophones, though there may be comedic potential there in an artificial "foreign" accent. Tonywalton ^Talk 23:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some native Chicagoans devoice final "s", so "knees" would be pronounced like "niece". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So now we know there is at least one variaty of English where niece and knees are homophones. Where, in fact, "almost all voiced consonants (...) are replaced by their voiceless counterparts", at least according to our article on Finglish. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finglish is an entirely different thing from English spoken by Finns. But still, it's true that as far as Finns understand, niece and knees are homophones. Finns known the distinction between the voiced consonants b, d and g, and the unvoiced consonants p, t and k, and (to a lesser extent) between the voiced consonant z and the unvoiced consonant s. The issue here is that "niece" has a "c" and "knees" has an "s". Neither has a "z". As such, Finns don't known any better than pronounce both as s. If "knees" were written as "kneez" we wouldn't have this problem. Note that the original Finglish looks like an attempt at incorporating English into Finnish. Modern Finns know how to speak English as an entirely different language, with its own pronunciation rules. However, with Finnish having close to a one-to-one matching between written glyphs and pronounced sounds, and lacking many of the sounds found in other languages, Finns don't know the English rules of pronunciation well enough. JIP | Talk 19:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

People may not realize this, but JIP lives in Finland. I don't think that we can count the imperfect pronunciations of non-native speakers as full-fledged "varieties of English". I'm sure that there are English speakers in Finland who have mastered the distinction between voiced and unvoiced final consonants. The rest are just making a mistake. Marco polo (talk) 12:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I meant by my earlier comment. I could try to make a distinction by saying "kneez" when I mean the joints in my legs rather than my sister's adorable little baby, but it would be lost on my co-workers at the meeting, who are Finnish and Chinese, not native English speakers. JIP | Talk 16:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference, the plural ending -s is always pronounced as /z/ when it follows a voiced phoneme (a category which includes vowels). It is only pronounced as /s/ when it follows a voiceless phoneme. So birds, dogs, and cobras are pronounced with /z/, and cats, yaks, and wasps are pronounced with /s/. You are right that there is no easy solution if your co-workers don't have a full grasp of English pronunciation. In that case, I guess you have to point to your knees or pull out a picture of your niece. :) Lesgles (talk) 23:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has been drawing few distinctions between pronunciation and orthography (spelling). As has been pointed out, in most dialects of English, the name of the French city and the genealogical term for the female relative are homophones, and their pronunciation differs from that of the plural of the anatomical term for the leg joint in having its final consonant unvoiced. JIP, could you clarify your original question; in particular, was it about spoken or written English?—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 01:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, now that I've actually read your original question, I see that it was about spoken English. Perhaps your asking about lexical embellishments, sort of the way that the French might say "Mon livre à moi" to emphasize the ownership of the book? If that's the sense of your question, then I can't think of any simple English convention a speaker can use to eliminate the confusion between "niece" and "knees" that would arise from insensitivity to the voiced-unvoiced distinction. It's not a problem that native speakers confront, so I don't know that any easy solution has been cooked up.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 01:52, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You will find final /z/ plural devoicing in the movie Fargo and in this famous Saturday Night Live skit, Da Bearss.

Phonemic/phonetic language

What is the difference between these two terms? And how are they related to "phonemic orthography" (and also the latter as opposed to "phonetic orthography"). Thanks! 68.54.4.162 (talk) 23:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Phonetic" refers to descriptions of sounds in physiological and/or acoustic terms, while "phonemic" refers to sounds which distinctively contrast in a language (i.e. cases where if you substitute one sound for another you get a different word with different meaning -- see minimal pair). AnonMoos (talk) 02:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess my question wasn't very clear. If someone says "X is phonetic language" and someone else says "Y is a phonemic language", what is the difference? 68.54.4.162 (talk) 02:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For a language to be intelligible, it needs to (a) consist of audibly different sounds - 'phonetic', and (b) for at least some of these different sounds to indicate different meanings - 'phonemic'. All real spoken languages are therefore both. Some languages are written more phonetically that others - which merely indicates that there is a more direct relation between the written language and pronunciation - so if you see a properly-spelled word in a particular language you are fluent in that you've never seen before, you should be able to pronounce it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Andy; I've never heard someone say "phonemic language" or "phonetic language" before, and can only assume you're referring to languages that are written with more phonemic or more phonetic writing system. A phonemic writing system indicates only sound differences that are meaningful. For instance, in English the difference between /t/ and /d/ is actually a difference between two sounds, whereas the difference between "t" in "top"—pronounced [tʰ]—and "t" in "stop"—pronounced [t]—is not meaningful; a phonemic writing system doesn't indicate the difference between these two sounds, whereas a very phonetic writing system would. (For another example, think of the word bank. Although it's spelled <bank>, with an N, we actually pronounce it "bangk"; if our writing system were extremely phonetic, it would spell that word exactly as it is pronounced.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sanskrit has a fairly phonetic writing system. There are separate letters for [ɳ], [ɲ], and [ŋ] even though they're all just allophones of /n/ before homorganic consonants. Also various internal and external sandhi effects like voicing assimilation, word-final devoicing, and the complicated allophony of /s/ (whose allophones include [s], [ʂ], [r], and [h]) are all indicated in the spelling. Angr (talk) 12:34, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish and Latin etymology

Are there any online dictionaries that explain the etymology of Spanish words, but in English? Not OED-level etymologies necessarily, but something on the order of these. Also, the same question but for Latin words. Thanks for any help! 68.54.4.162 (talk) 23:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary is intended to include etymologies for all its entries (which are for all words in all languages), but it's very much a work in progress so there's no guarantee any given Spanish or Latin word's etymology will actually be present. But in theory it could be, and the more people work on it, the more etymologies there will be. Angr (talk) 06:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if any Latin etymological dictionaries are online, but the Lewis and Short Latin dictionary often has etymological info. Of course it's 130 years old and probably out of date, and it really only shows you how the words are related to Sanskrit and Greek, but it's a start. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For Spanish, I don't think there are any (besides Wiktionary). Depending on the word, you may be able to understand the etymology given in a Spanish-Spanish dictionary even if you are a beginning learner. For example, in the RAE dictionary we find "etimología (Del lat. etymologĭa, y este del gr. ἐτυμολογία)." Some etymologies would take longer to figure out, though: for "arrollar (Del lat. *rotulāre, de rotŭlus, rodillo)", you would have to look up rodillo in a Spanish-English dictionary if you didn't know what it meant. Lesgles (talk) 23:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis and Short is dangerous to use in regards to the Indo-European roots. It accepts the outdated and false idea that Sanskrit, with its corrupted thre voewl (a/i/u) system is the older, when indeed the five vowel systems of Latin and Greek are closer to the original. μηδείς (talk) 01:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]