Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 June 15

Language desk
< June 14	<< May | June | Jul >>	June 16 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 15

liberty, liberté, libertad, libertà

I never really understood the undisputed fact that the most common words and grammar are most likely to be different among linguistically close languages. I'd like help with understanding this process. One example is words like in my subject line. If you speak any of the referenced languages, you can "guess" at a word in the form of "liberty" even without knowing the correct word, since they're very close and have a "rule change". (There are lots of words conforming to the rule).

My question is about how the form is different. When a language first starts using the "different" form, is it -- a game, joking, being precious, or what? How does everyone go from saying liberty to liberté? Indeed formlerly the English words were pronounced with a why sound, I guess.

So my question is: when people first started pronouncing it with the new pronunciation, what was the effect?

The United States has a huge geographical area. Can you point out where people have started pronouncing e.g. liberty, liberté, libertad, libertà with anything other than the very first pronunciation, and what effect this has? (effect of: joking, of being silly, or of being wrong/ignorant, or slurring speaking quickly...or what?)

Basically, I'd like to know what it "feels" like to transition among these forms, and surely can find an example in contemporary usage of it developing. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.79.43 (talk) 11:33, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The endings mostly derive from the ancient Latin -tatem 3rd. declension accusative singular ending (see Latin declension) by regular neogrammarian sound laws (the Italian form of the ending would appear to have been analogically reshaped to some degree, since it combines the segmental form of the nominative case with the stress-positioning of the oblique singular cases). I don't particularly understand most of your question, but abstract philosophical-metaphysical factors have very little impact on historical sound changes in languages. In any case, French -té was the source of English -ty, not vice-versa... AnonMoos (talk) 12:05, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't understand my question (sorry that I wasn't clearer) as you seem to be in a good position to help me. Basically, I understand that the endings DERIVE from the same source. But they went in different directions. My question is, when people FIRST started pronouncing it in the way that is now characteristic of the respective languages, what was it like? How did this start? Can you point me to this process occurring somewhere in America? (People starting pronounce every word like liberty, fraternity, in some completely different way - libertays, fraternitays, whatever - and where spelling might also catch up and we have a new form dominant.) Basically, my question is why the pronounciation and spelling isn't EXACTLY the same in the four languages mentioned (and more - just see the interwiki links at left in the liberty article). Instead, they conform to the rule. I want to know what it was like when this rule change first developed, and so that I can intuitively understand it, can you point me to a dialect anywhere in the vast territory of the United States where a similar process is happening? (I ask because Europe's territory where the changes occurred isn't so much larger...) I can clarify further if you don't understand what I'm requesting. --78.92.79.43 (talk) 12:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I can break down the concrete phonological details of all or most of the historical sound changes, if you want, but I really have no ability or interest in hypothetical abstract metaphysical-philosophical speculations... AnonMoos (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Thinking about any of them, can you tell me a contemporary example of the same thing "in process" in America, with some speakers using the old system and some using the new? Or are you only knowledgeable about the historical changes.--78.92.79.43 (talk) 13:28, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's the etymology of "liberty".[1] Closer to home, people will pronounce a word the way it feels right in their own language. Consider "Colorado". In Spanish it would be something like coe-loe-RAH-doe. In English it became cah-loe-RAH-doe, and a lot of folks say cah-loe-RA-doe. Or even a simple word like "record". It used to be pronounced REH-cord. Over time it became REH-curd. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ —Preceding undated comment added 12:11, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, many people still have a reCORD [rɪˈkɔːrd] verb vs. RECord [ˈrɛkərd] noun distinction between different parts of speech. AnonMoos (talk) 12:19, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Have you never sat in a bar or union meeting or political caucus and listened to your peers' pronunciations, with Willie Joe from Arkansas and Juanita from Columbia and Norbert from Minnesota and Shaniquah from the South Bronx and Bridget whose parents both came from Armagh and Ashok from Telangana, each pronouncing words in the way that feels right to them? Extend and multiply that process a thousand-fold, and that's what happened to Latin. There are complex linguistic terms for the process, but that's basically what happened. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the example, but could you be more specific? I want to see American English>to dialect in transition, a new form being used just like Latin>French and Latin>Portuguese and Latin>Spanish once had people speaking the latter language "for the first time" in a GROUP. Any such GROUP (other than ebonics, which clearly shows certain grammatical features but not the word shift I'm talking about) that you can point me at? The question I think is pretty clear. I'd like to hear specifics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.79.43 (talk) 13:41, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

