Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 November 25

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November 25

What is the 15th volume of this Polish gazeteer for?

The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland contains 15 volumes in total. Volume 1 through Volume 14 provide definitions for geographical names of Poland and surrounding regions in alphabetical order from the river Aa to the village Żyżyn. Since the first 14 volumes should already cover all Polish geographical names, what was the purpose of writing and publishing Volume 15? StellarHalo (talk) 02:51, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Volumes 1–14 were published in 1890–95. Volume 15, published in two parts in 1900 and 1902, contains additions and corrections.  --Lambiam 11:10, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Hungarian vowels

Why does Hungarian use Ü and Ű instead of Y and Ý for [y] and [yː] sounds? Y is not used in Hungarian apart from digraphs gy, ly, ny and ty, so why they don't use it for a vowel? --40bus (talk) 21:57, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

German influence, I'd assume. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:33, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

40bus -- I don't think that the fact that the Greek letter Upsilon represented a front-rounded vowel during some stages of ancient Greek was really known until the 19th century (or possibly the late eighteenth century). During most of the medieval period, and still in modern Greek, it wrote an [i] vowel. The Latin letter "Y" was used to write a front-rounded vowel in Old English and Old Norse as kind of a relic of the earlier middle ages, but it's hard to see how they would have been able to influence the writing of Hungarian... AnonMoos (talk) 04:14, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I have thought a spelling reform for Hungarian which would replace digraphs for diacritics and bring orthography closer to neighbouring Slavic languages. The changes would be:

• Sz -> S
• S -> Š
• Zs -> Ž
• Cs -> Č
• Dzs -> Dž
• Gy -> Ď
• Ly -> Ľ
• Ny -> Ň
• Ty -> Ť
• Ü -> Y
• Ű -> Ý
• E -> Ä

Sample of neo-Hungarian:

Maďarorság állam Közép-Äurópában, a Kárpát-mädäncä közäpén, amäľ 1989 óta parlamäntáriš köztáršašág. Ésakról Slovákia, ésakkälätről Ukrajna, kälätről és délkälätről Románia, délről Särbia és Horvátorság, délňugatról Slovénia, ňugatról pedig Austria határolja. Tärylätä 93 030 néďzätkilométär, népäššégä pädig közäl tízmillió fő, így az Európai Unió közäpäš mérätý és közäpäš népäššégý tagállamai közé tartozik. Hivataloš ňälvä a maďar, ami a lägnaďobb az uráli ňälvčaládba tartozó älväk közyl. Fővároša és lägnépääbb vároša Budapäšt, ameľ világvárošnak sámít. --40bus (talk) 18:26, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

It still vies with Basque as the ugliest-looking written language. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:01, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I like the look of Basque! — kwami (talk) 22:02, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

To each his his, her or their own. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:34, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

English looks so naked, like a Christmas tree that has lost not only its decorations but also its needles.  --Lambiam 12:38, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

That's its glory. We don't need no damned diacritics. With only 26 letters English has become the world's lingua franca, even though it has fewer speakers than those of Mandarin. People who insist on diacritised(?) spellings of originally-foreign words that have become fully absorbed into the English language (début for debut, première for premiere, rôle for role etc) are anathema to me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:58, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

And then we get people saying Have you met my fiance? as if they are introducing their earthenware.  --Lambiam 21:18, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

"A world's lingua franca is a dialect with nucular weapons and a strong currency". It sounds better in the original Yiddish. --Error (talk) 23:29, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

What's the Yiddish for "nucular"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Nuclear weapon is one word: קערנוואָפן (kernwofn), plural קערנוואָפנס (kernwofns).  --Lambiam 17:23, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

We likes writin' buck nekkid! Clarityfiend (talk) 21:03, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Agree on the glory! Plus it's faster to write that way, I write English at 360 chars/ min, and German at 260-270. --Ouro (blah blah) 19:14, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Presumably, that could depend on the native language of the typist... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

For good or bad, English spelling has never been big on diacritics. In Old English, there was the "apex", an acute accent type mark placed over letters representing long vowels, but it was very sporadically used. When someone attempted a thorough spelling reform of Early Middle English (see the Ormulum), he used lots of doubled consonants, not diacritics. Since then, diacritics have been more of a mark of sophistication than part of the basic functionality of the writing of English. However, they occasionally can be used in words not now considered foreign: "coöperation", "reëlection", "learnèd" (to indicate bisyllabic pronunciation of this last word). AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean Hungarian after my spelling reform or current Hungarian? --40bus (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The word "still" implies that reform or not, it doesn't matter. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:41, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

It's anyhow so different from just anything else that it looks inherently exotic. I would often look at Hungarian and think -"Come on! This can't be a real language. It's just some bad American sci-fi author's idea of what a European language would look like, and he's currently pulling my leg." 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:10, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@40bus: Why did you replace E with Ä? --Theurgist (talk) 21:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it's impolite to answer for someone else, but similar to Swedish, there's a distinction in quality as well as vowel length for the pair /ɛ/ /eː/. I guess 40bus was bothered by it as a native Finnish speaker. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

There's a distinction in quality for /ɒ/ ⟨a⟩ and /aː/ ⟨á⟩ too, but 40bus did not propose a different letter there. Such predictable distinctions can be handled easily by variants of the same grapheme, as they are now. Besides it'd be weird for a language that has two "e"-like sounds to abolish the letter ⟨e⟩ and to start spelling Európa as Äurópa. But let's wait for 40bus's response indeed. --Theurgist (talk) 01:03, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Because the Hungarian short E sounds quite same than Finnish Ä, so I decided to replace it with Ä. --40bus (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. Sorry. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 04:00, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I wonder why Hungarian uses y at all, rather than j. —Tamfang (talk) 04:59, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I also wonder that, as Hungarian uses letter J for [j] sound. --40bus (talk) 09:44, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't know much about Hungarian, but if it distinguishes the sequence /nj/ from the consonant /ɲ/, then it makes sense to have different ways to write them: ⟨nj⟩ vs. ⟨ny⟩. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:22, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Thats probably a thing in compounds at least (wikt:ingyenjegy seems to suggest so). I know that final ⟨ly⟩ vs ⟨lj⟩ (as in mély x élj) distinguishes short vs long /j/. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:12, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

There's a reason S and SZ are that way around in Hungarian, S is more common. In Hungarian scrabble the S tile is worth one point and SZ is worth three. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

The Ly historically was /ʎ/ but now is /j/ (like J), so the letter Ľ would be problematic. --Theurgist (talk) 18:56, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe pronunciation will switch to /ʎ/ again, so Slovak-style Ľ would be good to use for that sound. --40bus (talk) 19:07, 30 November 2022 (UTC)