Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 February 11

= February 11 =

A few questions
--40bus (talk) 21:32, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there any pro-drop language which uses dummy subjects?
 * 2) Is there any non-pro-drop language which does not use dummy subjects?
 * 3) Is there any topic pro-drop language in Europe?
 * 4) Are diphthongs with both components long possible?
 * 5) Is there any language which does not allow dropping of pronoun when comma-separated clauses have same subject, such as in sentence She washes, writes and goes?
 * 6) Why none of Western European (Germanic and Romance) does not use caron/hacek?
 * 7) Why digraphs which are considered separate letter of alphabet are almost always consonants, and never vowels?
 * 8) Is there any Germanic or Romance langage which does not use Indo-European month names derived from Latin?


 * By definition, a diphthong contains a non-syllabically-sonorous vowel, which would not appear to allow for a long vs. short distinction. And the orthography of most Germanic and Romance languages was fairly fixed by the time that the hacek diacritic was invented. AnonMoos (talk) 23:55, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 6. Dutch IJ represents a diphtong. Not sure if you would count that.8. Aromanian does seem to have many peculiar words for the months, although some of them are alternate Latinate derivations. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * A diphthong is generally considered a vowel. In some contexts the Dutch ij is considered a letter of the alphabet. --Lambiam 17:48, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I like it how your third reference includes ij among the short vowels as well as among the long vowels, but not among the diphthongs. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 06:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It may depend on the dialect. Many dialects of many languages show some form of Monophthongization, and dialects may show some kind of free variation in vowel length.  -- Jayron 32 13:09, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * IJ results from the diphthongisation of long /i/, which is preserved in some eastern dialects. Although the terms long and short vowels are traditionally used, there is now no phonemic vowel length in Dutch. Maybe better to call them unchecked and checked, as the short vowels are always checked. Except of course in the dialects that feature monophthongisation, like Antwerpish, where the former diphthongs are long (ij is /ɛː/). The reference was to an older book, so it may use some older terminology. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:43, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 8. Apparently Mooring North Frisian primarily has Germanic-derived names for all months Cf. []. (I think other Germanic languages might have similar words, although in practice they are basically obsolete...) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:50, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 8. Romanian also has alternate synonyms for the months, apparently. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:52, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Checking Romanian calendar, all the names are Latin-based but not Roman-based, except for undrea from Greek Andreas --Error (talk) 00:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


 * A subtle point with respect to no. 5: In some ergative/absolute languages, if you had an intransitive verb in the 1st clause, then its subject noun would be absolutive, and could be omitted in following clauses if it was absolutive there (i.e. subject of intransitive verb or object of intransitive verb). AnonMoos (talk) 03:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

8: Early Germanic calendars states that "The Old High German month names introduced by Charlemagne persisted in regional usage and survive in German dialectal usage." --185.130.86.86 (talk) 10:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)


 * (Why must quotations have "…" and italics??) I have a German calendar for 1936 (with illustrations apparently taken from a book of hours or the like) in which the months have both Latin and German names, mostly matching that article: Januar/Schneemond, Februar/Hornung, März/Lenzmond, April/Oſtermond, Mai/Wonnemond, Juni/Brachmond, Juli/Heumond, August/Erntemond, September/Herbſtmond, Oktober/Weinmond, November/Windmond, Dezember/Chriſtmond. —Tamfang (talk) 19:16, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


 * On the matter of digraphs as vowels-or-consonants: ll was, until 2010 or so, considered a distinct letter in Spanish, and in many dialects (though not all) it represents the semivowel /j/ sound through the process known as Yeísmo. -- Jayron 32 13:13, 13 February 2023 (UTC)


 * 8. The French Republican Calendar has some names from Greek. Galician has mes de Santiago (from Hebrew Yaʿaqōḇ) besides gl:xullo for July and san Xoán (from Hebrew Yehochanan) besides gl:xuño for June.--Error (talk) 00:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Xoán is obviously closely related to Juan. Wait, are you saying the use of Jacob and John for those months – not merely the personal names themselves – comes from Hebrew?? —Tamfang (talk) 20:38, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * No. The names come from the main Christian saints celebrated on that month. The name of the saints comes from Hebrew through Greek through Latin through Romance. 40bus asked for names that are not Indo-European derived from Latin. --Error (talk) 00:12, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I wonder whether any of the standard Roman month names come from Etruscan! —Tamfang (talk) 00:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Now, when I think about it, it's pretty badly phrased, yeah. Latin is derived from Indo-European, of course, so it's either tautological or somewhat unclear. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

9. Is English only major modern Germanic language that has preserved Proto-Germanic /w/? --40bus (talk) 19:11, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * What is /w/ and what is preserved? Words normally said to start with /w/ in English (word, water, wish) have cognates in other Germanic languages starting with similar sounds. There is some variation between languages but also within languages (in German, it's said to be [v] or [ʋ], in Dutch [ʋ] or [β], but other variations are possible). We can't be 100% certain how it was pronounced in Protogermanic (I'm sure some linguists have ideas about that), but it seems unlikely everybody pronounced it exactly the same.
 * In fact, in the Surinamese dialect of Dutch, it is pronounced as [w]. This isn't preserved from Protogermanic, but resulted from people learning Dutch whose native language didn't have [ʋ], but did have [w], so they substituted that sound. The sounds are similar enough and there's no risk of confusion. PiusImpavidus (talk) 20:11, 13 February 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- I researched this in an old Ref. Desk thread which I can't find again by searching now. As far as I could tell, English is the only Indo-European language spoken in Europe which still retains early word-initial reconstructed *w- as a [w] semi-vowel sound.  (In other positions within a word, there are too many potential complicating factors.)  It wasn't too easy for me to find an Indo-European language spoken outside of Europe where word-initial [w] is retained, but one is Pashto... AnonMoos (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * In Welsh, PIE /w/ is retained as /w/ word-initially in leniting environments, e.g. ei w eddw 'his widow' < *esyo h₁widʰéwh₂. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
 * If it only occurs when there's a preceding word in a particular syntactic context, I would not call that "word-initial" in the sense relevant here... AnonMoos (talk) 23:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)