Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 October 24

= October 24 =

Surbate(d)
According to Wiktionary, surbate is a back-formation from "surbated", and surbated is an inflected form of "surbate". Does anyone here (1) have a dictionary that can resolve the question, and (2) know how to correct one of the Wiktionary entries? I have a one-volume OED at home (sold with magnifying glass!), so I can bring a citation in several hours if someone wants one, but my only attempt to edit Wiktionary was rather firmly bitten, so I'd rather not be WP:BOLD if someone else knows what to do. Nyttend (talk) 03:53, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

My OED gives "surbated" as the base form, with "surbate" as a derived form; it's derived from Old French "surbatu", from sur- exceedingly + batre to beat + ed. Does anyone know how to insert this into Wiktionary in accordance with their rules? Nyttend (talk) 09:29, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I suggest asking at wikt:WT:Tea room. ColinFine (talk) 09:50, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

super duper origin
where does super duper come from? שטרודל מאן (talk) 06:43, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Reduplication. --142.112.221.156 (talk) 07:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * but who invented it? שטרודל מאן (talk) 07:37, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Easy-peasy - no one knows. Probably some namby-pamby kid trying to razzle-dazzle his hoity-toity friend. 41.23.55.195 (talk) 08:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Shorter Slangs Dictionary (p. 203) says "From 1947".
 * etymonline.com super says "reduplication form super-duper is attested by 1940" (usually the source on this website is the OED).
 * It's rarely possible to pin down the originator of a particular neologism. Many phrases are attributed to Shakespeare, but surely he was just the first to write them down that we know of? Alansplodge (talk) 08:47, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * LOL 41.23.55.195! :) 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The "s-d" pattern previously existed in the word "semidemiquaver" (though this appears more often as demisemiquaver). "Super duper" occurs in the lyrics to the 1942 song Der Fuehrer's Face and the 1946 lyrics to Puttin' On the Ritz, so it definitely pre-dates 1947... AnonMoos (talk) 09:12, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * puttin on the ritz didn't written in 1927? שטרודל מאן (talk) 09:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * "Puttin' On the Ritz" has its original (Harlem) lyrics and the 1946 revised (Fred Astaire) lyrics. "Super-duper" occurs only in the 1946 revised lyrics, as far as I know. AnonMoos (talk) 09:31, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Instead of
 * Dressed up like a million-dollar trouper Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper)
 * the original lines were
 * That's where each and every lulu-belle goes Every Thursday evening with her swell beaus Rubbing elbows
 * --Lambiam 11:03, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks you all. שטרודל מאן (talk) 14:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's worth looking English phonotactics for some insight on how these particular phrases are naturally generated, and why silly idioms in English sound like tippy-top but generally not toppy-tip. Remsense  聊  15:28, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OED has earliest citation 1928 from an advert in the Boston Globe "New electric engine is super-duper". DuncanHill (talk) 19:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Obvious related question: who decided this practice should be called reduplication when there's only a single duplication going on? -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  17:28, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Tertullian wrote in De patientia that Job regained his losses redoubled : quae amiserat reduplicata possedit, implying a Latin verb reduplicare with the corresponding noun reduplicatio. Since then Late Latin writers have re-echoed this redundant re- until it found its way into the various vernaculars. --Lambiam 22:54, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * But if you take up Bridge, you can double and then redouble, and feel happy that your prefix is doing a worthwhile job. -- Verbarson talkedits 18:39, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Looking at Newspapers.com, the earliest I'm seeing it is summer 1920, where it's used casually like it's already well-known. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:05, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Am sure you’re right about that - google books throws up some earlier uses (all snippet views, so OP, worth checking WP:RX for real access if needed for a reference):
 * 1916 Your play…has to be a super-duper production to…hold the attention and interest of an audience of squirming, wriggling youngsters.
 * 1899 Super Duper Markets appearing in a business directory.
 * 1866 SUPER DUPER, SUPER, EXTRA, REGULAR labels on something to do with engines. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:37, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The dates listed on Google Books are often for the first volume of a periodical, not for the specific issue you're looking at. (Sometimes they're even for a different earlier publication with the same name.) For example, we have a partial index on Wikisource for Popular Science Monthly: . It goes back to Volume 1 in 1877. But at two volumes per year, volume 188 would be somewhere around 1966. So the super duper, super, extra, and regular engines are from the 1960s, not the 1860s. I think the same applies to the other google books entries as well. --Amble (talk) 18:56, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Did not know that, thank you! Bugs still has earliest find then. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That last one must be some sort of Google glitch: my search brings up exactly the same page but clearly labelled "1966" not "1866".
 * Also the "1899" reference before that; if you zoom in on the front cover of the work being quoted, it says "1985-86". Also the text appears to be in the font produced by a 1980s dot-matrix printer. Alansplodge (talk) 22:23, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Questions
--40bus (talk) 19:07, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Why does Italian not use letter J in native words?
 * 2) Why does English not romanize Slavic languages using Cyrillic using similar alphabet to Slavic languages using Latin alphabet, with lots of carons and $⟨j⟩$ for /j/ sound?
 * 3) When English words like unit, union and unicorn have last been pronounced with plain /u/ sound in their history?
 * 4) Are there any English common nouns where word-initial J is pronounced /j/?
 * 5) Are there any words in Japanese with l-series kana?
 * 6) Has word consonant even been spelled with K in English?
 * 7) Are there any words in Spanish where high vowels (/i/, /u/) appear in syllables following stressed syllables, like minin, tumeli, pusu, anolun?
 * 8) Are there any words in Spanish which end in rising diphthongs like panua, nia and moseria?

