Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 September 26

= September 26 =

Swiss French accent?
Do French-speakers from Switzerland have an obvious accent that a speaker from France would notice and recognize right away? If yes, is it enough to cause issues with intelligibility? I know that the answer to both of the above for Quebec instead of Swiss French is yes. Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:DDAF (talk) 02:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The accent of Vaud sounds, to me, analogous to a Welsh accent in English. --Tamfang (talk) 03:35, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * All I know is that it's famous for having rational number words ("septante, huitante, nonante"), but these might not come up in most conversations... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 06:14, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * 4 Big Differences: Swiss French vs Regular French: "In France, they tend to smash syllables together and sometimes transform the sound of a word or phrase into something sounding much different... If you visit Switzerland, you are likely to hear well articulated French instead of mashed up French like that above".
 * YouTube - L'ACCENT SUISSE (in French). Alansplodge (talk) 12:03, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * FRENCH AROUND THE WORLD: SWITZERLAND: "Many French people swear that they can recognize Swiss accents, but, in fact, there is no standard Swiss-French accent. Parisians and Quebecers might tell you that Swiss people speak French more slowly, but linguists have disproven this claim. Actually, what differentiates the Swiss accent is its emphasis on penultimate syllables. That is, "standard" French speakers emphasize the last syllable of words and sentences. Swiss French speakers, on the other hand, tend to accentuate the second-to-last syllable of phrases, which changes the rhythm of their speech".
 * Alansplodge (talk) 12:03, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * In standard French, speakers slightly stress a word's last syllable which does not contain a schwa vowel (not always the same thing as the word-final syllable). In connected speech, this often means that stress is on the last non-schwa-containing syllable of several words in a row, pronounced together as a phonological unit... AnonMoos (talk) 12:29, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As indicated above, these differences are perceptible to native speakers, but subtle. They do not affect mutual intelligibility. By the way, many French speakers would be hard-pressed to distinguish correctly between a Swiss and a Belgian accent unless they dealt with such speakers on regular basis. The Quebec accent is much more obvious, and intelligibility issues surface mainly when some form of joual is spoken (there are snobbish Parisians who pretend not to be able to understand any accent that deviates in the slightest from standard Parisian French, but they're the one who need help...). Xuxl (talk) 13:49, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * In response to your question, and as others have said: standard or no, the Swiss-French definitely have a noticeably accent that is distinguishable from a France French accent, but it is fairly subtle, and never causes problems of intelligibility. Belgian is slightly different (and to my ears) more easily distinguishable. But don't mistake the situation for Swiss French with the situation for Swiss German, which besides having a very different accent than High German, is also its own language (at the spoken level; there is no written version) and is only partly comprehensible to foreign German-speakers. Mathglot (talk) 10:24, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Restrict toward?
From m:Abstract Wikipedia/Wiki of functions naming contest. Is this phrase correct? "...restrict the wiki only towards the goal..." sounds a bit weird to me:

The name should not restrict the wiki only towards the goal of the Abstract Wikipedia or be only about natural language and content abstraction, but should reflect the potential that the functions may be used in a large diversity of ways and places.

Thanks--Pierpao (talk) 18:14, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * It does not make sense to me. --174.89.48.182 (talk) 02:40, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems to be saying that whatever name is chosen, it shouldn't be about just certain things but should be about all potential uses of it. Possibly written by someone who either doesn't speak English natively, or was only half awake when they wrote it. Ideally, contact whoever wrote it and ask for clarification. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:12, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The phrase was present in the earliest version of the page, created by a Canadian editor who self-identifies as a native English speaker. --Lambiam 11:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Quiddity (WMF) could you rephrase it, please, or add your comment. Thanks a lot.--Pierpao (talk) 15:43, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Quiddity (WMF)--Pierpao (talk) 15:46, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, I've rephrased that point. I hope that is clearer. Thanks for the note. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Much better! Thank you! :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:04, 28 September 2020 (UTC)