Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 December 19

= December 19 =

Camscot conundrum
I am transcribing a talk (by someone who is now deceased) and there is one word that I cannot make out. It sounds like Camscot, but there is no such word: "Unfortunately she is rather difficult reading because of her rather odd English, it's sort of ?Camscot English, which includes many Anglo-Saxonisms..." I can't find any similar sounding word that would make sense here. Any ideas?Shantavira|feed me 11:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you can give us some more context. What era of English is she talking about? ColinFine (talk) 12:37, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * As OP linked Caroline Rhys Davids as the "she" whose English is rather difficult, we can say with a fair degree of certainty that the era is 1857–1942. DuncanHill (talk) 12:40, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, most of here output was 1912–39. Shantavira|feed me 13:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I can only suggest "comixed" or "compound", but neither is really close. Alansplodge (talk) 12:38, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Esoteric ? It doesn't match especially well but no worse than other suggestions, and looking at her article it's definitely a term you could use to describe some of her odd writings.5.81.136.7 (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Just throwing out two words that popped up in my head and that are probably not it: homespun, hamstrung. Are there any consonants or vowels that you are mode certain about than others (e.g., the initial k sound)? --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:32, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Not likely to be Kelmscott English... Alansplodge (talk) 15:16, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, Kelmscott (note different link target) seems a likely suggestion phonetically, and Morris's penchant for "rather odd English" with Anglo-Saxonish features—see, for example, here—fits the usage that the OP quoted. Deor (talk) 15:59, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Cf. the transcript of a talk here (also here in a pdf): They're all quite readable once you get used to her style of English. She lived at a time when there were some people like William Morris who thought that English had got onto the wrong track. There were too many words of Latin and Greek origin in it. They wanted to get back to words of Anglo-Saxon origin, and they didn't hesitate to coin words which were needed. If you read for instance some of Morris's later works, even News From Nowhere, it's written a bit in this 'Ye Olde Englishy' type of language. But Mrs Rhys Davids seems to have been a follower of that school, and her English is very striking - it's very individual, but sometimes distinctly odd (laughter) from the whole point of view of modern English. It's almost as though - I mean sometimes it's almost like Caxton (you know) writing on these sorts of topics. So you have to get used to this English. And some of her later works it's quite extreme. But once you get used to it she's got a lot of very very interesting things to say. Andreas JN 466 09:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * "Caxton" in this context almost certainly refers to the "eggs"/"eyren" anecdote recounted by Caxton, which has been requoted many times... AnonMoos (talk) 23:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That section in the article added by some erudite wag with quite the sense of humour, it would seem.--User:Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 02:46, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Here's a photo I took of the opening pages of the 1896 Kelmscott Chaucer at the California State Library in Sacramento. Cullen328 (talk) 08:21, 20 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Brilliant. Thank you everyone. Shantavira|feed me 11:13, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Another few questions
--40bus (talk) 21:16, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there any language where letters A, E, I, O and U stand for other sounds than semivowels or vowels?
 * 2) Can letter combination $⟨jy⟩$ appear in native words in Polish, Czech, Slovak and Lithuanian?
 * 3) What is semivocalic equivalent for sound [a]?
 * 4) Does Icelandic have phomenic long diphthongs? If word eyja is pronounced [eiːja], can there also be word [eija]?
 * 5) Why English diphthongs usually end in near-close vowels, but Finnish diphthongs usually end in close vowels? E.g. English [oʊ̯] vs. Finnish [ou̯].
 * 6) What is vocalic equivalent of labiodental approximant [ʋ]?
 * 1. In English the $⟨e⟩$ in "language" is not pronounced directly. There are other occasions where the vowel letters are there to modify other sounds, they don't stand for a vowel themselves. Example: the $⟨i⟩$ in national. In Catalan mateix, the $⟨i⟩$ just modifies the $⟨x⟩$. Other examples: the $⟨i⟩$ in ciascuno. --Error (talk) 22:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * In Italian cia cio ciu gia gio giu the i represents a semivowel /j/ that long ago blended with the preceding velar stop. 40bus, count this whichever way you like! —Tamfang (talk) 20:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- Before the 17th century, "I" and "J" were the same letter, as also "U" and "V". Some people might say that [ʕ]  is the semi-vowel equivalent of [a]... AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. I guess that the approximant is closer to being the semi-vowel equivalent of [a] than the fricative (if a distinction is made). AnonMoos (talk) 01:40, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Welsh never got around to "J" or "V" and manages without them. Alansplodge (talk) 12:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)


