Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[bradrn]

OTOH, there might be deeper patterns if you have the right phonemicization... and Mandarin vowels are not that. Norman offers a phonemic analysis which you might play with; FWIW he thinks Mandarin has no /o/.

Ah, good point. I’m rather fond of the two-vowel analysis myself, but I’ll check out Norman’s too.

[zompist]

OTOH, there might be deeper patterns if you have the right phonemicization... and Mandarin vowels are not that. Norman offers a phonemic analysis which you might play with; FWIW he thinks Mandarin has no /o/.

Ah, good point. I’m rather fond of the two-vowel analysis myself, but I’ll check out Norman’s too.

Oops, I got a thinko above-- I meant that pinyin is not a good phonemicization of Mandarin vowels.

[bradrn]

OTOH, there might be deeper patterns if you have the right phonemicization... and Mandarin vowels are not that. Norman offers a phonemic analysis which you might play with; FWIW he thinks Mandarin has no /o/.

Ah, good point. I’m rather fond of the two-vowel analysis myself, but I’ll check out Norman’s too.

Oops, I got a thinko above-- I meant that pinyin is not a good phonemicization of Mandarin vowels.

Luckily I understood that anyway!

[bradrn]

Well, I just realised that the code I’m working from uses rhymes which aren’t in Pinyin at all (e.g. -ueng). They all get simplified down to valid Pinyin in the end, but it seems a pointlessly complicated way of going about things (though that’s quite in keeping with the rest of the code, mind you). I’m not convinced it’s a good use of my time trying to decode all this.

[fusijui]

I agree, to import just about any Chinese historical linguistics material into your model would require taking the time to understand its own models first, which is legitimately a huge investment of time and effort. Inasmuch as it sounds like other kinds of historical linguistics, but is kind of a weird inbred cousin who acts normal around decent people most of the time but is ancient and crazy.

[Travis B.]

From listening to tonight's debate, I noticed that J. D. Vance had [ˈwʊːtn̩] and [ˈd̥ɪːtn̩] with a clear [t] where the dialect here has [wʊːnː(ʔ)]~[wʊːɘ̯̃ʔ] and [d̥ɪ̈ːnː(ʔ)]~[d̥ɪ̈ːɘ̯̃ʔ].

[zompist]

Not enough silly things here lately! So here's one.

My wife likes to tell this story: A Spanish speaker goes to Brazil and sees an ad seeking a secretária a cadeiras movediças. She is scandalized at this indecent country.

The joke is that Spanish secretaria a caderas movedizas means "a secretary with shaking hips." But the Portuguese means "a desk with moveable chairs."

[bradrn]

Not enough silly things here lately!

Then let me share this story I encountered last night: https://stephenjones.blog/2016/12/19/paul-kratochvil/

[bradrn]

A Spanish speaker goes to Brazil and sees an ad seeking a secretária a cadeiras movediças.

Sorry to disappoint, but I shared this story with a Brazilian of my acquaintance and he says this is European Portuguese only. For ‘desk with movable chairs’ he instead suggested Escrivaninha com cadeiras móveis, which ruins the joke. (Apparently the use of a is the biggest tell that this is European.)

[zompist]

A Spanish speaker goes to Brazil and sees an ad seeking a secretária a cadeiras movediças.

Sorry to disappoint, but I shared this story with a Brazilian of my acquaintance and he says this is European Portuguese only. For ‘desk with movable chairs’ he instead suggested Escrivaninha com cadeiras móveis, which ruins the joke. (Apparently the use of a is the biggest tell that this is European.)

As it happens we're going to Brazil for a wedding this year, so I'll check.

[Ares Land]

Not enough silly things here lately!

Then let me share this story I encountered last night: https://stephenjones.blog/2016/12/19/paul-kratochvil/

Both made me laugh.

[ratammer]

I was listening to You Can't Kill Rock and Roll by Ozzy Osbourne, and I had previously misheard the line "Cause rock 'n roll is my religion and my law" as "Cause rock 'n roll is my religion and my love", and apparently I am not the only person to do this. Thing is, Ozzy pronounced law in the song as something varying between either a weakly rounded [ɫɔː] and a slightly rounded [ɫʌː], which is interesting because IIRC THOUGHT in AusE is supposedly [oː], implying that this "should" be [ɫoː] -- but the fact that it is sung could have affected it. Anyways, I did not initially identify the word as "law" because my native THOUGHT is [ɒ] and hence my brain heard the word as "love" with STRUT and a very weak /v/.

Ozzy Osbourne is English, not Australian - he specifically has a Birmingham accent.

