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January 8

Pronunciation of "breen"

How do you pronounce the -breen that appears at the end of Svalbard glacier names? I went through all the Svalbard -breen glacier articles on Misplaced Pages at Category:Glaciers_of_Spitsbergen, and not a single one provides IPA. 2601:644:4301:D1B0:B94F:4C6C:A635:20B6 (talk) 02:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

The -en ending is the Norwegian definite mascular singular suffix, and bre means "glacier", so, for example, Nansenbreen means "the Nansen glacier".

The pronunciations in Nynorsk and Bokmål would be slightly different, with also regional variations. I have no idea which variety of spoken Norwegian is prevalent among the roughly 2,500 Norvegicophone inhabitants of Svalbard.

Extrapolating from the pronunciations of other words, I believe the pronunciation of -breen to be:

• Nynorsk: /²brɛːn̩/
• Bokmål:  /bʁe̞ːn̩/

For the meaning of the toneme , see on Wiktionary Appendix:Norwegian Nynorsk pronunciation § Stress and tonemes.  --Lambiam 10:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

(Simultaneous editing) Here an example of Norwegian pronounciation, "Jostedaalsbreen" first mentioned around 0:06. Since Norwegian is a language of dialects I cannot rule out that there could be regional differences in pronounciation. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 10:24, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

This agrees with my extrapolation of the Nynorsk pronunciation.  --Lambiam 10:38, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

However, I believe the two ee in the middle are being distinguished in the pronounciation rather than just pronounced as a long vowel. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 11:40, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

The long vowel represents solely the first ⟨e⟩. The definitive suffix -en is represented by . The vertical understroke diacritic signifies that this is a syllabic consonant.  --Lambiam 15:46, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Ok, that would make sense. Not an IPA expert here. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 16:05, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the dialect, I found this: https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/14074. Excerpt from Google Translation: This is interesting because Svalbard has no local dialect. The language community on the archipelago is instead characterized by dialectal variation. The Norwegian population in Svalbard comes from all over Norway, and the average length of residence is short. . On Norwegian Misplaced Pages it stated that Nynorsk spellings have to be used for all town names in Svalbard but this probably has no bearing on the pronounciation practices. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input! So it's a monosyllabic /²brɛːn̩/. 2601:644:4301:D1B0:B94F:4C6C:A635:20B6 (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Is it really monosyllabic if a syllabic vowel is followed by a syllabic consonant? By the way, I believe the common Swedish curse word fan often is pronounced somewhat similarly. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

By definition, a syllabic consonant forms a syllable on its own. So we have two syllables, the first of which ends on a vowel.  --Lambiam 00:01, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

January 9

Is there a term which categorises these phrases?

Is there a lexicographic word or term to describe phrases such as "out and about", "bits and pieces", or "nooks and crannies"? There are many such phrases which conjoin words which are less often used separately. I am not thinking of "conjunction", but something which describes this particular quirk. For example, where I grew up, no-one would say "I was out in town yesterday" but "I was out and about the town". 51.148.145.228 (talk) 15:29, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I think a phraseme, also called a set phrase, fixed expression, is the term you're looking for for the phrase. Fossil word (for words not used outside set phrases) and Irreversible binomial (for phrases which have fixed order - you wouldn't say "about and out") may also be of interest. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 16:23, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

All three examples above are irreversible binomials.  --Lambiam 10:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

If you are thinking of expressions where a single meaning is carried by a conjunction of two near-synonyms, Hendiadys may be a fit. There is a narrow definition of that term where it covers only conjunctions of two terms that logically stand in a relation of subordination to each other, but there's also a wider usage where it's used for expressions like these, where the two terms are merely synonyms. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Such as "lively and quick". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:04, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

And also Pleonasm.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

There's a similar concept in Legal doublets. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:00, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

January 11

Evening and night

Does English refer a period from 22:00 to midnight as late evening? Does English ever say "late-evening shows"? And is a period around 17:00 known as early evening, and a period around midnight as early night? And do English speskers ever say "late in the morning"? --40bus (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

