Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 October 29

= October 29 =

name for a second language skill evaulation
Hi. An international organization provides this self-administered "test" for assessing second language competence. There are only five or six (numbered) levels but several questions within each level. The questions are things like Can you carry on a conversation about your job or Can you correctly use and switch between formal and informal registers of language; stuff like that. What is it called? I can't find it again. Ta. 184.147.116.246 (talk) 10:50, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It is perhaps in Category:English language tests --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 19:43, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I looked but it is none of those. They are all actual tests that generate a result from your answers to specific questions. This is different, you basically assess yourself by asking yourself if the descriptions of the levels apply to you. (Hence "test" in quotes.) Would welcome more ideas. 184.147.116.246 (talk) 09:57, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Just found it myself at last: ILR scale, for anyone who was wondering. 184.147.119.205 (talk) 20:14, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Lax vowels in unchecked syllables
How is the words like /æbi, mɛdoʊ, sɪti, fɒloʊ, brʌðə, bʊlɪt/ interpreted? Where is the syllable borders? Can an untrained English speaker pronounce lax vowels in unchecked final syllables that is / tæ, tɛ, tɪ, tɒ, tʌ, tʊ/ or is it really impossible?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Generally the answer to the last question is, no they can't, but it depends somewhat on dialect. In particular, a final /ɪ/ occurs in words like "sorry" several dialects, including some versions of RP. (In Yorkshire where I live, it is sometimes lowered almost to /ɛ/). --ColinFine (talk) 12:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Meh. μηδείς (talk) 16:05, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It is rare for a lax vowel to be in an unchecked syllable in English, but it can happen. Several examples are "Hanoi" /hæ'nɔɪ/ and interjections/particles such as "uh-uh" / 'ʌ.ʌ/, "uh-huh" /ʌ'hʌ/, and "huh?" /hʌ/. In some other words such as brʌðə, it seems to me that you could break the syllables in either place and sound right, but the dictionary convention would be to include the consonant in the preceding syllable with the lax vowel. Incidentally, the American pronunciation of one of your examples is /ˈfɑloʊ/, and the American /ɑ/ is not lax, at least according to what I've read and my experience. Duoduoduo (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Любослов Езыкин -- In a VCV sequence in English, where the first vowel is stressed and the second unstressed, and there is no compound-stem boundary between the first vowel and the following consonant, then the syllable which includes the first vowel does not count as "open" or "unchecked" for the purpose of determining the distribution of English tense/long vs. lax/short vowels. Which syllable the intervocalic consonant belongs to depends on which analysis you adopt; according to certain phonological linguistic theories, it could belong to both. Also, the rule requiring stressed lax/short vowels to appear only in closed/checked syllables does not apply to fully unstressed (reduced) vowels -- [ə] in all quasi-standard dialects, and either [ɪ] in [ɨ] most... AnonMoos (talk) 21:36, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

ʊ→ʌ in dialects
Scots and Scottish English (which has the obvious Scots substrate) differ with Southern English English nearly in all aspects, but what a little bit strikes me, that they have one common trait, the shift ʊ→ʌ, which is absent in the nearest neighbour of Scottish, in Tyneside English. How did it happened? And in general why do Tyneside/Northern English and Scots/Scottish English so differ phonetically? As I know they came from the same Northumbrian dialect of Anglo-Saxon, why the political border became the linguistic one (for example, in spite of the border there is the dialect continuum between German and Dutch dialects, Franconian and Low Saxon are on the both sides of the border).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:24, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know the answer to all your questions, but it seems that there is some kind of dialect continuum, at least some complexity. See Berwick-upon-Tweed. It's about 60 miles by road from Tyneside to Edinburgh, and the country in between is hilly and not highly populated, so it isn't surprising that the the dialect would change in between the two, as it does between Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester which are closer. I've had the privilege of overhearing speakers naturally using the Northumbrian Burr - this was in northern Northumberland - and it really is very distinctive from either Tyneside or Scotland, unlike anything else in the UK. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * There is no clear language border (and the political one has varied considerably in the past). ʊ has been retained in most of northern England, often hundreds of miles south of the Scottish border, with the ʌ sound creeping north from southern dialects. (I had to learn the sound when I decided to learn RP as an optional dialect.)  Scottish English shares most of its pronunciation and vocabulary variants with parts of northern England ( and Scots is just the political variant of Scottish English, but don't tell the Scots I said so! ) The change from ʊ to ʌ is still taking place.    D b f i r s   21:41, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree:Dominic Watt et al have been studying the surprisingly sharp accent border between England and Scotland. The accent differences between Scotland and Northumbria are quite obvious and clearcut. And in Scotland there a great variation between clear Scots which should be called a language, at the one end, and Standard Scottish English which is just English with Scottish accent, at the other end.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * And an off-topic: how have you learnt /ʌ/? I mean it's not a so easy sound for speakers of many other languages. In the Continent this sound is quite rare and many simply say /ä/.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:02, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link. It's interesting to see the diversity of comments about the research.  I suppose the border has been stable for long enough to influence the language, with the added influence of two large cities not far north of the border, and the tendency for residents of Scotland to emphasise their Scottishness.  I can't speak for Northumbria, but examples of Scots that I've read seem remarkably similar to the extreme dialect of the northern Yorkshire dales, though we haven't the advantage of writers of the calibre of Robbie Burns and Walter Scott to publicise our dialect.  (Oh, and I do struggle with /ʌ/, often saying something closer to /ɤ/, but I'm careful to avoid /ä/ that I hear all to often in others.)    D b f i r s   00:10, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation: bechamel
How is bechamel (as in sauce) correctly pronounced? I do not understand the characters used to describe pronounciations. Please use examples of more common words to explain each part. Thanks! 129.215.47.59 (talk) 17:17, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I pronounce it like when you say chamber  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  17:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * "Bay sham ell", or "besh am ell", either will do. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Ohh, right, I thought he was asking about the ch part. Sorry. In Spanish it is pronounced [be (e like in earn)-cha (ch like in chamber)-mel]  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  17:41, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * In English: besh-ah-mell. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, guys! <3 129.215.47.59 (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of ch
Is there some grammar rule that explain when you have to pronounce the ch as in achieve or when you have to pronounce it as in archive? That one gets me very often.  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  17:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * See Ch_(digraph). There is no grammar rule or anything like that.  It comes down to etymology and word origin: The language from which English got the word originally generally determine how the "ch" is pronounced in that word.  -- Jayron  32  17:40, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh my! Another hard subject. Thanks Jayron.  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  17:44, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Even we native speakers can't decide between /shed-yule/ and /sked-yule/ (for schedule). --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:50, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Try learning this list of words where "ch" makes a "k" sound:
 * ache
 * anchor
 * architecture (but not arch)
 * archive
 * character
 * chemical
 * chorus
 * Christ
 * echo
 * hierarchy
 * mechanic, mechanical, mechanism  (but machine is "sh")
 * orchestra
 * psychology
 * scheme
 * school
 * stomach
 * technology
 * technique 
 * I compiled that list from several lists of the commonest words. Every word there comes to us through ancient Greek, except ache (you can blame Sam Johnson for that - see ache). Card Zero  (talk) 19:15, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Great list! Thanks. Then how is it pronounced, Jack?  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  19:33, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You tell me. Sometimes I say the one, sometimes the other, as is appropriate to my mood or caprice, or the particular circumstances in which I am embroiled.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:14, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Me?? I am not even a Native speaker... I've always said /sked-yule/... It's a hard word for me most of the time.   Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  20:21, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Notice that almost every one of those words derives its -ch- from the original -kh- (χ) in Greek. (Just whatever you do, do not look up their etymologies, or you will be accused of the etymological fallacy.)
 * Treacle. Tevildo (talk) 20:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I've created the wordlist from a 30,000 dictionary wikt:Appendix:List of English words with "ch" pronounced as /k/. I think it's enough for most cases.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:00, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Technical alchemy! Scholastic pyrotechnics! Card Zero  (talk) 22:17, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * One more wikt:Appendix:List of English words with "ch" pronounced as /ʃ/--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * In words from Greek, ch is pronounced k. Usually it's pronounced as in Spanish. In words from French such as "champagne", "Chevrolet", and "Chicago", it's pronounced like the sh in "ship".


