Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 May 2

= May 2 =

Why is Tresckow pronounced like -cow and and not -coff
That's how I've always heard his name spoken in movies etc, but I thought maybe they were pandering to ignorant Englishers who don't know that -ow in German is normally said like -off. Not so in this case, apparently.
 * Henning Hermann Karl Robert von Tresckow ( ...

So why is Tresckow spoken that way? -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:26, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't tell you why this is so, but the pronunciation is actually standard for German names, in particular in the North East, see for instance the Berlin borough of Pankow. Russian names, by contrast, are usually transcribed as -ow (e.g. Gorbatschow) and pronounced -off. It's confusing, but there is a pattern. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:48, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * de:-ow has some info about these names. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:31, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Word-final ow in German is always pronounced . There are a million examples, particularly place names, but also surnames. The former GDR is full of places ending in ow; in Rostock (district) alone, we find the municipalities Güstrow, Neubukow, Satow, Teterow, Retschow, Bützow, Tarnow, Warnow, Groß Schwiesow, Gülzow-Prüzen, Gutow, Lüssow, Dobbin-Linstow, Krakow am See, Wardow, Alt Sührkow, Schorssow, Sukow-Levitzow, Thürkow, Alt Bukow, Bröbberow, Kassow, Grammow, Nustrow, Thelkow, Kritzmow, Pölchow, and Stäbelow. The only German word ending with ow pronounced that I am aware of is Kromow, and that is the name of a fictional character in The Merry Widow who is supposed to be a Slav. In fact, the only other German word I can think of where word-final w is pronounced  is the name of the city of Calw.
 * There is something unexpected about the pronunciation of Tresckow, though: the spelling would have you expect with a short e. 2001:4646:2494:0:C6D:BAD6:4C79:F92E (talk) 18:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Not to be confused with Trescowe, by Tre, Pol and Pen shall ye know Cornishmen... Alansplodge (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Wow, that's something I've learned today, thanks Friend 2001:4646. I've always loved languages and have acquired a ton of info along the way, but I've never studied German formally. So until now I was under the clear mis-impression that German w is always spoken like v or ff. How wrong I was. Are there any other exceptions? -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:58, 4 May 2024 (UTC)


 * There was a discussion on the referebce desk about this topic. I don't know how to link it properly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2022_April_6 --82.52.22.107 (talk) 20:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Very enlightening. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:27, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Chandrabindu
(I'm not sure if this belongs in RDL or RDC, because I don't know if it something real in the notation, or an artifact of the Google keyboard. But I thought I'd ask here first). These two look different (and Duolingo treats them as different) but I'm not sure if they are different things, or if the second is Google keyboard getting it wrong: अँ अंँ I created them both on the Hindi Google keyboard on my phone: the first by entering अ and then holding on the anusvara button. I get the second by completing the word including the anusvara, and then separately holding the anusvara button. Does anybody know if these reflect a real distinction in Devanagari? ColinFine (talk) 18:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)


 * The bottom character is actually अं with an extra chandrabindu on top. I'm not a Devanagari expert (disclaimer: I know essentially nothing about South Asian languages), but a friend of mine who speaks Hindi pointed out that nasalizing अं would probably be redundant. GalacticShoe (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see. So it's generating something that it shouldn't. (The reason this is happening is that the predictive text on the Hindi keyboard puts the visarga in, but never puts the chandrabindu, and Duolingo objects; so I either have to enter the word sound by sound, or I have to go back and add the chandrabindu - and I see now that it's adding without removing the visarga, which is plain wrong. That's not the only problem with its Hindi predictive text: it often uses a short ु when it should be a long  ू ). Thank you for clarifying. ColinFine (talk) 19:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)