We say "late evening". The exact time is probably after dinner time. It could be hyphenated if you like, but isn't. We say "early evening" and "late morning". The phrase "late in the morning" is fine, and not at all awkward, but is not engraved into our English-speaking minds as an idiom like "early in the morning". Our article on Shift work defines the evening as 14:00 to 22:00, so later than that may be night, but in common usage the definition is flexible, and "night" and "evening" undoubtedly overlap. Night shift workers live in a state of confusion about whether it is currently night or morning, and which day it is.  Card Zero  (talk) 00:59, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Style guides recommend hyphenation in attributive use to avoid the interpretation as "evening shows that are late".  --Lambiam 09:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Here are a few examples of "late-evening show": , , . And here are a few examples of "late in the morning": , , .  --Lambiam 09:48, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

In American English "late evening" is not a specific period of time but just a way of saying late in the evening. The distinction between evening and night has less to do with the exact time, and more to do with whether one is out with friends or at home preparing for bed. I would never consider 22-24 late evening (that's night) but others might. There are no "late evening shows"; late-night shows air at that time. "Early night" is not a common idiom. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

@Eluchil404: In British English, "early night" is commonly used to signify going to bed earlier than usual, as in "I'm really tired so I'm going to have an early night." Similarly, "I had a late night last night" suggests having not gone to bed early enough. See . Bazza 7 (talk) 22:41, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

We can use "early night" in that sense in American English too (though "make it an early night" sounds a bit more idiomatic to me). But that doesn't seem to be the sense the OP was asking about. --Trovatore (talk) 22:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

This reminds me a lot of when Steve Martin said he would smoke marijuana. --Trovatore (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

My home Internet connection has failed. I reported it to my ISP. I had an email from them yesterday (Sunday) at 5.34pm telling me they would be calling me "today" about the problem. It's now past 10.00am Monday. Still waiting. HiLo48 (talk) 23:13, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, so they didn't do what they said they were going to do. Imagine my shock. What does it have to do with the question? --Trovatore (talk) 23:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of "today" as a future time at 5.34pm. HiLo48 (talk) 23:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Or they'll call at 23:59, "late today".  --Lambiam 23:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

January 12

Latin alphabet

Why did Khmer and Lao not switch to Latin alphabet during French colonization, unlike Vietnamese? --40bus (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

I assume you forgot a "not", and it might be since Chữ Nôm was a highly complex writing system only mastered by about 5% of the population. A Latin-based writing system would have been a lot more accessible at the time, both to French colonialists and the majority of the Vietnamese, themselves. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

40bus -- Khmer and Lao already had alphabets, since they had experienced significant Indic influence. The Vietnamese did not have an alphabet, since they experienced predominant Chinese influence. The Cham alphabet and Tai Viet alphabet were used in what is now Vietnam, but Vietnamese-speakers did not adopt them. AnonMoos (talk) 06:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

January 14

Nuevo!

A lot of areas of the Spanish Empire in America had a name in the pattern of "New XXX" where XXX is usually a Spanish province or city. Some examples are: Nueva Andalucía, Nueva Castilla, Nueva España, Nueva Extremadura, Nuevas Filipinas, Nueva Granada, Nueva León, Nueva Navarra, Nuevo Santander, Nueva Toledo, Nueva Vizcaya. I'm not able to recognize any pattern or obvious motivation for them to select precisely these names. Why call some place New Extremadura and not, for example, New Catalonia? Where they chosen randomly? Is there any reason behind them? Thank you? 195.62.160.60 (talk) 10:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't know the answer, but Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor would probably have been the one who decided, or at least approved, some of these names. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.29.20 (talk) 10:22, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not just the Spanish. An early name for the British part of Australia, and now one of its states, is New South Wales. Apparently Captain Cook thought it looked like South Wales. Then just across the ocean is New Zealand. That one came from the Dutch. HiLo48 (talk) 10:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Not to forget New Amsterdam/New York and New Orleans. However, these things aren't consistent as the Spanish also copied names without the Nuevo/Nueva in front, like Córdoba and Valencia. Would be interesting to see if this was a time-dependent pattern. As to the choice of names, this could well have to do with the individuals involved. E.g. a lot of the Conquistadores came from Extremadura, including Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, and Castilia, Granada etc. aren't far from that area either. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 11:18, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