Question 1
If Italian had used j in the same places where cognates in other languages use j, j would be pronounced the same way as g or gi. They simplified spelling by replacing all j by g(i). PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:56, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, before the 17th century, "I" and "J" were the same letter, so a "GI" spelling was less ambiguous than an "I" spelling. AnonMoos (talk) 08:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I think in older Italian texts you see j used to represent, not , so gioia might be spelled gioja (but not *joia). —Mahāgaja · talk 08:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This is confirmed by Italian Wikipedia, although without a source: apparently, the j was used until the beginning of the 20th century. (For a 19th-century example of precisely that word, see the end of the Ricordi vocal score of La Traviata, p. 248.) It is still in the name of the town of Jesolo. Double sharp (talk) 09:38, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 2
With the advent of the printing press English generally forwent the use of diacritics as opposed to both the pre-printed language (depending on the scribe) and most literary languages on the continent. I imagine this initial lack explains most notably non-diacritical conventions since. Remsense 聊  20:09, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

As for 2, you can see Americanist phonetic notation. However, newspapers in English-speaking countries generally dispensed with diacritics during almost all of the 20th century, which created great ambiguities in Wade-Giles names, and would have wreaked havoc on any transliteration scheme using haceks or such. AnonMoos (talk) 00:09, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

There's always the scientific transliteration of Cyrillic if you want that. Double sharp (talk) 09:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I wonder why the article doesn't even mention the existence of non-Slavic languages using Cyrillic script, such as Kazakh (17M speakers), Tajik (8M), Kyrgyz (7M), or Mongolian (5M) 194.90.149.29 (talk) 13:07, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Apparently these languages use GOST 7.79 instead. I guess it could be linked on the bottom. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 3
Never, if you mean an IPA [u] vowel without preceding [j]. These words already had a front rounded vowel in medieval French, and were borrowed possibly with a front rounded vowel in some Middle English dialects for a time, but ultimately coalesced with the Middle English [iw] diphthong, as has been discussed before. AnonMoos (talk) 00:03, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 4
If they exist, they are certainly rare. I found johannes which refers to an old Portuguese coin, but thanks to the rarity of its usage, I was unable to find whether the initial j is pronounced like a standard English j or like /j/. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:21, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There's the spelling "Hallelujah", which is definitely not pronounced with a "dzh" sound in songs and hymns, but I'm not sure how natively English 40bus would consider it to be. AnonMoos (talk) 08:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I definitely see that as an excellent example of an English j being pronounced as /j/, but unfortunately it doesn't fit 40bus's word-initial requirement. GalacticShoe (talk) 14:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Right... AnonMoos (talk) 21:42, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * AnonMoos, I believe they're referring to the /j/ not being the initial of the word. — Remsense  聊  21:52, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Some species of skua are called jaeger in English, pronounced . If junker and jugendstil can be considered English words by now, they also start with . —Mahāgaja · talk 08:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I feel like jaeger is probably used enough among those familiar with birds that I should amend my original statement to change "rare" to something else, perhaps "uncommon" or "niche." Good find! GalacticShoe (talk) 15:32, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also the English spelling of Jäger (infantry). Alansplodge (talk) 18:14, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

There's also a cult weirdo thing called "Talmud Jmmanuel", by Billy Meier (if you even want to count that -- the Wikipedia article about it was deleted)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:21, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 5
I have trouble understanding what you mean, here. We have already told you that Japanese lacks an r-l distinction, hence particular l-kana do not exist. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:53, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

The article on katakana gives several extended katakana in a table, including an l-series (ラ゚ la リ゚ li ル゚ lu レ゚ le ロ゚ lo リ゚ャ lya リ゚ュ lyu リ゚ェ lye リ゚ョ lyo). These are not used for the Japanese language, and indeed appear not to have been used in the Palauan language, either, despite the latter having a phonemic distinction between /l/ and /r/. 194.193.132.159 (talk) 03:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 6
No, the word is borrowed from the Latin cōnsonāns through Old French. Remsense 聊  20:09, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 7
Sure: wikt:casi, wikt:espíritu, wikt:iris, wikt:músculo, for example. --Amble (talk) 19:10, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Question 8
See examples in the table here: Spanish_phonology. --Amble (talk) 19:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)