The language thread

Don't remember if I've posted this one before:


an incarnation of pibbur who knows 13 languages, admittedly most of them programming languages.

a pibbur said:

Thenh we have the word "catastrophy" (Norwegian: katastrofe). I don't think this woprd derives from "cat". But I'm pretty sure that the afore mentioned haters will claim there a connection.

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I don't despise cats in general, and neither does my dog. Many of them explore the garden, and sometimes she even greets them. Some of them are quite agreeable, and will come to greet me, too.

But, there is one whose favourite practice is to defecate in the vegetable beds, while making direct eye contact with us through the kitchen window. This sends the dog into a frenzy. While she is prepared to tolerate feline trespass in her garden, crapping where it is forbidden tips her over the edge.

We also have the "Katastrphe" here, but I don't think that it has something to do with cats.

Wiktionary says this : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Katastrophe or https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Katastrophe

English : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/catastrophe#English

But I don't use Wiktionary often, I find it confusing.



Regardings cats (and dogs) : It has been raining cats and dogs a few days this winter here.



My own addendum to The Language Thread :

Please don't forget that every z in German language is pronounced like "ts". :lol:

So, if you read the author's name of Timothy Zahn, who wrote some of the best Star wars novels, his second name is pronounced like "Tsan". The word itself means "tooth.

So, when i read in an article on the pop group Abba the sentence :
"It was an irresistible package : a catchy song, unforgettebly zany costumes and a zestful performance", my mind foirst reads : "tsany costumes … tsestful performance", but after that, I need to remember that the English z is pronounced rather like a "soft s".



In recent times, I often catch myself at having witten an e instead of an y at the end of English words. "Instantle", or example.
I have no idea where this bad habit comes from.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

We also have the "Katastrphe" here, but I don't think that it has something to do with cats.

Wiktionary says this : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Katastrophe or https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Katastrophe

English : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/catastrophe#English

But I don't use Wiktionary often, I find it confusing.

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Indeed, in French it's very similar: "catastrophe", and cat is "chat", so quite different (hey, for once the French is less confusing!).

In Greek, "kata" means from up to bottom, or bottom, or fully, there's no cat in there

But "cat" comes from the Latin "cattus" (in Greek it would be "gale", so a completely different pronunciation). I have no idea why we have an "h" in French, probably someone was eating something (French people love to eat) while speaking the word, and the pronunciation took a hit? Had he said "catastophe" instead of "cat", we would say it's a "chatastrophe". But that didn't happen :lol:

(don't take my last ramblings too seriously)

PS: had to remove the Greek words, these forums don't like the alphabet...

Listening to the DM in DDO has its benefits. This way I can learn not only new words, but also learn about pronounciation.
Meanwhile voice chat is always a bit hectic, the DM's voice is always clear and understandable - which I need because of my natural hearing problems.

Now to the hard facts :

I'm kind of surprised that the prefix "un-" actually exists in English language - I only knew it from German language so far. But I never thought about it.
Plus, it even has the same meaning !

"Undead", for example. That fantasy classic.

Interesting is, however, how it is pronounced. and I found that the English language often pronounces things a bit differently than the German language does.

I'll try to mark the pronounciation with an accent.

Gary Gyxax, in DDO's module "The Mystery Of : Delera's Tomb" : "Undéad.
Emphasis lies on the second syllable.

German : "Ùndead".
Emphasis lies on the first syllable.

KOTOR :

English : "Bástila", emphasis on the first syllable.

German, at least that's how I pronounciate it : "Bastíla", with emphasis on the i , because I always thought that her name was related to the French Bastille (maybe even intentionally ?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastille , note the pronounciation there.

What I at least can say, is, that the pronounciation of words is partly influenced by knowledge of similar words, or no knowledge of similar words. The French word "Bastille" definitively influenced how I pronounce the KOTOR name of Bastila !


Other things.

The word "clutch" is pronounced by the DDO DM like the German word "Klatsch", which means "gossip".

There seems to be a ... disparity ? ... on how the "sch" is pronounced in the English language.

Usually, it sounds to me like "scool", "sceme". Which might surprose young English-learning kids (like me sooooooo long ago ...), that the "sch" is NOT pronounced like the "sh" !

