Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 August 10

= August 10 =

Vietnamese phonology - Hanoi dialect
Our article on Vietnamese phonology has ''There are also sound mergers involving syllable-final consonants among the different regional varieties. ... Hanoi /k, ŋ/ appear as [Ho Chi Minh City] /t, n/ when they occur after /i, e, j/ (otherwise they are /k, ŋ/).'' In the table below, it has [excerpted]:


 * {| border="1" cellpadding="6" style="border-collapse: collapse; background: #f9f9f9; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid #ccc; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: center;"

! colspan="5" | Syllable codas ! rowspan="2" | Hanoi ! rowspan="2" | HCMC ! colspan="3" | Example ! word ! Hanoi ! HCMC
 * - style="background: #f2f2f2;"
 * - style="background: #f2f2f2;"
 * - style="background: #f2f2f2;"
 * style="text-align: left;" | after
 * style="text-align: left;" |
 * style="text-align: left;" | lính  "soldier"
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }

I agree that final inh is /ɨn/ in Saigon (the only dialect I have any familiarity with). But I'm surprised that lính is /liŋ/ in Hanoi. I would expect /ɲ/ (as nh is pronounced in other contexts). Anyone familiar with the northern dialects of Vietnamese? Tesseran 07:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be exaggerating to say I'm familiar with any dialect of Vietnamese at all, but I have read that the palatals spelled ch, nh are pronounced as velars (as if spelled c, ng) at the end of a syllable in some dialects, and that a palatal glide is inserted if the preceding vowel isn't already i (so that anh is pronounced /aiŋ/). —Angr 17:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've read that as well, in the chapter on Vietnamese in The World's Major Languages (ed. Bernard Comrie), and for what it's worth I've also heard recordings of Vietnamese in which that's clearly the case with nh, at least. I don't know anything about Vietnamese dialectology, though, so I couldn't say which dialects have that, or which dialect(s) I've heard recordings of --Miskwito 19:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That's exactly the same place where I read it! —Angr 19:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This language continues to surprise me. Thanks to both of you. Tesseran 18:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

English Statements
Can we have statements at wikipedia claiming "the oldest" if the source cites "by far the oldest"? The book dates 2004BalanceRestored 10:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I should think so. "By far the oldest" just means "the oldest by a great deal". Neil   ム  10:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I talk your word :)BalanceRestored 11:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"Four twenty six"?
Aliens (film) makes me ask this: 426 is called "four twenty six". Is this simply an abbreviation for "four hundred and twenty-six", or is some kind of connotation associated with this way to express it? --Thick Peter 15:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's just an abbreviation for the bare number. That's not the standard way of saying it in English if you are counting something (you wouldn't say "four twenty six apples"), but in other contexts it is standard (like a house address or a batting average in baseball, for example). What is the context of the number in Aliens? Adam Bishop 17:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's part of LV-426, a planet's name. --Thick Peter 19:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, yeah, that's perfectly normal then. Even "four two six" would be okay there. Adam Bishop 19:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thx. --Thick Peter 20:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's very standard, as described above, however I would add that time is almost always referred to that way. I am thinking, however, of 420, where the pronunciation would have an implication. 68.39.174.238 17:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * To answer the original question which wasn't really addressed, it's the difference between the number 426 as a quantity (which would usually be spoken as "I ate four hundred and twenty six hot dogs at the eating contest at the county fair") and the same number as, say, a room number at a hotel: "I'm in room four twenty-six". Now, I'm not exactly sure what the formal linguistic explanation of this is, but I can say with some assurance that this is how numbers like these are commonly spoken in English. In other words, numbers as quantities are spelled out while numbers used as identifiers aren't. (I should add that ordinal numbers are also spelled out: "He placed one hundred and ninetieth out of four hundred in the eating contest.") +ILike2BeAnonymous 04:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Referring to LV-426 as "four twenty six" was a nice touch. It was exactly what a military unit would have done.  For instance, I served in the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.  That's a bit of a mouthful to say often, so informal usage tends to abbreviate things.  When someone asked "What unit are you with?" the standard reply was "I'm in the second of the three two five."  Referring to LV-426 as "four twenty six" was just one more detail of immersion, helping set the military tone of the movie.  152.16.188.107 10:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Now what's the advantage of "four twenty six" over "four two six"? --Thick Peter 13:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Advantage? I don't know. I don't make the rules around here (meaning I don't have the power to control how people use language); I'm only reporting to you how it is used. Some people may say "four two six", for instance police, taxicab or other dispatchers, but most folks would say "four twenty six". Like I say, I don't know why, not being a linguist. +ILike2BeAnonymous 18:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not 100% sure, but I always thought that the "advantage" was to facilitate un-ambiguous communication and thereby avoid miscommunication. When spoken, words like "forty", "fifty", "sixty" (etc.) can pretty much sound the same and be indistinguishable to the listener.  Especially so, if the speaker is not enunciating clearly or is speaking quickly or there is a faulty communication device (phone static, etc.).  However, words like "four", "five", "six" (etc.) have much more unique sounds (they don't all sound the "same") and therefore are easier to distinguish. (Joseph A. Spadaro 19:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC))