American English has examples of forms that are specific to America and to different parts of the country. One I saw was that pen-pin merger, which our article says started in the South and is now also sometimes heard in the West. That is the kind of non-dramatic gradual change that leads to language change over time. You might be able to find other examples yourself. When you listen to excerpts from old radio or TV broadcasts, do the announcers have the same range of accents that they would do today? I'm in the UK and have seen new forms of the language emerge, for example Estuary English and Multicultural London English. America is so large that there must be similar changes going on somewhere. The general trend is towards homogenisation of varieties Itsmejudith (talk) 13:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)rather than differentiation at the moment, because people from different regions watch the same movies, and probably also attend the same colleges.

liberté, libertad is obviously more than an "accent change". the word is written differently. While pen-pin is a good example, it is really just the pronounciation of a vowel, not a new sound or different word. I'd like to see "in action" a pen/pin style drift that affects a whole class of words (like -y noun formations from adjectives or another analogous example). Of course I would accept theatre-theater, centre-center from British English...if this actually changed the pronunciation of the word. (Which it does not). Any example which do? --78.92.79.43 (talk) 14:14, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

That isn't how language formation works. For one thing, almost everybody was illiterate at the time these languages were differentiating themselves. Additionally, the historical evidence is that among those who were literate, the words were written as if they were still Classical Latin, even though in different areas the pronunciations and even conjugations in common vernacular speech had begun to branch out into what eventually were recognized as different languages. That's how it works in real life: a new creole, dialect or patois may be gradually developing, but it will not be recognized in orthography for a long time, if at all, because of the innate conservatism of writing. Read the articles diglossia and vernacular for more on this. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Are you telling me that you can't give me any examples of this pronunciation change for COMMON words, whcih are still written in the old ("standard") way. I'd like an example from the vast English-speaking North American continent. It doesn't matter if it's creole, dialect, or patois. just that it's happening somewhere. also doesn't matter if it's been enshrined in orthography or not. thanks. --78.92.79.43 (talk) 14:29, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Why is it so important that this should be a change starting in American English? American English is a comparatively young dialect itself, and change takes time. Moreover, American English has mainly been spoken in an era of printing and standardised spelling - so examples will necessarily be rarer. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:35, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Good question - sorry I didn't make it clearer in my post! The reason I'm asking for specifically American English is because I would intuitively and actually aurally hear and understand what you're talking about, not just on an abstract level. I like the pin/pen example -it's real and I know what you're talking about. Unfortunately it's just a small vowel change, not really a word we would radically write differently if we wrote it as some small group speaks. I've lived in many different parts of America and can understand or imitate a very large variety of accents. I'd like to hear a process of a rule drift in one of them (or another that I haven't heard). This would let me - I'm guessing - viscerally understand the germs of a phenomenon that can lead to the radical changes described later. Again, pen pin is a legitimate, real example. Do you have something stronger? (e.g. consonents added or removed, etc. ESPECIALLY when this applies to a CLASS of words, such as making nouns from adjectives with -y.) Thanks again. --78.92.79.43 (talk) 14:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The written forms come after the pronunciation. Also there are dialect continuums between French, Spanish and Italian, even if they can be poorly understood (by me anyway). It sounds like you would like to read some introductory texts on historical/comparative linguistics, or perhaps a book on American English. I'm not sure what you mean by "-y noun formations from adjectives". Liberty isn't such a thing; I expect it is borrowed from the French together with honesty, probity and others. English commonly uses "y" to form adjectives from nouns: grassy, woody, flowery. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:33, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