This is surprising, because the English "sh" and the German "sch" sound the same !

Which, on the other hand, makes me flabbergastered wghen I see German Fantasy settings use the "sh" instead of the German "sh". I think I saw that in Myranor, the sister setting to TDE. I never actually understood that reasoning, which was, if I recall that correctly, "that both are [essentially] the same". They use THAT as a reason to use the "sh" in a German setting, which made me feel flabbergastered. I mean, they very clearly could have used the German "sch" instead, which would have been more understandable, and could have translated that later as "sh" into the English languiage ... But Myranor was, as far as I can remember, never translated into English language !

I think .. I have heard the DDO's DM voice once pronounce a word with "sch" as if it had "sh" instead, but I don't remember anymore, whic one that was.

And that's what i meant with "disparity" : Mostly spelled like with "sc" (school), and in a few cases like with an "sh".

If I only could remember which word that was ...

Alrik Fassbauer said:

I think .. I have heard the DDO's DM voice once pronounce a word with "sch" as if it had "sh" instead, but I don't remember anymore, whic one that was.

And that's what i meant with "disparity" : Mostly spelled like with "sc" (school), and in a few cases like with an "sh".

If I only could remember which word that was …

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Depending on US/UK sometimes

• "schedule" is pronounced (UK) she-dyoo(-u)l or (US) ske-dyoo(-u)l
• "schilling" shi-ling
• "schism" has yet another pronunciation: si-zum or ski-zum (not sure it's an US/UK difference)
• "discharge" dis'chaaj
• "mischief" mis-chif

But in most of the words that come to mind, "sch" sounds "sk".

If you want to explore another interesting linguistic discrepancy, look at how words end either in -ise or -ize. Most people believe -ize is US and -ise UK, but Oxford people disagree and remind us that words have an etymology, some words coming from the ancient Greek must take -ize, even in UK (if coming from -ιζειν). I'm not living in UK and I've never seen Oxford unfortunately, but I've had very interesting ancient Greek lessons and I'm with them on this

So in UK: summarize, but advertise because it has another root. It's not easy.

Explained better than me, for example here: http://hull-awe.org.uk/index.php/-ise_-_-ize

And found a list on the too-easily-referenced Wikipedia

Redglyph said:

If you want to explore another interesting linguistic discrepancy, look at how words end either in -ise or -ize. Most people believe -ize is US and -ise UK, but Oxford people disagree and remind us that words have an etymology, some words coming from the ancient Greek must take -ize, even in UK (if coming from -ιζειν). I'm not living in UK and I've never seen Oxford unfortunately, but I've had very interesting ancient Greek lessons and I'm with them on this

So in UK: summarize, but advertise because it has another root. It's not easy.

Explained better than me, for example here: http://hull-awe.org.uk/index.php/-ise_-_-ize

And found a list on the too-easily-referenced Wikipedia

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Huh ? I didn't know that !

And I was definitively thinking, "-ize = AE, and "-ise" = BE !

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Huh ? I didn't know that !

And I was definitively thinking, "-ize = AE, and "-ise" = BE !

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I only discovered that recently, a few years ago. It looks like an easy language to learn at first, then it seems to get more and more complex as one discovers it

So … about once in a decade or so … there appears to be a "favourite word" in my own, personal "wordbook".

My current "favourite word" is now "totally".
I just love it nowadays to use it as a highest tier of emphasizing things.

It's one step beyond "definitely", maybe even the ultimate step

I'll go with "actually", a devious word that can be used in different ways, but mainly to suggest that what was said before was not entirely true (let's admit it, it was plain wrong), and that one is about to gently shed the light on a subject
I'm trying to use "in fact" now, for the sake of variety. But without abusing it because long ago, a friend confided that she was using the expression too often, and every time I use it I remember what she said. It's like a quota never to exceed

The word "aktuell" means in German langusge "right now, at this moment, at this time".
It's one of those "false friends"one must be aware of (like, for example , the words "bekommen / "become", which mean "to get / werden").

Alrik Fassbauer said:

The word "aktuell" means in German langusge "right now, at this moment, at this time".
It's one of those "false friends"one must be aware of (like, for example , the words "bekommen / "become", which mean "to get / werden").

