Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 April 15

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April 15

More questions

1. Is there any Uralic or Turkic language which allows velar nasal /ŋ/ word-internally between vowels?
2. Which languages use special letters (letters with diacritics and digraphs) in enumeration (naming and coding things with letters, e.g. chapters of books A, B, C, D, E etc.)? At least Finnish uses Å, Ä and Ö in this case, but do e.g. Slovene, Turkish, Hungarian and Romanian any of their special letters?
3. Is there any language using Cyrillic alphabet where soft sign (ь) has a phonetic value similarly to hard sign (ъ) in Bulgarian?

--40bus (talk) 17:25, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

3. In Jaꞑalif, Ь stood for /ɯ, ɤ, ɨ/ 87.116.163.214 (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

2. In Esperanto, all 28 letters are used for this sort of purpose; i.e., A, B, C, Ĉ, D, E, F, G, Ĝ, H, Ĥ, and so on. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:09, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

4. Which language has longest Latin alphabet? Is any Latin alphabet longer than Slovak alphabet (46 letters)? At there are Cyrillic alphabets with 70 letters, but are there any Latin alphabets with 50-70 letters? --40bus (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

1: The languages of these families that have this phoneme don't seem to disallow it in this position. Even if some of them do, it's not hard to find counterexamples such as Kyrgyz (Turkic) and Nenets (Uralic). --Theurgist (talk) 21:18, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

What does that mean? Is kaňa a possible word in Turkmen according to phonotactics? Would be pronounced [ka.ŋa]. --40bus (talk) 17:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

tk:Wikipediýa:Hoş geldiňiz has -iňi- right in the title. 147.234.66.217 (talk) 20:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

And has /ŋ/ in onset. --40bus (talk) 12:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

2. You can at least rule out those (e.g. French) that do not alphabetize them separately. —Tamfang (talk) 05:13, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Illeism in the letters of Edgar Degas (1834–1917)

I'm currently perusing some of the letters of Edgar Degas. I've noticed he is an illeist of sorts, but only in certain places. I can't tell if he is doing it for the sake of humor or something else entirely. I don't have the original French handy, only the translation. This particular letter is from around 1882 and is addressed to both Albert Bartholomé and his wife Prospérie de Fleur:

Monsieur Degas, much touched, presents his compliments for the New Year to Monsieur and Madame Bartholomé. He also finds himself forced to admit that he has no visiting cards and that when he does not find people at home he writes his name on the margin of the concierges' newspapers; he is given an envelope. The delicacy and finesse of friendship in others gives him infinite pleasure. May the others continue![1]

To me, it reads like he is joking, as he doesn't talk like this at other times in other letters to the same couple. Because Madame Bartholomé comes from a French noble family (she is Prospérie de Fleury, daughter of the Marquis de Fleury), does this mean Degas is intentionally playing the role of an illeist in the letter as a joke because of their class and wealth, or is it just lighthearted humor for another reason? Viriditas (talk) 20:30, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

The French text can be read here: [2]. The third-person form for this kind of formal note was conventional: "Le Comte de St. Aulaire présente ses compliments à Son Excellence le Comte Aberdeen",^[3] "Lord Palmerston présente ses compliments à M. Galvão",^[4] "Le Comte de Lieven présente ses compliments à Milord Londonderry".^[5] The third-person formula "presents his/her complements" for such notes was also common in English at the time.^[6][7] If Degas was joking, the joke was in the formality of the note, not its use of the third person.  --Lambiam 08:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. I agree, the joke was in the formality. Viriditas (talk) 21:57, 17 April 2023 (UTC)