What the OP seems to be driving at is essentially what we linguists call the "actuation problem": why and how does a linguistic innovation first come about, in individual speakers? After that comes the next logical step, that of "transmission": why does a innovative manner of speaking, once invented, spread through a community, until it becomes the new norm for a part of it – but not for another? Both of these questions are far from trivial, judging from the amount of ink that has been spilled over them. The reason why it is not so easy for us to come up with examples of observable changes "right now" where we could point to the exact place of origin is fairly simple: by the time an innovation has spread so far through the community that linguists are likely to first notice it as a new systematic pattern, several decades or several generations have usually passed from the time it was actually first used, so the exact origin will no longer be knowable. One scholar who has been particularly active in trying to get as close as he can to observing the actual origins of a change, in statu nascendi, is William Labov, a famous American sociolinguist and expert on present-day American accents. If you really want to read up on the fascinating details of what it means to look for the very beginnings of language change, you might start there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It's true that I'm interested in the 'why and how'. But I'm content to answer it for myself. The pen-pin example is perfect and fine, and enough for me. I don't need to really hear where it came from. But it's too little, it's not a deep enough change for my purposes. Can anyone think of anything like that? The only things I can think of - like libary - seem to just be mispronunciations by careless speakers, and not characteristic of any part of the country and certainly not for a class of words. Since the most radical changes e.g. among the Romance languages - are in the MOST COMMON words and grammar, I'd like to hear examples of common words that are pronounced differently in different parts of the country, even in patois, uneducated speech, etc. The point is their pronunciation in some group should be such that you would write it differently if you wrote it down phonetically. Any examples? (besides pen pin whihc is good and fits my standards.) --78.92.79.43 (talk) 15:12, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

If you want an example involving grammatical affixes (similar to the derivational affix in -tatem/-té/-tà/-ty etc.), try the pronunciation of verbal -ing in English. Some people say "talking", some say "talkin'". True, at the moment this is probably more a matter of formal versus informal style, and not so much a geographical matter, and most speakers actually mix between both forms depending on the situation, but you might well imagine that it could possibly happen that one part of the country converges towards the one form and the other towards the other. If that happened, and if it wasn't for the conservative force of standard orthography, the "-in" pronouncers might some day actually start writing it that way. – Or think of the difference between those speakers that pronounce start with an "r", and those who say staht (e.g. in Britain and in parts of the north-eastern US. If it wasn't for the fact that our spelling is generally very conservative and preserves all sorts of older forms by pure force of convention, the Brits could have started writing "staht" about two hundred years ago. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The -ing ending is interesting because it represents the merger (in Middle English) of an original -ing for the verbal noun (cf. German -ung) and an original -en for the participle (cf. German -end). So -in' is original for some meanings and -ing for others.

I wasn't aware of any evidence there was continuity between the Middle English participial -en forms and the modern "-g dropping" forms. Standard references such as the Cambridge History seem to imply the replacement of old -en with -ing was pretty much complete at some period. Got a ref or something? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Also of interest to the OP may be the cot-caught merger, which is a fairly recent linguistic change, something that is currently occuring, and perhaps the Great Vowel Shift, which is a more historical linguistic change. --Jayron32 15:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The pin-pen merger and the cot-caught merger affect many of the most common words in English. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

A trend that I've noticed in my own General American pronunciation is the gradual abandonment of schwa in favor of schwi. I first noticed it when I was still in grade school, and forty-five years later, the process is nearly complete. If I were to "phonetically" write the words "about" or "among", I would write them "ibout" and "imong", and "affect" (verb) and "effect" would both be "iffect". I get the idea that's what the OP is talking about when he says the spelling would be affected (in an age, perhaps, in which spelling had not yet been rigidly codified). Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You might be interested in Northern cities vowel shift — it's big, it's recent, and it's American. —Tamfang (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Be sure you're not confusing spelling with pronunciation. We don't learn language through spelling, we learn it through listening and then speaking. English spelling is largely static (and with a mess of rules thanks to the influence of so many different languages). Give it another few hundred years and maybe it'll change; or, more likely, there will be a Standard English and many local dialects with their own spelling and pronunciation (which is pretty much exactly what happened with liberté, libertad, libertà). Changes in pronunciation are largely tiny changes, and the speakers that have them largely won't even notice. For example, people that rhyme cot and caught. To those of us that don't, they may say fawther or baht instead of father or bought, but it's not something that impairs communication and often something that's even noticed. As for what the effects of a new pronunciation are, it's largely "nothing." Stereotypes can arise, for example Texans who "peyit their cayits" instead of "pet their cats" just bothers me for an irrational reason. It only amounts to more when many, many small changes eventually reach the point where comprehensibility starts to become a problem. I'd also question the premise that basic words change more; I'm thinking it might more accurate to say the spelling of non-basic words is more likely to be reveal relationships. Three or four changes between libertad and liberté keep most of the word in tact, while that and dass - only having three sounds to begin with - are much less clear. Lsfreak (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and just to point out the problem of spelling. Compare a sound-spelling of libertad and liberté and it's more like "lee-ver-tath" and "lee-begh-tey", which is significantly more confusing (and for fun, Brazilian Portuguese is something like "lee-be-dah-jee"). Lsfreak (talk) 20:35, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Some more examples from American English dialects the o.p. might be interested in: "wash" --> "worsh", "Monday" --> "Mondee", "soda" vs "pop" vs "coke" (as a generic term for "soda"). Also a more recent, in process change of /ei/ --> /e/ ("day": /dei/ --> /de/ "play": /plei/ --> /ple/) in the West, especially in California.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 22:15, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this speaks to your purpose or not, but have you considered the New England pronunciation of words ending in 'er' (There is a current TV ad I have seen for a device called 'The Hopper' with characters shouting about 'The Hoppa!'). The state of 'New Joisey' also springs to mind. Helene O'Troy - Et In Arcadia Ego Sum (talk) 17:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Word

