Language desk
< November 21	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 23 >

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.

November 22

Vowels

Is Japanese a language with [ɯ], but no [u], which would make it very unusual? Also, are there languages with [y] but no [i], with [ø] but no [e], and with [ɤ] but no [o]? --40bus (talk) 18:28, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

According to this, the most common non-reduced vowel sound is [i], so it seems unlikely that any language with the rounded version would not also have the unrounded version. this discussion claims that Scandinavian languages have more rounded vowels than unrounded vowels, so there must be at least some pairs that have only the rounded version, though I am unsure if the specific pairs you note match. --Jayron 32 18:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly off-topic, but which is reason for that Swedish does not have many words ending with Ä? Is this related to checked vowel rule, as ⟨ä⟩ is usually pronounced [ɛ(ː)] in Swedish? --40bus (talk) 19:16, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think Swedish words, except for werbs, generally tend to end with consonants, anyway. Bä (baah) and nä (no) are interjections, spä (dilute) is short for späda, likewise klä (clothe, dress) from kläda, lä (lee) and fä (cattle) might be derived from endings that were rare already in Proto-Germanic. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:36, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of native nouns ending on -a, such as krona and kvinna, and a whole class of nouns suffixed with -are. Some other nouns on -e are område and armbåge. The numerals två (2), tre (3), fyra (4), sju (7), åtta (8), nio (9), tio (10) and elva (11) also end on vowels. --Lambiam 09:53, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By (village, å (river) and ö (island) end on vowels. --40bus (talk) 10:05, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What I meant was that, they're relatively rarer. I think words that end in ä, u, y and ö are fairly rare overall. (Although for u, there are still many commonly occurring words, such as du, ju, nu and sju...) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:05, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I don't like that Swedish, Norwegian and Danish don't double long vowels, and instead double consonants after short vowels. The doubling of long vowels would have spelling closer to pronunciation. For example [tɑ:l] would be taal and not tal; [tal] would be tal and not tall. Only in three languages, Finnish, Estonian and Dutch double vowel letters are common. I think that there should be more languages in Europe with common doubled vowel letters. --40bus (talk) 19:21, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To each one's own... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:28, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"made of basket"

“

A young Havasupai mother carries her child in a cradle made of basket, in Supai or Havasu Canyon, on 12 August 1941.

”

— theguardian.com - The Grand Canyon turns 100: rare photos of life and adventure

Is this an idiomatic phrase? At first, I thought that the word "basket" might have a sense referring to a specific material, and went looking for such, but came up blank. Now, I'm thinking the phrase is meant to be read simply as "made the way baskets are made", in place of "wicker". This strikes me as an unfamiliar kind of "made of" construction, though it occurs to me that the existence of the likes of "made of win" suggests that there's more potential productivity here than I realized.

- 2A02:560:5979:5700:6529:63DB:9F7E:7C0C (talk) 19:28, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not an idiomatic phrase. It seems more like the sort of mis-phrasing a non-native speaker might make. The standard phrasing would be "made from a basket" or "made of basket-woven materials". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see no definition of "basket" in the OED that would make this grammatical. I wonder if a word has been omitted. Perhaps "made of basket reed" or "made of basket work" or something like that was intended. CodeTalker (talk) 20:12, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It could be a misprint for "made of baskets". --Lambiam 00:00, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In English (according to this elderly BrE speaker) "made of basketry" would be perfectly cromulent. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230,.195} 90.217.47.60 (talk) 00:40, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah all of the above suggestions would be correct usages.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:02, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also in Britain, "a basketware cradle" would be a normal phrasing, but Wiktionary also has basketwork. Alansplodge (talk) 13:11, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the photo, it looks as if the cradle is fashioned from (parts of) several baskets. --Lambiam 18:36, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]