Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 October 9

= October 9 =

Esperanto hx
How is the Esperanto letter hx (h-circumflex) pronounced? The sound doesn't exist in English and the Wikipedia article doesn't really help me know how to make that sound. --70.129.191.75 (talk) 00:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There are sound-file buttons in the infoboxes of Voiceless velar fricative and Voiceless uvular fricative. Deor (talk) 01:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I mean, how do I physically make that sound? --70.129.191.75 (talk) 01:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It does exist in some accents of English, especially Scottish (loch), otherwise you might still get it by saying "ugh". - file lake  shoe  01:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC
 * You should read the article, but short answer, mimic the sound of "ch" in the Scottish pronunciation of Loch Ness, the Spanish "j" of joder or the second "ch" in the German Waldschlucht Beeren or Arschloch. (EC) No, "Ugh" is voiced.μηδείς (talk) 01:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Set up your mouth for pronouncing a k, but keep it that way while expelling air from your lungs instead of "releasing" the back of your tongue from your palate after a brief puff. Deor (talk) 01:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You could also read the "Features" sections. A detailed description of each sound is laid down in the "Features" section of the Wikipedia article about that sound. See Voiceless velar fricative and Voiceless uvular fricative, and bear in mind that your ultimate results should be identical (or at least akin) to the sounds played with the sound-file buttons. --Theurgist (talk) 01:57, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * As a faithful reader of Mad magazine, I preferred the simple instruction, "Say 'Yeccccchhhhh!' without the 'yeh' at the start." -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  20:46, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Purpose of hx?
What's the point of having a separate letter hx when it could be replaced by the similar, but easier to pronounce and less ugly-sounding, k in all occurrences? --70.129.191.75 (talk) 15:30, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I assume you're asking about Esperanto again? According to our article on Esperanto,  and  represent different (distinctive) sounds in that language. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 15:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * But they sound fairly similar, and some words have already had hx replaced by k (like hxemio -> kemio). Why didn't they just finish the transition and get rid of hx entirely? --70.129.191.75 (talk) 15:58, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Presumably the distinction between these two sounds matters in some words. You might find more information at Esperanto_phonology. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 16:11, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * [k] and [x] really don't sound all that similar to those whose native language includes a phonemic distinction between the two. Anyway, [x] occurs in most of the languages of central Europe that Zamenhof would have known best.  The website http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/#b claims that Zamenhof pretty much included the phonemes of his native dialect into Esperanto. AnonMoos (talk) 16:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Pronouncing ĥ (hh, hx) is like playing a violin: pleasantness comes from practice.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 20:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

See also a question about  that we had just recently, Reference desk/Language (anticipated archive at Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 October 6). --Theurgist (talk) 18:03, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Repeated pronunciation of any phoneme will eventually allow you to master it, especially if you're among people who use it a lot. I couldn't roll my r's for the life of me, but then I took a vacation to Mexico and suddenly I rrrrreally imprrrrroved! Inter  change  able | talk to me  21:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Kosten the same as schmecken (to taste)
So I was talking to my great aunt in German for the first time (I wasn't sure if she still spoke it, and she was delighte to converse with me in it). We had a lovely set of conversations and I was amazed at how much German she remembered. At one point though she offered me some yummy rugeleach (I don't know how to describe those as something other than a sweet-filled crescent) and said that they ,,kostet gut". After two ,,wie bittes" from me, she said taste good. Now she left Austria in 1938 (for obvious reasons), and so her German would reflect the state of Austrian German at the time I would think. So, here is my question, has kosten, which to me is simply "to cost" ever meant to taste as well? (I'm assuming she didn't use the wrong word even though she speaks perfect English and kosten is a true cognate) If this use still exists today, is it something unique to Austrian German as spoken in Vienna (I hear that the Austrians in the west are influenced by... Schweitzerdeutch *lightning crack*)? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 11 Tishrei 5772 06:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I entered "kostet gut" into Google translate, and it came back as "does well". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Put the simple infinitive, 'kosten', into GT and you get a variety of meanings, including 'taste'. And make the most of GT, as it's going to be finished as of Dec. 1 this year  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  07:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Huhn, weird, I didn't know kostet had so many uses. Does Google Translate cover all main dialects of German (by which I mean Germany German, Austrian, Lichtensteinisch, Swiss etc; not regional like Swabian or Bayerisch) in its translation or just the type in the Duden (like Webster's for them) of Germany? Also, no offence meant to you guys, but any Viennese present (can't get a better source than that). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 11 Tishrei 5772 07:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. 'Kosten' meaning 'taste' is standard German, not dialect (I have just asked a friend from Stuttgart). As for whether GT uses dialects or not, it probably does. It's a community built translation memory, which is actually the reason why it's being discontinued: many people abuse it, and so it's costing the Google people too much to clean the crap up.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  08:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Odd, I wonder why the Treffpunkt book never tought us about that use. I'll ask my German professor on Monday. Thanks! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 11 Tishrei 5772 08:40, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Kosten can mean "to taste", but only as a transitive verb, as in Ich kostete die Suppe ("I tasted the soup"). To taste as in intransive verb, as in "The soup tasted good" would be schmecken (Die Suppe schmeckte gut). Kostet gut for "tastes good" sounds wrong to me as a native speaker. Of course I cannot rule out dialectal differences, but it seems more probable to me that your great aunts German has been influenced by English usage of to taste. --BishkekRocks (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * there may have been a pronoun in between kostet and gut. Also, remember that she left Vienna in 1938 so her German reflects German as it was at the time most likely. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 11 Tishrei 5772 21:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Wiktionary implies that both meanings (monetary value versus taste) come from the same root, the Proto-Indo-European *geus- (“to taste, choose”). Duden suggests, that the kosten (as in monetary value) may have attained the meaning via the Latin constare (= of fixed price) whilst kosten (as in food) is related to the Latin gustare.  The German double meaning applies both to the verb kosten and the associated nouns (die Kosten and die Kost).  Kost (noun, f) denotes a classification of food, eg Hausmannskost for home-style cooking.  There is also the term köstlich, meaning delicious (opposite to kostbar, meaning of high value).


 * The term kosten (food related) is still perfectly normal in Viennese German, though it is somewhat colloquial / informal. As KägeTorä points out above, it is certailny not a dialectal usage.  Similar to the respondent above I feel that "das kostet gut…" sounds odd.  It may, however, have been a perfectly valid expression in Viennese Yiddish or Jewish German.  Googling in German gives no results apart from the phrase das kostet gut (und gerne) nnn Euro, meaning "this easily costs nnn Euro", ie the phrase uses kosten in the money related meaning.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Could it have been colloquial in '38 as well? She is 84 now so she was about 13 or so when she left Austria, but from an affluent family (I don't know how plutocrats would have spoken). Yeah, but I don't think she ever spoke Yiddish at all, but I could be wrong; also, Jewish German? What? O_O Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 11 Tishrei 5772 21:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Kosten actually means more to try it out (if f.ex. it is spiced well) while schmecken would rather suggest that the person is eating it. After that he would say es hat geschmeckt. But as Cookatoo... hinted, kosten translates also with to cost (a lot of money). --Matthiasb (talk) 20:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Wellp, my Kielerin German Professorin confirmed that it is indeed very old German (by which she means old fashioned). The Treffpunkt book defined it as either tasting or tasting good and gave the idea of "something smacking of favouritism" as a fun English use. So kosten in that use is if the person you are giving it to has never had it before? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15 Tishrei 5772 16:27, 13 October 2011 (UTC)