What do you call an adjective that describe "someone that capable of showing emotions". Thanks!Pendragon5 (talk) 15:07, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

stoic is often used in this sense. (misread. see below.)--78.92.79.43 (talk) 15:14, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Would not a stoic be one who does NOT show emotions - the opposite of that which was asked? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gurumaister (talk • contribs) 15:30, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you're completely right, I simply misread the question. (as "someone that is incapable of showing emotions.") Actually the original question doesn't even have an "is" there. At any rate most people are able to show emotion, so I wouldn't think there's a particular word for it. "emotive" can describe someone who "emotes" well:

emotive:2. Characterized by, expressing, or exciting emotion: an emotive trial lawyer."

When they go too far, they're called histrionic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.79.43 (talk) 15:41, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's a very common or idiomatic use of "emotive". There's also "emotional", but that tends to imply actually showing (or at least feeling) emotion to a fairly strong degree, rather than just being capable of it. For what it's worth, MS Word's thesaurus gives the following as synonyms of "emotional": expressive, open, demonstrative, sensitive, responsive, passionate. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Like I said, I don't think there's a word for what the person asks for, since normally anyone can show emotion. There's no word for someone who can speak (non-mute?), someone who can react to their environment (non-vegetative?) and so on. Why would we have a special word for things all humans can do until/unless special in some way? Such words would be used to contrast humans with animals that don't speak, with inanimate objects, and so forth. Why would there be a word for someone who is capable of showing emotion? Who isn't capable of such a thing? A brief description (e.g. "capable of showing emotion") is probably the best you can hope for. --78.92.79.43 (talk) 09:37, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we can find a word that means "a person incapable of showing emotion", and stick an un- or a non- in front of it. But that's a not uncircuitous route to what is a not unsimple concept. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me affected and affective would both be technically correct, though the first could be confused with affected in the sense of being artificial (an affected air of compassion) and the second confused with effective. Taking Jack's tack, Alexithymia describes an inability to understand, process or describe emotions, so lexithymic would describe a person able to do those things. Deikthymic would be a neologism built off of Greek δείκνυμι (to show) + thymic. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 14:30, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Possesion with apostrophies.

Please excuse this next sentence, I found it on the internet, but I wanted to know if it was correct grammatically. Also taken way out of context, so ignore what it's saying, but focus on the grammar please.