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We have the same problem in French, "actuel" means "current, present", "actuellement" means "at the moment" (all that apparently from the latin "cauteres": which acts immediately - looks like the letters were severely shuffled, maybe they were playing Scrabble while inventing this word and dropped a few letters on the floor).

I'm surprised it's a false friend in German too, you're usually quite close to English for those words. Maybe the English changed the meaning of this word at some point?

Actual events mean current events. So it's not entirely lost the Latin meaning.

Some words just shift with time.

Pladio said:

Actual events mean current events. So it's not entirely lost the Latin meaning.

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That's disturbing, I have never seen that meaning for "actual" in English. But it's not my native language, only what I've been taught, with all its shortcomings. My Oxford dictionary even puts a little frame saying the differences between actual, present and current. But so you're using "actual" to mean "current" in UK?

Here's what etymonline says:

early 14c., "pertaining to acts or an action;" late 14c. in the broader sense of "real, existing" (as opposed to potential, ideal, etc.); from Old French actuel "now existing, up to date" (13c.), from Late Latin actualis "active, pertaining to action," adjectival form of Latin actus "a doing" (from PIE root *ag- "to drive, draw out or forth, move").

I've found there etymologies to be very accurate.

"actually" is a little different meaning "in fact"

Redglyph said:

That's disturbing, I have never seen that meaning for "actual" in English. But it's not my native language, only what I've been taught, with all its shortcomings. My Oxford dictionary even puts a little frame saying the differences between actual, present and current. But so you're using "actual" to mean "current" in UK?

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I wouldn't say is as common but I've seen it in the past.

Also, when Googling actual, it comes up as a second definition.

actual
/ˈaktʃÊÅ*É™l,ˈaktjÊÅ*É™l/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
1.
existing in fact; real.
"the estimate was much less than the actual cost"

2.
existing now; current.
"using actual income to measure expected income"

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fragonard said:

Here's what etymonline says:

early 14c., "pertaining to acts or an action;" late 14c. in the broader sense of "real, existing" (as opposed to potential, ideal, etc.); from Old French actuel "now existing, up to date" (13c.), from Late Latin actualis "active, pertaining to action," adjectival form of Latin actus "a doing" (from PIE root *ag- "to drive, draw out or forth, move").

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I saw that one and found it very ambiguous, because it includes both the "real" and the "current" meanings.

In the mean time, I saw that on Oxford, which is usually the source I trust most:

Middle English: from Old French actuel ‘active, practical’, from late Latin actualis, from actus ‘event, thing done’, act- ‘done’, from the verb agere, reinforced by the French noun acte.

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This makes much more sense to me (at least it would have, before what Pladio said, now I'm just confused).

Sometimes I'm tempted to buy a good reference, but linguistics is not my profession - actually (!) in my profession I have to deal with people who are incapable of building correct sentences most of the time Apparently, inserting as many English words as possible in a French speech is the new sexy. Don't know if you have the same problem in English with French words - I know it used to be a fashion a few centuries ago, but certainly not to the same extent.

fragonard said:

"actually" is a little different meaning "in fact"

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I totally (!!) agree, hence "for the sake of variety"

Redglyph said:

I'm surprised it's a false friend in German too, you're usually quite close to English for those words. Maybe the English changed the meaning of this word at some point?

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England was influenced by the French language at some point.
The Norman invasion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

Redglyph said:

We have the same problem in French, "actuel" means "current, present", "actuellement" means "at the moment" (all that apparently from the latin "cauteres": which acts immediately - looks like the letters were severely shuffled, maybe they were playing Scrabble while inventing this word and dropped a few letters on the floor).

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Indeed. That one got me confused quite a lot of time.

Often, when I don't know a word in English, I try to take the word in french and anglicize it. Quite often it works... but certainly not with that one

Alrik Fassbauer said:

England was influenced by the French language at some point.
The Norman invasion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

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My knowledge was limited to the Roman invasion, regarding this influence (not considering the "fashion effect" much later but that doesn't count here).

So you mean the etymology says that after the Norman, English received this word with the "current/present" French/German meaning (13c), but later changed it to the "actual/fact" English meaning (14c), which is still today's recommended use? That would make sense