 * As for "schedule", all Americans pronounce the sch like sk, and I assume that all Britons pronounce it like the sh in "ship". Duoduoduo (talk) 21:17, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Most of us in the UK use sh for schedule (because it came from French), but sk is also often heard on this side of the pond. It was pronounced "sed yule" until around 1800.    D b f i r s   21:38, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It came through French, and before that, through Greek, like a lot of the words on both lists - schism, stomach, or on the other hand, moustache. I don't know which logic to apply. Card Zero  (talk) 00:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ... also through Latin. The "Ancient Greek σχέδη" (suggested by Wiktionary as the ultimate origin) may not have existed.  Didn't the Mediaeval Greek σχέδη come from the Latin?  (I'm not knowledgeable enough to decide.)   D b f i r s   00:18, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * /kʰ,tʰ,pʰ/ (written ch, th, ph) were not native phonemes of the Latin language, they were introduced in Latin along with Greek loanwords.—Emil J. 13:01, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The Late Latin was schedula (diminutive of Latin scheda). What I'm doubtful about was when these words came into existence.    D b f i r s   08:58, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/changingscene.pdf--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You seem to have missed "archangel" (which is of course different from "archbishop")... AnonMoos (talk) 21:21, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I noticed. I searched from the raw text wordlist, but the search engine missed some words by unknown reasons. I'll correct.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The search engine in Notepad++ can process neither : nor ː. It missed nearly a hundred words!--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The safest grammar rule, then, is to look it up in the dictionary, while also taking note of which country you're in. And by the way, it gets worse. Officially, it would be pronounced "SKED-yool" or "SHED-yool". But on both sides of the ocean, in normal conversation, that second syllable is more apt to be pronounced "j'l". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:17, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you say that Officially, it would be pronounced "SKED-yool" or "SHED-yool". I don't think I've ever heard that in the US. Wiktionary, for example, gives the US pronunciation as /ˈskɛ.dʒʊ(ə)l/, /ˈskɛ.dʒəl/, or /ˈskɛ.dʒu.əl/. Duoduoduo (talk) 00:32, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * As per Jack's dictionaried pronunciation. Maybe by the overly formal. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:56, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * In English, words using sch are correctly pronounced sk when of Latin/Greek origin. This is often not employed correctly, resulting in mispronunciations of words such as schedule and bruschetta (both of which correctly contain sk). This is due to influence by Germanic/Hebrew languages, where sch is correctly pronounced as sh, as in schnell, schwa or schlepp, which contain an sh sound.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 06:11, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Only if they actually come directly from Greek. Schedule is from French.  It was originally pronounced "sedule".    D b f i r s   08:58, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * No. bruschetta is certainly pronounced with /sk/ in Italian (not Latin or Greek), and that pronunciation is certainly in use in English, but a pronunciation with /ʃ/ is also sufficiently widespread in English to be regarded as a variant: certainly, the OED lists both pronunciations. And schedule with /ʃ/ is not incorrect in British English, but normal (though the American pronunciation with /sk/ is gaining ground). And when you say "Germanic/Hebrew" you mean "German". Other Germanic languages either do not natively use the trigraph, or (in the case of Dutch) use it to represent /sx/ or/s/. But I'm sure you are right that it is the influence of the German spelling that has brought about the variation in these words.
 * No. People who pronounce bruschetta with a sh sound are just wrong wrong wrongity wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 19:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Evidently there exists at least one restaurant where they're right. If comments were allowed there I'd say, "Silly me, I thought it was an Italian word, not German." —Tamfang (talk) 02:49, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, yes, I missed all those variants there when I looked at that entry. The OED says "U.S.  /ˈskɛdjuːl/" but it's not an authority on American pronunciations.  My local dialect here in the UK has /ˈʃɛdl/ (even more compressed than BB's suggestion), but that is certainly not "official", and I would use it only when speaking to local people.    D b f i r s   00:54, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Those living in a shtetl would probably appreciate it. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  01:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The "ch" may also be a part of a trigraph (match, fetch) or, in loans from German, of a tetragraph (kitsch, putsch). --Theurgist (talk) 10:42, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * (For the OP): And when it is spelled "tch" it is always pronounced as the Spanish "ch". Duoduoduo (talk) 11:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Standard and regional dialect words
What is the name for the phenomenon whereby a multinational language of colonialism (e.g. English, French, Spanish) has one word for something (to make it easier, think of a concrete noun) which everyone understands, but each country tends to use its own regional variant, which is not mutually intelligible? For example, the Spanish word actually used for "pig" is (I am told) different in each country of South America, certainly in colloquial speech. Thanks. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:56, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know that there's any single set official term that should be used in all cases. Regional vocabulary would be reasonable, and we have Regional vocabularies of American English. The phenomenon is certainly common to just about all languages that are spoken in more than one small location.  There's also shibboleth, although that's usually used in relation to pronunciation. μηδείς (talk) 01:03, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Then there's the cougar/mountain lion/painter/panther/mountain cat/puma/catamount. I wonder if he would like to eat a sub/torpedo/po' boy/hero/hoagie/grinder/Philly cheesesteak ? StuRat (talk) 01:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * You do realize a cheese steak and a hoagie are as similar as filet mignon with a dinner roll and fried chicken with a dinner roll? μηδείς (talk) 01:46, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Linguists draw isoglosses to show where vocabulary changes, in case that helps. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)