Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 May 2

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May 2

Squawking Eclectus

My partner has a pair of beautiful caged Eclectus parrots in the house. For the most part they're well-behaved, have an ever-expanding vocabulary, and are a net benefit to the household. But they have their moments, and in those moments they choose from the following verbs: scream, screech, squawk, squeal, shriek, shrill, maybe others.

Why would they be so interested in sk- and squ- words when they have the full range of the OED at their disposal? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:07, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Probably because the words that refer to these sorts of sounds in modern English are mostly variations of a few original PIE words that over the millenia have differentiated, via various daughter languages, into various similar-sounding words that English has inherited or adopted for shades of related meanings.

There are a number of other such clusters of words with similar sounds and related meanings: consider for example how many words starting with hi-, wi- or whi- refer to soft high-pitched sounds, or objects and actions notionally associated with them. I'd be surprised if there isn't a word describing this phenomenon, which perhaps a pukka linguist will come and tell us about. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.135.95 (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be onomatopoeia? Despite that being defined in the Uxbridge English Dictionary as "Didn't quite manage to get to the toilet in time."--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

The coining of the original PIE word(s) seems often to involve onomatopoeia where sound is involved, but consider for example the cluster (my thanks to 70.67.193.176 below) beginning with gl- that involves sight (glare, gleam, glimmer, glimpse, glint, glisten, glister, glitter, glitz, glory, gloss, glow, glower etc. [perhaps also gloom and gloaming?]). However, I wasn't referring so much to the origin of the root word but to its branching into a family of similar but not identical words with similar but not identical meanings. The gl- words above all seemingly derive from presumed but unrecorded early Germanic words *glaim, *glim, thought to descend from an Indo-European *ghlo-. [Reference: Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto, Bloomsbury Press 1990] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.135.95 (talk) 17:43, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Believe the term is "clustering" - I went looking for the "gl" association with light (glint, glisten, glitter, etc) and found Sound_symbolism#Clustering. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:35, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

The "sk" cluster (along with "gl" etc.) is a phonestheme. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 04:56, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Nice find! I notice that in the Examples section it includes "glass" in the sight-related gl- cluster. According to the word origins dictionary I referenced above, this isn't truly a member of the cluster because it derives from Indo-European *gel- or *ghel- which referred to colour, probably green and/or blue (not always differentiated in some languages), with some of its derivatives referring to grey or yellow, and another being West Germanic *glasam which yielded English glass, from which in turn glare may have derived (contrary to my list above).

The suggested reason for the colour origin is that early glass was usually thus coloured rather than clear. This gl- example converging from a non-gl origin reminds us that coincidences can also occur and we shouldn't assume a link based on mere modern resemblance without delving into the actual etymological history. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.135.95 (talk) 07:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Levi is perched on my shoulder, reminding me to thank those who enlightened me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:18, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Italian, Latin and Portuguese

Hi. There are two poems from the XIX century written in such a way that they are at the same time correct Italian and correct Latin. The first being "Te saluto alma dea, dea generosa", the second "In mare irato, in subita procella, Invoco te, nostra benigna Stella" s. https://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/10/16/forked-tongues/ The source reports the second poem as being at the same time also Portuguese. I don't know Portuguese so my question: can someone confirm or deny that this is correct Portuguese? Thanks 2003:F5:6F09:8D00:4D6A:6C0E:1744:2D86 (talk) 19:06, 2 May 2021 (UTC) Marco PB

Definitely not my most fluent tongue, but sufficiently familiar to say that it's not modern Portuguese at all, which definitely existed in the 19th century. In fact, most words are not Portuguese (or, if they do exist lexically, not with the intended meaning). For starters, very few Portuguese words start with 'st', and they're usually borrowed words or named after something from a different language, like staccato, stalinismo, standard or stendhaliano, but not stella ('estrela' in Portuguese). ---Sluzzelin talk 21:14, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

...and even if you accept Stella as a proper noun here, porcella is not Portuguese, irato is only used when quoting Latin (the participle of 'irar' is 'irado', not 'irato'. The poem just isn't parsable in Portuguese. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:43, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

And neither is procella (also shared by Latin and Italian) Portuguese. But procela with one l is.  --Lambiam 09:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Oops, thanks for correcting that. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:46, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The first poem appeared in a book by Mario Pei... AnonMoos (talk) 00:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks to all for your answers. I had also the impression that this text would not completely resemble Portuguese, but I wonder how the autor got the idea in the first place. 2003:F5:6F09:8D00:85F:AE48:72FC:BC78 (talk) 10:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC) Marco PB

Apparently there is another Portugues poem that should work like the Italian one: https://books.google.it/books?id=qRbbS16KJ7AC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=%22Roma+infinitos+sanctissima+vive+per+annos%22&source=bl&ots=VKLP3UVTDm&sig=ACfU3U0_XYlhrNQH92dPCSfmzcoW3bP2Gw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj2ksegwLnwAhWB_KQKHZAqAfQQ6AEwAHoECAMQAw#v=onepage&q=%22Roma%20infinitos%20sanctissima%20vive%20per%20annos%22&f=false --82.48.36.71 (talk) 06:55, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

The Portuguese orthography in this poem in a book from 1847 is now partly obsolete; sanctissima has become santíssima in current orthography.  --Lambiam 11:59, 8 May 2021 (UTC)