Shortest words for basic concepts

[Kuchigakatai]

Interestingly the plural of "egg" in Cajun French, /ø/, is shorter than the singular, /œf/.

This is part of Standard French as well. Which reminds me, me and zompist also forgot os /ɔs/ 'bone', plural /o/ 'bones'.

[Vijay]

Interestingly the plural of "egg" in Cajun French, /ø/, is shorter than the singular, /œf/.

This is part of Standard French as well.

In French French, the plural is /œf/ in most contexts, i.e. in contexts other than after a determiner or after an adjective ending with [z]. I'm guessing that's why he specifically mentioned Cajun.

[mèþru]

Wait it's not like that in Quebecois French?

[Linguoboy]

In French French, the plural is /œf/ in most contexts, i.e. in contexts other than after a determiner or after an adjective ending with [z]. I'm guessing that's why he specifically mentioned Cajun.

I specifically mentioned Cajun because I never formally studied Standard French, have learned it chiefly from reading, and thus can’t speak at all authoritatively about its pronunciation (nor that of Canadian French varieties, for similar reasons).

I would actually expect that œufs mostly occurs with a determiner and that contexts without one would be the exceptions.

What’s the best we can do for the seasons? Osage has pee for spring and American English has fall. What about summer and winter?

[akam chinjir]

Turkish has yaz and kış for summer and winter.

[Pabappa]

I remember that Cheyenne's word for winter is ae, having learned it from this board once as an example of radical sound change in motion. The only dictionary I can find spells this áa'e , however.

[Vijay]

In Vietnamese, 'summer' is hè, and 'fall' is thu, both from Chinese. 'Winter' in both Chechen and Ingush is ӏа [ʡɑ], and 'spring' in Avar is их [iχ] with a uvular fricative.

[Linguoboy]

In Vietnamese, 'summer' is hè, and 'fall' is thu, both from Chinese.

I considered Vietnamese, but are those free morphemes? Don't they need to appear with rhe classifier mùa except in compounds?

[Kuchigakatai]

Interestingly the plural of "egg" in Cajun French, /ø/, is shorter than the singular, /œf/.

This is part of Standard French as well.

In French French, the plural is /œf/ in most contexts, i.e. in contexts other than after a determiner or after an adjective ending with [z]. I'm guessing that's why he specifically mentioned Cajun.

No, it can actually be /ø/ as well. It can be pronounced the same as the singular nowadays, but it is part of the standard to pronounce it /ø/.

A couple references:

In one or two cases, although the plural is formed normally, pronunciation of the plural form is affected –
le boeuf – les boeufs = bullock – bullocks, l’oeuf – les oeufs = egg – eggs, –f– not pronounced in plural; l’os – les os = bone – bones, –s sounded in singular but not in plural.

Source: Malcolm Offord. A Student Grammar of French. 2006. Page 143.

singular => oeuf "euf"
plural => des oeufs as "eux".

Source: User Sel&poivre. "œuf / œufs (prononciation), post #2". WordReference.com Language Forums: French-English Vocabulary / Vocabulaire Français-Anglais. 2006-11-13. URL: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads ... on.293660/


This is also true of the standard French of Quebec, as can be seen in the following quote.

On prononce la consonne finale des mots bœuf, œuf et os lorsqu'on les emploie au singulier. Bœuf et œuf se prononcent donc [bœf] et [œf] comme le chiffre neuf, et os se prononce [ɔs] comme dans le mot brosse. Au pluriel, toutefois, on ne prononce pas la consonne finale. On dit plutôt, en fermant la voyelle, [bø] (beu) pour bœufs et [ø] (eu) pour œufs, les deux mots rimant alors avec feu. De même, os au pluriel se prononce [o] comme le mot eau.

Source: Office québécois de la langue française. "Bœuf, œuf et os". Banque de dépannage linguistique. URL: http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=3067

[Whimemsz]

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[Qwynegold]

Consider this a companion thread to the "One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meanings" thread from the old board.

Oh, the other day I came up with a word that would've fit that thread: English dud, meaning a piece of explosive that didn't explode.

[Vijay]

In Vietnamese, 'summer' is hè, and 'fall' is thu, both from Chinese.

I considered Vietnamese, but are those free morphemes? Don't they need to appear with rhe classifier mùa except in compounds?

I'm not sure, but apparently not? :-/

https://vi.wiktionary.org/wiki/h%C3%A8#Tiếng_Việt
https://vi.wiktionary.org/wiki/thu#Tiếng_Việt

[Linguoboy]

In Vietnamese, 'summer' is hè, and 'fall' is thu, both from Chinese.

I considered Vietnamese, but are those free morphemes? Don't they need to appear with rhe classifier mùa except in compounds?

I'm not sure, but apparently not? :-/

https://vi.wiktionary.org/wiki/h%C3%A8#Tiếng_Việt
https://vi.wiktionary.org/wiki/thu#Tiếng_Việt

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at there. I only see one clear example of freestanding nominal usage (thu đã qua, đông đang tới) and it reads like it might be a proverbial saying of some kind.

[Vijay]

Okay, then I guess they aren't free morphemes. Idk.

[circeus]

Nahuatl has a few roots that are monosyllabic and "expanded" (but in a irregular and somewhat haphazard way) in composition/derivation because the language just doesn't like super short words. The nominal ones are also "hidden" by the absolute suffix.

ā-tl, "water" (often ātl- or ālt- in composition, e.g. āltepētl, ā-tl+tepē-tl "city")
e-tl, "beans"
i, "to drink" (to drink water is ātli, another irregular compound)
o, "to lie" (The actual root in the common verb onoc, "to lie". By colonial time it was always used with the directional prefix on- and a -c that would normally be a preterite or participial marker.)

And probably over a dozen common roots (including several verbs. e.g. cua "eat" and cui "take" —the <u> is a labialization mark: k^wa etc.) with only two phonemes.

[anxi]

Polish ił — a type of a finely-grained rock composed of clay minerals, with little non-clay traces, but distinct from clay, formed primarily before the quaternary

[Linguoboy]

Couple more from Osage:

paa snow
hpa nose
ie language

The basic meaning of ie is "speak; speech" but it also forms language names (e.g. wažáže íe "Osage language") and it's the shortest free morpheme I know of for "language". hp is a digraph; Osage has a fortis stop series which is often realised with preaspiration.

[akam chinjir]

Maybe Mandarin yǔ 語 for a tie? One segment and a tone; but maybe you wouldn't consider it a free morpheme.

[Linguoboy]

Maybe Mandarin yǔ 語 for a tie? One segment and a tone; but maybe you wouldn't consider it a free morpheme.

Yeah, in the sense of "language", the usual term is bisyllabic 語言. But maybe Cantonese [jyː˩˧] or [waː˨] can be freely used this way?

[akam chinjir]

I don't think so, except I guess in set phrases, like in Mandarin, I guess. I was wondering about waah 話, which is common as a verb, but it's two segments as well as a tone (the h marks tone). (But my instincts about this sort of thing are pretty skewed by classical Chinese.)