"The Nazi's rape everything"

Would this be correct because the "Nazi's" are showing ownership of the "rape"? Or does this not work because you can't "own" a verb? Thanks for your help. Bluefist ^talk 19:10, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Even if you could "own" the verb (which you can't), it would only be one Nazi "owning" the raping (not "the rape", since we aren't dealing with the noun rape here). What the person who wrote this was looking for is the plural form "Nazis": plurals don't take apostrophes, so the sentence is definitely not grammatically correct. 92.80.0.170 (talk) 19:39, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not quite a "greengrocer's apostrophe", because the person who wrote it was probably assimilating the plural of a foreign word to the "Oakland A's" or "Plain White T's" pattern... AnonMoos (talk) 20:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The other possibility is that they're viewing "Nazi" as an acronym (for Nationalsozialismus), and there is some use of apostrophes during acronym pluralization (see Acronym and initialism#Representing plurals and possessives). However, my sense of things is that such use is now typically frowned upon, especially in cases like "Nazi" (or laser/radar), where the acronym otherwise looks and functions like a standard word. -- 140.142.20.101 (talk) 21:11, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not true that plurals cannot take apostrophes (though it would be wrong in this particular case). For example, "the Americans' sense of Manifest Destiny fueled their expansion across the continent" is fine. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:20, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the classic greengrocer's apostrophe to me; emphatically not correct. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) From the article Apostrophe: "Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, points out that before the 19th century, it was standard orthography to use the apostrophe to form a plural of a foreign-sounding word that ended in a vowel (e.g., banana's, folio's, logo's, quarto's, pasta's, ouzo's) to clarify pronunciation. Truss says this usage is no longer considered proper in formal writing." Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

However, there are still a few legitimate usages for the pluralizing apostrophe-s, when the s without the apostrophe would be confusing: Mind your p's and q's, the Oakland A's. I would use it to pluralize any mixed-case initialism as well. --Trovatore (talk) 21:27, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. There are probably still a few vowel-ending words that would best be pluralized that way, for clarity's sake. As an example, "logo's", to make it clear that you're not referring to the Logos. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Isn't that a classic case of overkill? Surely context would come the rescue in the vast bulk of cases. Most people who have occasion to talk or write about logos have probably never even heard of the Logos, much less assume their readers might confuse other words with it. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It could in any case be spelled logoes, which may not be a standard spelling but makes more sense than logo's to me. I spell zeroes this way, even though it's at best a secondary spelling in American English, because zeros looks to me as though it should be pronounced "zerose" (rhymes with "glucose") or perhaps "zee-ross". --Trovatore (talk) 01:42, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

But nobody feels the need to write ratio's, ratioes, patio's, patioes, pinto's, pintoes, opera's, pyjama's, The Three Amigo's, amigoes, pesto's, pestoes, nacho's, nachoes, pasta's, tango's, tangoes, rhumba's, conga's, avocado's, avocadoes, ski's, skies, the Fonda's, the Sinatra's, or stacks of other plural vowel-ending nouns. The apostrophe-less and e-less versions do just fine for all them. Why make exceptions for particular words when we already have too many to deal with? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 02:41, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I dunno, zeros just looks wrong to me. Some sort of ancient god from the Marvel Comics universe, that Dr. Strange might have a meeting with. Plus there's the parallel with heroes. --Trovatore (talk) 02:49, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Heroes are by definition exceptional people and deserve their exceptional e's [sic]. Zeros - well, they speak for themselves. The silent majority, really. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:01, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Zeroes, to me, are not people but points. I'm sure you know what I mean, though other readers of this desk may not. --Trovatore (talk) 03:04, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

In wikipedia terms, "zeros" are the ones who don't qualify for wikipedia articles. (Instead they're the ones that write those articles.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:03, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, the unsung zeroes of Wikipedia... Dru of Id (talk) 03:49, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Hindi

Hi. I cannot read Hindi, but I can pick out words when I hear it spoken. I want to ask about two words I heard on TV today. The first one sounds like SING-HUHSUN and I think it means "throne". But those words also sound like the words for "lion" and "seat" so is that correct, does the Hindi word for "throne" mean "lion's seat"? The second word sounds like UH-NUT and it seems to mean "orphan". But that also sounds like the word for "lord" with A on the front, so I'd like to know if the Hindi word for "orphan" means "lordless"? I hope you can help - without knowing how to read Hindi I don't know how else to look this up. Thanks. 184.147.126.249 (talk) 20:10, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The English article throne is linked to the Hindi one hi:राजसिंहासन, which does seem to transliterate as rajasinghasan. "Lion-seat" looks plausible, but I don't know if it is true. --ColinFine (talk) 00:08, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

