Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 November 7

= November 7 =

Two questions

 * 1) Is there any Romance language which uses letter K in native words?
 * 2) Why compound words in English are not written as one word by default, unlike in all other Germannic languages? For example, why word "compound word" is not written "compoundword"? --40bus (talk) 20:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 1. Not as far as I know. Note that Irish and Welsh also do not use 'k' except for borrowed words. In the case of Welsh, this was not the case in earlier Welsh, which makes the point that much of orthography is arbitrary convention.
 * 2. Arbitrary convention. I wonder if there might be some influence from Norman scribes: we know that they gave us several of our digraphs (th, gh) as they struggled to write those strange Anglo-saxon sounds. On the other hand, I suspect that they were called to do so mostly for names, and rarely had occasion to write connected text, so perhaps they had no role in the choice to write compounds as separate words. ColinFine (talk) 23:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "Compound (linguistics)" says that this tendency began in English in the 18th century. --Theurgist (talk) 09:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Absence of 'k' in later Welsh was a choice taken for the convenience of printers, because the -k- sound was too common. See . -- Verbarson talkedits 17:06, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * About Romance:
 * es:Gonzalo Korreas tried to introduce $⟨k⟩$ in Spanish systematically but failed.
 * Is Kweyol Romance for you? Kreyòl ayisyen? Papia Kristang?
 * Papiamento orthography says The pronunciation of ⟨c⟩ in both dialects follows the general rule of the hard and soft ⟨c⟩ as in Latin-based orthographies of various European languages, i.e. pronounced [s] before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩, and [k] elsewhere. However, the use of ⟨c⟩ differs per dialect. As Papiamento is focused more on etymology than phonemic spelling, the ⟨c⟩ is far more commonly used compared to Papiamentu, where its use is limited to proper names.
 * --Error (talk) 23:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There are several orthographies for Ladino. That of Aki Yerushalayim uses $⟨k⟩$. --Error (talk) 23:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Some dialects and minor languages might use the letter inconsistently, or in a non-standardized manner. In Romance languages, if you search for the letter 'k', you'll find it even in that short sample sentence in a couple of them, including the Aromanian language. The article Aromanian alphabet says that 'k' is used before 'e' and 'i', but the Aromanian Wikipedia seems to favour 'ch' instead. --Theurgist (talk) 09:16, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Similar with the Picard language: some of the k-words given in our English article are not spelled that way on Picard Wikipedia (e.g horse: "keval" is spelled "cvau" on pcd.wp). But I did find an article titled "Kien" (dog). I suspect Picard Wikipedia uses different varieties of spelling, as Picard has no officially standardized orthography either. ---Sluzzelin talk  18:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not standardized indeed, the article gives the following possible spellings for "kien": kien, quien, tchien, tchin, kyin, ktchien, tchièn, ttchien, qui-in, ktchyin, tchyé, tchyè, qui-in, tchèn, tyin, tcheu, kkyé, d'q'hien, d'qu'hien, tché, quié, t'tchien.
 * For "cvau" it gives (without mentioning "keval"): chwoe, chweu, chwau, ch'ueu, ch'wau, chfal, chvau, gvoe, égvoe, qu'vau, g'vau, g'va, g'veu, gvô, gva, gueûvô, gvo, g'vaux, égvau, égvaux, gveu, kva, guevau, kvo, g'vô, k'veau, gu'veu, gvého, cvo plus other words for "horse": bidaÿin, bidayèn, bidé, bidet, bidé, bidi ,gadin, cayon, kayon, gaÿe, ga-ye. ---Sluzzelin talk  20:28, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * However, while keval vs cvau might display a phonetic variation, it by itself does not exhibit an inconsistent or irregular usage of ⟨k⟩, but simply suggests an ordinary pattern where the ⟨c⟩ is the normal spelling of the /k/ sound but is replaced by ⟨k⟩ before soft vowels. A true inconsistency would be keval, queval, cheval, etc. --Theurgist (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, while (except for a very few borrowed words) neither Spanish nor French have k, Basque, wedged between them, is full of k's. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Only after the orthography appeared in the 19th-20th century. Earlier texts are much closer to Spanish and French orthographies. --Error (talk) 10:43, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Basque is very much NOT a Romance language. See Basque language.  Spanish and French and Catalan (the three languages spoken in lands bordering the traditional Basque homeland) are closer in relationship to Hindi, Farsi, and Armenian than they are to Basque.  -- Jayron 32 11:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you, I was aware of that. I was commenting on the geographic proximity, which, as we know, often means one language bleeds into another, particularly in border areas. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  17:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

40bus -- In a true English compound word, the stress is on the first stem, as in "lighthouse", "babysitter" etc. However, in "compound word", the main stress is on "word", and the spelling "compoundword" would imply a main stress on the first syllable ("com-"), which does not exist and would sound quite strange. Not all first-stem-main-stress compounds are written together as one word, but a lack of first stem main stress means that a sequence is not eligible for single-word spelling. AnonMoos (talk) 09:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)