Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 November 21

= November 21 =

Vl in Western Europe?
When I hear the Vl sound, I associate it with Eastern Europe, what is the farthest West in Europe that a language has the Vl sound? Naraht (talk) 14:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


 * It's common in Dutch, which has voiced a lot of initial F sounds: vlieg (fly), vlo (flea), vlag (flag), vlinder (butterfly), vla (no English translation). PiusImpavidus (talk) 14:37, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * See vla, a custard-like dessert. Alansplodge (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Are vla and vlaai related to English "flow" and "flood", or am I mistaken? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:05, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Apparently, the words are assumed to be related to English "flathe" and "flat"... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:09, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Possibly from flaþō, a Proto-Germanic pancake. Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Or Vlaanderen. -- Jayron 32 16:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Or Vlissingen. Alansplodge (talk) 16:10, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * In the Welsh language, for example y flynedd (the year), which is a soft mutation of blynedd (a year). There may be others which are not mutations, but I don't know enough Welsh to tell. A single "f" is pronounced like an English "v" sound in Welsh orthography. Alansplodge (talk) 15:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of words with the prefix cyf- followed by an , such as cyfle. The letter  (as opposed to ) is rare initially, except in mutated forms. wikt:Category:Welsh nouns has no direct entries beginning "fl", but I can't be bothered to look beyond that category. ColinFine (talk) 11:26, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Both the examples given are languages which spell the sound "fl" as "vl". The querent is asking about the sound "vl" as in "Vladimir". -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  16:33, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The article Flanders disagrees with you. "Dutch:Vlaanderen [ˈvlaːndərə(n)] (listen))[3]"  -- Jayron 32 16:41, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The Welsh example contains [vl] which is spelled "fl". –Austronesier (talk) 16:43, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Aslo, Vlieg /vlix/. Also Vlo /vloː/... -- Jayron 32 16:44, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not as far west as Welsh, but still: traditional West Country English had such initial clusters (corresponding to fl- in all other English varieties), see e.g. The Vly be on the Turmut. –Austronesier (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * An incomplete list for Dutch: vla, vlaag, vlag, vlak, vlam, vlas, vlecht, vleermuis, vlees, vleet, vlegel, vleien, vlek, vlerk, vleugel, vlieboot, vlieden, vlieg, vlier, vlies, vliet, vlijen, vlijmscherp, vlijt, vlinder, vlo, vloed, vloeien, vloek, vloer, vlok, vlonder, vloot, vlot, vlucht, vlug. --Lambiam 19:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * However, in Dutch dialects /v/ and /z/ may be devoiced to /f/ and /s/, as seen in the phonetic spelling for rendering speech in Hollandic dialects here, where vlieg turns into flieg and zulke into sukke.
 * --Lambiam 19:33, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


 * This indicates that the "bhl" consonant cluster in the Irish language is pronounced "vl", where it notes that "bhliain" is pronounced "VLEE-in" Ireland is further west than the Netherlands.  -- Jayron 32 19:25, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Or Wales. So if you discount Spain and Portugal, then Ireland is about as far west as you can get in Europe. Alansplodge (talk) 21:08, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't believe the /vl/ consonant cluster occurs in any native words in any of the languages of the Iberian Peninsula (Spanish, Basque, Galician, Catalan, Portuguese, Ladino, etc.) But of course if anyone produces such examples, I'm quite happy to be proven wrong there. -- Jayron 32 12:07, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Iceland is quite a bit further west, and while one could argue whether it's a European country geographically it certainly is linguistically. But I guess Icelandic doesn't have /vl/ either. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:27, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me now that it's a little peculiar that /fl/ is a normal consonant cluster in English while /vl/ is not, given that English /l/ is voiced. Does anyone have insight into how that might have come about? --Trovatore (talk) 21:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked into it, but note that in Old English, [v] was an allophone of /f/, (both written 'f') and did not normally occur syllable-initially. Most English words beginning with /v/ are ultimately from French, not Old English. ColinFine (talk) 11:30, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Inasmuch as they stem from Proto-Germanic terms such as flakaz, fleutą, flōraz and flutą, it is Dutch with its voiced vl- onset that is the odd man out among Germanic descendants. For the loanwords from Romance languages the situation is similar: Latin flamma became English flame, Danish and Norwegian flamme, German Flamme and Swedish flamma, but Dutch vlam. --Lambiam 11:35, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I thought the question was about VI, but everyone else seems to have assumed it's about Vl. DuncanHill (talk) 22:02, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The kids seem to call it "vim" these days. --Trovatore (talk) 22:35, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you copy/ paste the character, you can clearly see that it's an L... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No I can't. DuncanHill (talk) 03:22, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you paste it in the search field, you can. That's what I meant. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:08, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My opinion on vim is :q! Naraht (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I knew someone who pronounced "vi" like "six". When questioned as to why, he said he read it as a Roman numeral. CodeTalker (talk) 19:14, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Agglutinative language with sex-based gender system
Is there any agglutinative language with sex-based gender system (masculine, feminine and neuter)? I know no language like that. The Dravidian languages are agglutinative, and I once thought them as such languages, but then I found out that they have only gendered pronouns (like English). Swahili is agglutinative, and is has a noun class system, but is non-sex-based. So, is there any agglutinative language with sex-based gender system in the world?
 * Chinookan languages quite well fit into this description. Pronouns, demonstratives and human nouns are gendered, while the morphology is complex but very transparent, only with minimal fusion in the agreement prefixes for arguments of transitive verbs. North Halmahera languages come also close, but they have a handful of non-productive morphophonological rules that make them look more fusional. –Austronesier (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2022 (UTC)