And according to Wiktionary, the Hindi word for orphan is अनाथ anāth, while नाथ nāth means "lord, protector". It certainly seems likely that "orphan" is thus "protectorless one", but I can't say whether that's the genuine etymology or folk etymology. Angr (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest, though, that if you have any aspirations about learning Hindi, you should either learn to read Devanagari, or at least learn to use a commonly used romanisation scheme, so that you can write it more accurately. V85 (talk) 15:45, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

A Language Biased Toward Itself

We can Romanize, we can Anglicize, and we can Americanize, but why are there no other words for transforming into a script, language, or nationality? Interchangeable 21:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Transliterate? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Derivations in -ize/-ization are highly productive, so you can easily form and use analogous words for other languages, scripts etc., provided the context is such that your hearer will understand what you mean. Three seconds of googling led me to this book snippet, which talks of "schemes for Arabization, Cyrillization, Hebraization, Grecization, Sinization, Japanization, and so forth". Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:08, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I can also think of Frenchify, Germanize, Hellenize, and Italianize off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:17, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

We have Hebraization of English, Cyrillization, Category:Cyrillization, and probably others. Japanization and Sinicization are about broader cultural concepts. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:15, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Hay el verbo castellanizar. http://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/castellanizar μηδείς (talk) 00:26, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Thaification also. Henry^Flower 00:59, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

And of course, you can Balkanize. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

We Aussies sometimes speak of Australianisation. HiLo48 (talk) 07:41, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I would say this is a subtle case of ethnocentrism: In an English language setting, where English is written using the Latin alphabet, it makes sense to romanise languages that aren't written with Latin script, and given how pervasive American culture is around the world, it makes sense to talk about Americanisation. Similarly, for English people, Anglification (i.e. the process of whereby others become more English) might be a very interesting and self-affirming topic. Other than those who are very interested in the inner workings of Thai domestic policy towards ethnic minorities, a word such as thaification isn't very useful in day-to-day conversation, and the same goes with other such words for assimilating one culture with another. ::As for transliterations, this is due to what scripts are legible by an English speaking audience: I assume one could write any language with almost any script one wanted (there would need to be made several adjustments to any script to do it, but it should be feasible, even if the result didn't 'feel right'). However, transcriptions of Thai into Japanese syllabaries or Russian written using Arabic script aren't that useful for an English speaking audience, as they are trained in reading and writing Latin script.

Consequently, the contexts in which words for things other than romanise, arabise, Frencify or Ellenise are useful are much fewer and far between than where we can use romanise or Americanise. However, just because such words aren't used outside of very specialised contexts, that doesn't mean that they aren't out there. V85 (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

See Template:Cultural assimilation. --Theurgist (talk) 15:55, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I wonder why we talk about "romanising" non-Latin scripts into Latin scripts, rather than "latinising" them. "Roman" is normally reserved for numerals. I know Rome was the capital of the Latin world (or, Latin was the language of the Roman world), but we don't talk about "muscovisation" or "sanktpeterburgisation" when converting a script into Cyrillic, rather "cyrillisation". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:57, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

My guess would be that it's a heritage from a time when the script was usually called 'Roman script', rather than 'Latin script'. Indeed, the article Latin alphabet does start by saying that an alternative name for the alphabet is 'Roman alphabet'. Similarly, the article Romanisation states that an alternative for it is 'Latinisation'.

In Japanese, they talk of 'Romaji', i.e. Romanisation. Hindi and Nepali call the Latin script 'रोमन लिपि' (Rôman lipi) or Roman script. The document in the Royal Gazette laying out the Royal Thai General System of Transcription speaks of อักษรโรมัน (akson rôman) or, again, Roman script. OR: Assuming that these languages adopted the name for Latin script from a European language, it would seem that at some point, the European languages, or at least some speakers of it, called it Roman script, rather than Latin script. V85 (talk) 05:35, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense. Tks. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:43, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

It should be noted that there is a reason why Latin and Roman are sometimes synonymous. The land of Latium is the ancient name for the land around the city of Rome, i.e. its hinterlands. Even today, the Italian region around this area is the Lazio. --Jayron32 01:27, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you said "sometimes". The people of Roman America are not known for their Latin noses, for example. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 01:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Vietnamization. Dru of Id (talk) 03:53, 20 June 2012 (UTC)