 * 2. At least for Polish, Polish phonology states explicitly that "The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede /i/ or /y/."
 * Where one would expect */jy/, it coalesces into /i/: e.g. szyja→szyi (cf. szyna→szyny), soja→soi (cf. sowa→sowy) --2001:BF8:200:392:B97D:1265:656:7FE1 (talk) 10:19, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

New questions. --40bus (talk) 20:48, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there any language where all abbreviations are pronounced as if they were words, like SP pronounced as [sp] and VKA as [vka]?
 * 2) Is there any language where adverbs are classified as inflected words (in multiplicative case) of adjectives?
 * 3) Why don't Indo-European languages have possessive suffixes?
 * 4) Is therw any language where vowel harmony applies to compouned words too, i.e. all vowels of compouned word will have to be either front or back?
 * 5) Is there any language where Ÿ is common letter and can appear in beginning of word?
 * 6) Why doesn't Swedish double long vowel letters?
 * 7) Is there any language which uses some diacritic over letter Q?
 * 8) Why does English not use J for [j] sound?
 * 9) Why is German not a pro-drop language?


 * 1. Highland Chatino is said to use superscript capitals A–L as tone letters. --Amble (talk) 19:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * In Standard Chinese the syllabic constants, when written with the Roman alphabet using pinyin, use "i". Note "i" is also used for the vowel "I" in words like "pinyin".5.81.136.7 (talk) 19:29, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * 1. Hebrew is known to pronounce its abreviations as words, like חו"ל (i.e. abroad) pronounced HOOL, which is probably the oldest abreviaition appearing in the Mishna texts (200 AC), and the like (including Modern Hebrew, like גל"צ pronounced GALATZ).
 * 3. Why not? English does have, as in "John's house". 147.236.144.145 (talk) 22:01, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Inserting the new questions in the middle of the section may lead to confusion.
 * 3. Possessive affix
 * 8. You already asked on Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 December 13
 * --Error (talk) 00:23, 22 December 2022 (UTC)


 * 7: Apparently the only one in current use is Ɋɋ (q with hook tail), used by Kâte. Formerly Ɋɋ was also used by Numanggang, Q̇q̇ (q with dot above) was used by Chechen, Ꝗꝗ (Ꝗ|q with stroke through descender) by Lezgian and Dargwa, and Ƣƣ (gha) by various Turkic and Caucasian languages. Historically Ꝗꝗ, Ꝙꝙ (Ꝙ|q with diagonal stroke), q̃ (q with tilde) and q̇ were used as abbreviations of function words or parts of such (as in q̃lz).
 * On another note, I believe 40bus had better post their questions, however many they are, in separate sections, or at least in separate subsections. Otherwise threads get very messy and some questions get drowned out in the hotchpotch of miscellany. --Theurgist (talk) 04:12, 22 December 2022 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- As for question 9, Modern standard German is at an awkward stage of inflectional decay where verbs are still frequently required to change form to agree with their subjects, but verb forms standing alone are often somewhat ambiguous. Modern spoken French (ignoring the written language) is in more or less the same state, where in most verb tenses, only the 1st plural and 2nd plural inflections are unambiguous when pronounced.  As I wrote in reply to a previous question, Icelandic has fairly unambiguous verb inflections, but doesn't seem to be a pro-drop language... AnonMoos (talk) 12:37, 22 December 2022 (UTC)