Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 November 3

= November 3 =

Italic in Italian
Recently someone asked a question about Latin and Italian "accents". Maybe that's what provoked this:

Are there traces of non-Latin Italic (Osco-Umbrian or Faliscan language) vocabulary in modern dialects? —09:30, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Do you mean outside toponomastic influences? ---Sluzzelin talk  09:34, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes please. —Tamfang (talk) 09:35, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * pt:Língua napolitana, a Portuguese Wiki article on the Neapolitan language, mentions some phonological traces of Oscan. Marco polo (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you.

To expand a bit on the question. A language group (or a biological clade) is likely to be most diverse in its region of origin; for example the Austronesian languages, it says here, are more divergent in Taiwan than in the rest of their range. So I'd expect the Vulgar Latin exported from Italy to be more uniform than the languages spoken within Italy, and the provincial languages there to be heavily influenced, but not wholly replaced, by their cousin VL. —Tamfang (talk) 02:29, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This also is true in English, the dialects of English as spoken in England are far more diverse than those spoken in other parts of the Anglosphere. Even Wikipedia notes "The forms of spoken English,[in Britain] however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken," in the article British English.  I've heard it said that there exists a greater diversity of English dialects spoken within London than exists in the entire world outside of London.  That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but maybe not much of one.  In the U.S., it is also true that there's a greater diversity of dialects spoken in the areas that have been settled the longest; along the Atlantic Seaboard.  In a great swath of America from roughly the Mississippi Valley westward, with a few isolated pockets, and slight variations everyone speaks General American.  -- Jayron 32 21:08, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have to misunderagree with that Jayron. People west of the Mississippi mostly speak Westron.  It was Peter Jennings who spoke General American. μηδείς (talk) 22:31, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No, Peter Jennings spoke General Canadian. Tom Brokaw would have spoken Westerosi, being from our side of The Wall.  I'm not sure anyone knows what Dan Rather spoke.  Klingon, perhaps?  -- Jayron 32 00:18, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have seen South Park, Jayron, I know that Jennings had neither a disconnected skull nor did he talk "abote" things. μηδείς (talk) 20:48, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, I thought Jennings' pronunciation was 'aboot', and thus noticeably Canadian to those who were able to distinguish such things. Akld guy (talk) 02:31, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Canadians don't say "abote" and they don't say "aboot" either. They say /ə'bɔʊt/, just like it's spelled. --Trovatore (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If you're Canadian yourself, you probably wouldn't hear it. But to my American ears, many Canadians do say it that way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:30, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm American but I spent a year in Toronto. I think you're not listening carefully enough.  Maybe you have the cot–caught merger, which would make it difficult to distinguish /ə'bɔʊt/ (the Canadian "about") from /ə'boʊt/ ("abote").  I probably have the merger in much casual speech, but not in reference forms, so at least to some extent I'm sensitive to the difference between [ɔ] and [o]. --Trovatore (talk) 01:50, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It might be more evident in the rural than in the urban. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:59, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * To be clear, I'm not saying there isn't a distinctively Canadian pronunciation of "about". Of course there is.  I'm saying it doesn't sound like either "aboot" or "abote".  It sounds a little like both of them, but not the same as either. --Trovatore (talk) 02:32, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's just how one hears it. Like when Aussies say "Atback". It's not precisely "at", but seems a lot like it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:04, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah. That I can agree with.  An American not familiar with that diphthong can easily hear it as "abote".  It's harder for me to see how one would hear it as "aboot" (I think that's more Scots) but it's not out of the realm of possibility. --Trovatore (talk) 05:59, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Just in case anyone's interested: The relevant WP article here is Canadian raising. ---Sluzzelin talk  07:16, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I have to say that the description in that article is not exactly what I think I hear.  But I'm not an expert. --Trovatore (talk) 06:50, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm, come to think of it, that explanation doesn't make that much sense, because the cot–caught merger is between /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ rather than /o/ and /ɔ/. Still, it could mean that you're not used to thinking of /ɔ/ as a distinct phoneme, except maybe before r. --Trovatore (talk) 01:56, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Jennings had a touch of a Canadian accent. Rather's accent was Texan, which he would lapse into when he was talking more conversationally vs. reporting. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:37, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Trying to remember title of book, about writing non-fictional stories
I though the author's name was 'warnord' or 'nordwar', but neither of both names output any result in Amazon. Maybe it was 'notch' or 'nod' instead of 'nord'. I also remember the title as something about 'reality' (or 'describing') and 'writing', but Amazon again is being of no use. The chapters were 8-9 about different types of non-fictional writing: science, journalism, and so on.

Any help? --Denidi (talk) 15:06, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Given the odd name, is it possible it was The Art of Nonfiction by Ayn Rand? μηδείς (talk) 17:18, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I have no idea, and this is probably wrong, but your guessed names remind me of Nardwuar. SemanticMantis (talk) 00:33, 4 November 2015 (UTC)


 * SemanticMantis@undefined, do you have any idea where this pseudonym "Nardwuar" comes from? μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Only what is described in his article. BTW, I do recommend his interviews, many on youtube. Henry Rollins doesn't get it, Snoop Dogg does, others are a mixed bag. David Cross is a little confused to be confronted by a character similar to many that he himself has developed. Nardwuar does indeed a slightly grating style, but the guy really does know his music, and does incredible research. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:51, 5 November 2015 (UTC)