Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 October 6

= October 6 =

English "eu"
Why English $⟨eu⟩$ (as in Europe) is pronounced [juː] rather than [eʊ̯] as in most other languages? Is there any diaclect that pronounces it as [eʊ̯]? Also, I had always thought that the last E is Europe was pronounced, and I just learned that it is silent. --40bus (talk) 14:47, 6 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Note that it's not just limited to Europe, I believe most words - even names - in English starting with eu get pronounced that way, e.g. eucalyptus, eunuch, euphoria, et cetera. There are, of course, exceptions with some names like Euler, where the German pronunciation supersedes the otherwise-standard English one, but the pronunciation still holds for, say, Euclid. I suspect that the pronunciation may have to do with French, through which many of the English words starting with eu arrived; the phonetic change from the original pronunciation to the modern English yoo may also parallel the development of the pronunciation of the letter u itself (which, after some quick Googling, may have also been from French.) GalacticShoe (talk) 14:59, 6 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Galacticshoe -- it also occurs in few, new, hew, which are not borrowed words... AnonMoos (talk) 16:17, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * True, but I don't mean to imply that the sound itself originated from French, merely that French pronunciation influenced the pronunciation of eu. If these words had come from elsewhere, the pronunciation may very well have been different. My bit about the letter u is about how the name of the letter is pronounced yoo. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:34, 6 October 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- Middle English had [ew] and/or [iw] diphthongs, which ended up being merged. In borrowings into English, the French sound written with the letter "u" (i.e. a front rounded vowel) was identified with this native diphthong, which then changed from a falling diphthong [iw] to a rising diphthong [ju].  You could call this "sonority metathesis" by analogy with quantitative metathesis, but that's not a standard term.  (I'm not sure that there is any standard linguistic term for this type of change.)  Of course, the "y" sound (IPA [j]) resulting from this change unleashed all kinds of consonant palatalizations (in words such as "nature" etc.etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 16:17, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Are there any native English words that end in -iw? Are there any words in English with diphthong [iw]?'' --40bus (talk) 19:44, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * /iw/ remains in Wales and southern US, see Phonological history of English consonant clusters. Nardog (talk) 09:56, 7 October 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- I have a 1929 book "Historical Outlines of English Phonology and Morphology" by Samuel Moore, which says that Middle English had both [ew] and [iw] diphthongs, but they weren't really distinguished in spelling, and the letter "i" wasn't commonly used to write them (at least in the East Midlands dialect). They merged going into modern English.  I also own a book by Jacek Fisiak, which might contain some additional information or more recent scholarship, but it's kind of at the bottom of a pile of books behind another pile of books, and would require some effort to dig out... AnonMoos (talk) 20:52, 7 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Re Europe's final 'e' being silent: in a very few contexts even English speakers may use the Latin form 'Europa', which could cause you confusion. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.212.210.36 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:48, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Such final e's are silent in almost every English word. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:48, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Except "Penelope", "apostrophe", "syncope" etc. AnonMoos (talk) 20:01, 7 October 2023 (UTC)


 * [eʊ̯] (or something like it) as pronunciation of eu as in Europ(e/a) is fairly common, but by no means dominant. English' closest relatives, French and Dutch, both use [ø]. [ɛv] or [ev] are common too, or [ɛ] and [e], and some add a syllable by making it [e.u]. German even has [ɔʏ̯]. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:48, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * German is a closer relative than French, if we are to nitpick, despite the many borrowings from French. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:38, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * But these languages have vowel sound at the beginning, and English then has a consonant sound at the beginning. Vowel sound at the beginning would be more logical in English. --40bus (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * And English also has a consonant sound at the start of words with u, like uniform. Unfortunately for those who learn English as a second language, English doesn't care too much about logic. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:55, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I think /j/ is considered a semivowel, to be precise. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:33, 8 October 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- It's unfortunate that you're offended by the change of a falling sonority diphthong to a rising sonority diphthong maybe 300 years ago, but such sound changes do not occur for the purpose of either pleasing or displeasing you... AnonMoos (talk) 18:44, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
 * And what in your entire experience learning and using English would lead you to believe that it would be logical? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:35, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Most of English is more closely related to Dutch. The borrowed parts are more closely related to French. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:55, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Japanese acronyms
Are there any acronyms containing numbers in Japanese where numbers are read out as Japanese words for numbers, for example K3 as kē san and S2T as esu ni tī?--40bus (talk) 19:46, 6 October 2023 (UTC)