Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 February 5

= February 5 =

Chinese: "To be or not to be".
The Chinese Wikipedia translates "to be or not to be" as 生存还是毁灭. Could anybody translate 生存还是毁灭 back into English - literally (or semi-literally, if a perfect literal translation is impossible)? 84.229.44.114 (talk) 11:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I answered this above before you moved it. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 11:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that the literal translation back into English would be something like "To survive or to destroy". Marco polo (talk) 17:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think 毁灭 is being used transitively, though; I understood it as being something more like passive ("to be destroyed") or unaccusative (above I offered "to go out", like a light)--not "to destroy [something else]". r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "Survival or destruction", I think. There is no indication other than the context whether the voice is active or passive. This is the traditional translation in Chinese, and is very much contextual from the play. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Bouncing baby boys
Why do newborn human male infants in English-speaking countries frequently engage in bouncing? And why is this behavior less commonly observed among comparable females? Nyttend (talk) 14:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it true that boys bounce more than girls and that this is more commonly seen in English speaking countries? Is this an anecdotal observation or something you've read or seen somewhere?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The reason babies do anything is because it feels good. It no doubt helps to develop their coordination, but of course babies didn't bounce at all before they had something to bounce on. Last time I dropped one it didn't bounce at all.--Shantavira|feed me 14:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It's all in the technique. With the right coordination, you can make one skip thrice before sinking. This usually results in them becoming multi-talented upon maturation.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  16:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Use that "thumbs-up" thingy while you can, as they are looking to delete it on Commons, as a copyright violation, of all things. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * This question clearly needs a cite for its claim. Roger (talk) 15:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Nyttend -- I think that "Bouncing baby boy" is just an old semi-jocular alliterative phrase, and is not founded on any double-blind studies with statistical analysis of variance... AnonMoos (talk) 15:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand that it's just a phrase, and the wording itself was the only reason I asked; if I'd seriously been asking about infantile behavior, I would have gone to the science desk :-) Nyttend (talk) 03:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Rounded and unrounded vowels
Why do /ɯ/ and /ɤ/ sound so similar to /u/ and /o/, even though other unrounded/rounded pairs, like /i y/ and /ɛ œ/, are easy to tell apart? --108.225.115.211 (talk) 16:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Those pairs don't sound similar at all to me. What's your language background? r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 05:41, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * English. --108.225.115.211 (talk) 03:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * My language background is American English and these all sound quite different to me, although I must admit I have familiarity with Mandarin (which has ɤ) and Korean and Uyghur (which have ɯ). Here's a [unfortunately low-quality, since I'm just at home on my laptop] recording of the four of them (in the order [u, ɯ, o, ɤ]). It's hard for me to say them without contexts, though. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 05:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My native language is Polish. In your recording, the first two vowels sound the same to me. — Kpalion(talk) 23:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * To pronounce [ɯ], just pronounce [u], hold it, and then (while still making the sound) un-round your lips. It might be easier to feel the difference than to hear it! r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 23:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

"before" & "beget"
Does the 1st vowel in "before" & "beget" sound like the 1st vowel in "define" or the 1st vowel in "velocity"?

According to this video, minute 4:18, I think it sounds like "velocity". I need a verification.--72.152.250.145 (talk) 22:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * For questions like that, you should go to wiktionary first and look up the IPA. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Dictionaries aren't going to be of much help here, because the pronunication of the first vowel in these words is highly idiosyncratic and inconsistent. It depends on the speaker, and whether they reduce the unaccented vowels. I gernerally reduce all four vowels, and pronounce them like the "i" in "it". Other speakers may or may not reduce any or all of these vowels, and pronounce them differently, whether reduced or not reduced. Even the same speaker may not be consistent at all times. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but for a generic question like this one, a generic answer can be found in a dictionary. Or, 72.152, did you want to know whether that one specific speaker in that one specific video pronounces it that way? In that case, we'd need a sample of the speaker's saying before and beget and define. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * In the above video link, I would say Chris Wallace says "before" like "velocity"--if I am hearing correctly.--72.152.250.145 (talk) 23:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The first vowel in "velocity" is /ə/, the first vowel in "define" is /ɪ/. For "before" and "beget", some dictionaries only give pronunciations with /ɪ/, some give both versions, e.g., before.--Itinerant1 (talk) 23:08, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Dictionaries haven't helped me.


 * The first vowel in "velocity" is /ə/, the first vowel in "define" is /ɪ/. True & clearly understood.
 * pronunication of the first vowel in these words (e.g. "before", "beget", "because") is highly idiosyncratic and inconsistent

The above 2 lines are my conclusions from your replies. --72.152.250.145 (talk) 23:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That may be true for Americans, but for me and many (? most) British people, all four are /ɪ/. --ColinFine (talk) 23:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As they are for me, an American. The takehome message is that unaccented vowels are pronounced highly idiosyncratically and inconsistently, those in "define" and "velocity" included. Trying to generalize is pointless, and dictionaries offer no useful guidance as they generally ignore vowel reduction altogether, for the simple reason that it is highly idiosyncratic and inconsistent. See this article for more information: Vowel reduction in English. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, just too variable. Velocity is the odd one out for me here in northern England, but I regularly hear it with an /ɪ/.    D b f i r s   00:29, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't have to, but if you could put a video or audio link for "vi-locity", then I would eagerly listen to it. (By the way, I live in southeastern United States.) --72.152.250.145 (talk) 01:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds closer to an /ɪ/ in [tch?v=y2R3FvS4xr4 Monty Python]. Lesgles (talk) 03:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I just listened to 0:11 minute of the video and noticed that I definitely hear /ə/ as the 1st vowel sound which is nothing like the 1st vowel in "define"--72.152.250.145 (talk) 03:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, I also know about schwi, but the Monty Python video was simply a /ə/.--72.152.250.145 (talk) 03:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * All of the examples here have a first syllable schwa in many English dialects. Schwas come in different 'colorations', so there are i-colored schwas, and u-colored schwas, and both of these schwas can also contain r-coloration as well. See Vowel reduction in English for a quick synopsis of the different schwas. So, if some people here an "e" sound and others hear an "i" sound when the speak those words themselves (or even, when the hear others speak them), it says a lot about a person's own dialect/idiolect. -- Jayron  32  03:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)