[Travis B.]

I was listening to You Can't Kill Rock and Roll by Ozzy Osbourne, and I had previously misheard the line "Cause rock 'n roll is my religion and my law" as "Cause rock 'n roll is my religion and my love", and apparently I am not the only person to do this. Thing is, Ozzy pronounced law in the song as something varying between either a weakly rounded [ɫɔː] and a slightly rounded [ɫʌː], which is interesting because IIRC THOUGHT in AusE is supposedly [oː], implying that this "should" be [ɫoː] -- but the fact that it is sung could have affected it. Anyways, I did not initially identify the word as "law" because my native THOUGHT is [ɒ] and hence my brain heard the word as "love" with STRUT and a very weak /v/.

Ozzy Osbourne is English, not Australian - he specifically has a Birmingham accent.

Okay, I don't know how I got it in my head that he was Australian - lol. Maybe the "Ozzy" part.

[bradrn]

I was listening to You Can't Kill Rock and Roll by Ozzy Osbourne, and I had previously misheard the line "Cause rock 'n roll is my religion and my law" as "Cause rock 'n roll is my religion and my love", and apparently I am not the only person to do this. Thing is, Ozzy pronounced law in the song as something varying between either a weakly rounded [ɫɔː] and a slightly rounded [ɫʌː], which is interesting because IIRC THOUGHT in AusE is supposedly [oː], implying that this "should" be [ɫoː] -- but the fact that it is sung could have affected it. Anyways, I did not initially identify the word as "law" because my native THOUGHT is [ɒ] and hence my brain heard the word as "love" with STRUT and a very weak /v/.

Ozzy Osbourne is English, not Australian - he specifically has a Birmingham accent.

Okay, I don't know how I got it in my head that he was Australian - lol. Maybe the "Ozzy" part.

I find it quite difficult to imagine confusing an Aussie accent with a Birmingham accent. (Though I suppose songs are always a bit tricky.)

[Travis B.]

Ozzy Osbourne is English, not Australian - he specifically has a Birmingham accent.

Okay, I don't know how I got it in my head that he was Australian - lol. Maybe the "Ozzy" part.

I find it quite difficult to imagine confusing an Aussie accent with a Birmingham accent. (Though I suppose songs are always a bit tricky.)

Considering that I have no idea in my head of what a Birmingham accent sounds like...

[Raphael]

Considering that I have no idea in my head of what a Birmingham accent sounds like...

I can tell a posh British accent from a non-posh British accent, and I think I can recognize a Scottish accent by now, too, but telling different regional English accents from each other? That's still beyond me.

[Travis B.]

Considering that I have no idea in my head of what a Birmingham accent sounds like...

I can tell a posh British accent from a non-posh British accent, and I think I can recognize a Scottish accent by now, too, but telling different regional English accents from each other? That's still beyond me.

I can tell SSBE from non-posh southeastern EngE varieties, I can tell a Scottish accent (think rhotic and lacking the fir-fur-fern merger), I am familiar with the TV version of northern EngE varieties (but am not familiar with real northern EngE varieties such as Scouse), but I am not familiar with other EngE varieties (Ozzy is probably the first person I have heard who has a Brummie accent in the first place...).

[jal]

I know Scouse from Lister (Red Dwarf), and Yorkshire from Sean Bean (Sharpe!), and I could* tell a lot of British accents apart, without being able to name them :). I doubt whether I could tell South Scottish from North English though, or general Estuary English from inner London speech.

I have much more difficulty with telling American accent apart, East Coast or West Coast all sound the same to me.

*My hearing loss makes things trickier now.


JAL

[Raphael]

I have much more difficulty with telling American accent apart, East Coast or West Coast all sound the same to me.

I think the only US accents I can recognize are AAVE and white Southern drawls. Everything else sounds just like GA to me.

[Travis B.]

Key clues to telling apart NAE varieties other than Southern or AAVE ones is A) is there the NCVS, B) is there the cot-caught merger, C) is the result of the cot-caught merger rounded, D) is there the father-bother merger, and E) is the vowel in words such as Florida and horrible rounded. If there is the NCVS, it is an Inland North dialect. If there is the cot-caught merger and the father-bother merger and the result of the cot-caught merger is unrounded, it is a Western dialect. If there is the cot-caught merger and the father-bother merger and the result of the cot-caught merger is rounded, it is a Canadian dialect. If there is the cot-caught merger but no father-bother merger, it is an Eastern New England dialect. If the vowels in words such as Florida and horrible is unrounded, it is a traditional East Coast dialect.