 * On a related note to my above post. That is also why military (and others like police, ambulance, 911 dispatchers, etc.) will use representative words instead of alphabet letters.  This is to avoid confusion by similar sounding letters.  And this is effective especially in situations where clear, direct, un-ambiguous communication is vital ... and a miscommunication is extremely serious or grave.  Thus, the system is used by police, fire, military, ambulance, emergency, and 911 dispatchers (and the like).  It is very hard to distinguish, say, the spoken words for b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v, z.  They all sound exactly the same, if not enunciated perfectly under perfect conditions (which usually do not exist in emergency situations).  So, the similar sounding spoken words of "b" and "c" are much more easily distinguished and understood (i.e., they are heard correctly with less likely error) if you use the words "Bravo" for "b" and "Charlie" for "c" instead.  It is very difficult to distinguish the spoken word "b" from "c" ... but it is not difficult at all to distinguish the spoken word "Bravo" from "Charlie".   Hence, this system increases better communication / understanding and avoids poor communication / misunderstandings. Make sense?  (Joseph A. Spadaro 19:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC))


 * See NATO phonetic alphabet. (Joseph A. Spadaro 19:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC))
 * I'd say the advantage of saying "four twenty-six" rather than "four two six" is that "four twenty-six" is only two numbers to remember (4 and 26), while "four two six" is three numbers (4, 2, and 6). I suppose this is the reason why Germans read phone numbers off as groups of two-digit numbers: while I as an American would pronounce the phone number 45977631 as "four five nine seven seven six three one", Germans read it as "forty-five ninety-seven seventy-six thirty-one". Except that because of the way German handles numbers like these, what they really say is "five and forty, seven and ninety, six and seventy, one and thirty", which is a really dirty trick to play on someone just starting to learn German! —Angr 19:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Two things: 1) when using numbers as labels, you'll often hear a "zero" pronounced as "O" ("oh"), but you would never say I have "five O six dollars in my bank account", and 2) my recollection of the Alien movie(s) is that they said "LV four two six", rather than "LV four twenty-six", but maybe it varied. --Sean 13:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Both expressions are used, but if I got it straight, "two" only once or twice, "twenty" the other times. --Thick Peter 13:13, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Female curves?
In German, it is common to sum up the secondary sexual characteristics of women (breasts, hips...) as "weibliche Rundungen", which roughly means "female curves". Is this a usual expression in English, or is there another with the same meaning? --Thick Peter 20:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. Saying that a woman has "curves" or is "curvy" (an adjective specific to this context) has the same meaning in English.--Pharos 20:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * While it is common to speak of a woman's "curves", the actual expression "female curves" is not often used. I don't think that there is a common expression that is equivalent to "weibliche Rundungen", but if I were to translate the expression, I would use "feminine curves", not "female curves".  "Feminine" is a sexier, softer, and more flattering word than "female", which has a biological or medical connotation.  Marco polo 01:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that a man could have feminine curves. Tesseran 07:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That could apply to weibliche Rundungen as well. Here is a (bloggish) sentence on how Joschka Fischer exchanged his "feminine curves" for a "wiry masculine figure". I doubt I'd choose this attribute to describe the former minister's characteristic, yet entirely masculine, chubbiness, but weiblich does mean female and feminine. I might use "weibliche Stimme" or "weibliche Gesichtszüge" for a man's feminine voice or facial features. ---Sluzzelin talk  08:00, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Marco that while it is common to speak of a woman's "curves", the actual expression "female curves" is not often used. What is used is "figure". You might say that some woman has "a very nice figure", for example. The use of this word for a man is possible but much less common. --Anonymous, August 13, 22:37 (UTC), copyedited later.