They decided to follow the rule, "Nuevo say neuvo again." Clarityfiend (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The English were in a habit of omitting 'new' too. In the US there's Durham, Manchester, Washington. In Australia there's Newcastle. What's notable is all of these are distinctly English names, very old ones with meanings that make sense only to historians. It's highly unlikely they arose the same way in AUS and the US. ~~----

Indeed. In 1940, the Royal Navy was able to rename fifty old US destroyers after British and American towns that share a common name. Alansplodge (talk) 12:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

The whole Australian mainland was previously known as New Holland. Anything less like Holland it would be impossible to find, but there you go. But at least this recognises that the Dutch were the first Europeans definitely known to have landed on Australia, in 1606. -- Jack of Oz 19:12, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

They probably weren't chosen randomly. Possible reasons include:

• Naming after the namer's homeland. Nueva Extremadura (Chile) was named by Pedro de Valdivia, who was from Extremadura
• Naming to honour a patron, e.g. New York was named after the Duke of York
• Naming after a resemblance (New South Wales, as stated above).

AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Nuevo say nuevo again. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

A variation - Within the town of Moe, Victoria, Australia, is what is effectively now the suburb of Newborough. It apparently gained that name because when it was established, Moe had just become a borough. HiLo48 (talk) 22:53, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Also the London Borough of Newham, a 1965 merger of East Ham and West Ham. It was originally intended to be pronounced "New-ham" but is now universally called "Newum". Alansplodge (talk) 12:04, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not obvious to me how "Newum" would be pronounced. It could be "Nee-wum". HiLo48 (talk) 23:04, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

/ˈnju(w)əm/ ColinFine (talk) 23:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Ni! Peng! —Tamfang (talk) 21:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

They could have called it Hams Ambo ('both' in Latin), like some other merged parishes; Hambo for short. —Tamfang (talk) 07:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Curious that there was a Nueva Castilla in the New World when there was already one in Old Spain. They could have called it Tercera Castilla. —Tamfang (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Or Nueva Nueva Castilla.  --Lambiam 00:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Or Más Nueva Castilla. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

January 18

Conlangs allowed here?

Is discussion about conlangs permitted here or is it solely for natural languages? If you reply here, please ping me. Thanks, TheTechie@enwiki (she/they | talk) 02:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Presumably you're referring to Constructed language. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe they are. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

In the past, there's occasionally been a little discussion of Esperanto, and I don't remember anybody complaining (see here for example). Workshopping or promoting your own personal stuff might be perceived differently (depending on how you approach it). AnonMoos (talk) 13:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Was it here or on Wiktionary someone discussed a fable about a goat written, first in some conlang and second, in some Low German dialect between German and Dutch? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Are you thinking of Schleicher's fable? I imagine that has been translated into many languages, constructed and otherwise. —Tamfang (talk) 21:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Not exactly. It appeared as if some amateur conlanger had constructed something similar, first written in the conlang, and then, for some reason, in that particular German-Dutch dialect. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Why wouldn't or shouldn't it be? --Theurgist (talk) 15:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Since Misplaced Pages is not a general discussion forum, the reference desks themselves are controversial. As long as this page is allowed to be active, conlangs per se are within its scope, but note any question that has little relevance to improving our articles will be frowned upon by at least some, especially if you post multiple such questions within a short period. Nardog (talk) 16:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The Reference desk attempts to provide services similar to those of a library reference desk. It should be viewed as a supplement to the encyclopedia. Users who are seeking information on a topic post questions here, and the respondents try to find answers to these questions. If you have a question about conlangs for which you cannot find the answer in our articles on the topic, you are welcome to post the question here.

Next to being a service to our users, this can also help to signal lacunae in our coverage of encyclopedic topics.  --Lambiam 19:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

January 19

Questions

1. Are there any newspapers in Serbia written in Serbian Latin alphabet?
2. Are there any words in English with onsets /kn/, /ps/, /ks/, /tf/, /tv/, /kv/, /pw/, /fθ/ or /ts/?
3. Are there any words in English where letter combinations ⟨iw⟩ and ⟨uw⟩ are pronounced as diphthongs, similarly to ⟨aw⟩ and ⟨ow⟩?
4. Are there any words in Spanish where ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨ñ