Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 August 26

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August 26

Growth of Spanish in Texas

When will >50% of Texans speak Spanish? I believe I remember reading that Spanish will become the dominant language in Texas by 2020(?), but now can't find a reference. The "Languages of Texas" page isn't entirely satisfying because the fact that Spanish is "the" language spoken at home doesn't encompass all the people/households that can speak Spanish, even if they choose to speak English at home. The current statistic also, of course, doesn't project when the majority of Texans will speak Spanish or the major news outlets will be in Spanish.RapunzelaTX (talk) 04:55, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

When you say "major news outlets", do you mean network affiliates or independent local stations? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:11, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is an article from the Dallas Morning News about the growth of the Hispanic population of Texas. Of course, not every person who identifies as Hispanic speaks Spanish, so it would not be a perfect answer for your question, but its a start. --Jayron32 14:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

See Ted Cruz and George Walker Bush for Texan Spanish speakers. Just try not to choke to death. μηδείς (talk) 00:12, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5xIIgesvk

Hi, as a foreigner I do not understand the monologue in the video from 3:32 to 3:42. Could anybody please give me subtitles? Thanks --Zulu55 (talk) 10:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

From 2:44

OFFSCREEN Move closer
ONSCREEN We were together at school, me and him. He went another way. Just standing here.
OFF. Okay
ON. I'm only here for a couple of minutes.
OFF. So how long do you know this man?
ON. Thirty years.
OFF. Thirty years you've been together and you went to school where?
ON. For? Kensington
OFF. Harvard! You've been to Kensington together? And you learned, did you learn martial arts together?
ON. Yes. We had a bad course.
OFF. What?
ON. I know him. He was over talkative. I remember at school. He used to sit by the sofa and read books. I was just this guy fooling around and having fun, he was just reading. You ask him questions and he would just answer with his head - yeah, no, yeah, no, What's your name? - no - What, you got a name? A shake of the head is not a name. Pretty soon a name. And by recess, you know, he's just this guy that's hanging out, shame his mother like picked him up from school. You know like by other guys more than 20, his mother picks him up from school.
(3:49 all laugh)

AllBestFaith (talk) 12:14, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --Zulu55 (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Weinstein

On the CBS News this morning, they mentioned Harvey Weinstein and pronounced his name as if it were spelled "wine-steen." In German class many years ago I was told that German syllables with "ein" are pronounced so as to rhyme with the English word "pine," while German words with "ien" are pronounced like the English word "seen". Someone said that some Jewish Americans pronounce "ein" in a name as "een" so that they, if not most people pronounce the last name of Leonard Bernstein as "Bernsteen." Is that pronunciation practice limited to last syllables of names? That seems questionable, since I have never heard anyone of any ethnicity pronounce Einstein as "Ine-steen." Did the CBS reporter just mispronounce Weinstein's name? The bio article for Weinstein does not include a pronunciation guide. Granted, it is the right of the individual (in the US, at least) to decide how his name is pronounced, and granted, he is from the US, not Germany. If the correct pronunciation is "wine-steen" how would that be shown in IPA so I could add it to the article? Edison (talk) 15:53, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Young Frankenstein may be relevant here. Any time I can present a germane link to a Mel Brooks movie, I'm tickled --Jayron32 16:02, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The gold standard. :) Part of the joke, maybe, was whether he said "fronk-en-steen" or "frank-en-stine", either way he got the German pronunciation wrong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:39, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately Weinstein isn't mentioned in "Stine or Steen" by William Safire. I checked some interviews online, and I heard most people calling him Weinsteen in his presence, and he didn't protest, though Craig Ferguson called him Weinstine, and Harvey didn't protest or correct that either, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ---Sluzzelin talk 16:14, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The Safire article suggests that in America we have the "I before e except after c" spelling rule, and "receive" is pronounced "receeve," so the Americanization of "stein" is "steen." But then I would expect the name to be pronounced "Weensteen." (Safire thinks "weird" is pronounced "weerd," but I hear it more often as "wird" with an "ih" sound, though some might say "wee-urd" in US English. That pronunciation smacks of a comic intent, like "You are being REALLY WEEurd!") Edison (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Does the vowel of weird differ from those of fear and beer? —Tamfang (talk) 06:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I always heard Leonard's name pronounced "-stine" unless someone was being funny. Counter to that was Joe Piscopo's ongoing joke, when imitating Frank Sinatra, of pronouncing Bruce Springsteen as "spring-stine". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

On The Navy Lark the helmsman was Able Seaman Goldstein (pronounced "steen" - we never got to learn his first name, and I'm not sure we ever heard him speak, either). Leslie Phillips (the navigator) would frequently tell him "Left hand down a bit" when he wanted a change of course. Most people, I think, use this pronunciation unless referring to a German, in which case they say the name the German way. The name of a local councillor, who is Jewish, is pronounced the German way. I imagine that German speakers will get the pronunciation right every time - after all, Ken Livingstone served on the Council and no - one ever mispronounced his name. 213.107.114.104 (talk) 17:31, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Able Seaman Goldstein, known as Taffy, was played by Tenniel Evans, and we often heard him. DuncanHill (talk) 23:29, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

There is only one rule about how to pronounce a person name - and that is that the name is pronounced however the person concerned wishes to pronounce it. Any rules about how to pronounce the particular language do not apply. Otherwise the Featherstonehaughs (pronounced Fanshaw) and Cholmondeleys pronounced Chumley) would never get away with it. Wymspen (talk) 20:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

^^^^This. --Jayron32 01:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Thus, from Elmer Bernstein:

He was not related to the celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein; but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity.Within the world of professional music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames Bernstein West (Elmer) and Bernstein East (Leonard). They pronounced their last names differently; Elmer pronounced his (BERN-steen), and Leonard's was (BERN-stine).

-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:45, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

They pronounced their names in parentheses? —Tamfang (talk) 06:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I was just quoting something from an obscure and no doubt totally unreliable online thing with a really stupid name like Wicky Pedia or something. Obviously just a fly-by-night outfit that will go nowhere fast. I shouldn't have done it, and I apologise for my unthinking action. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:13, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I think Carl Bernstein also pronounced it "-steen". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:10, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I was once distantly acquainted with two brothers named Rothstein, who were said to pronounce it differently! —Tamfang (talk) 06:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Statistics on Canadian spellings by individuals?

Out of curosity I am looking for surveys or studies of how prevalent Canadian spelling is in Canada. Setting aside the policies of newspapers and other professionally edited texts, are individual Canadians using American spellings more frequently than a decade ago? I wonder if there have been scholarly studies of this, based perhaps on an anonymized corpus of text messages or emails. I'd be even more interested in the usage rate of Canadian spellings for formal writing that is not subject to a style guide (and not professionally edited) such as internal business memoranda. Also, I remember hearing once that it varies regionally within Canada, e.g. in Alberta the American spellings are more common. Is there any peer reviewed study that confirms that, or is it just somebody's impression? Mathew5000 (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Do any of these articles work. --Jayron32 18:14, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but it doesn't have what I'm looking for (at least not in the first four pages of hits). What I'm curious about, just to make it more concrete, is peer-reviewed research that would answer the question, among residents of Canada who use English, what percentage write "colour" in their daily life as opposed to those who write "color" and those who are inconsistent. Mathew5000 (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Canadians are notoriously cheap[1], so they almost always save money by using color, rather than colour. But the use of centre for the proper spelling "center" makes no difference, so one finds both. μηδείς (talk) 00:38, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Don't put the Canadians on the defence. They'll try everything from eh to zed... --Jayron32 01:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

If Canadians get their spellings from dictionaries they will spell like this: [2]. 213.107.114.104 (talk) 11:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Here's a 2010 study based on a large corpus. You may need to ask at WP:RX if you don't have academic access to the full article. Anecdotally, I'd add that the media in Canada universally uses Canadian spelling and that's what we're all taught in schools. I've never seen anyone use color (in emails, for example, or on social media) who wasn't American themselves. 184.147.128.95 (talk) 20:19, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@Mathew5000: Aanother study which cites the above-mentioned, also mentions some other studies and gives some statistics.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)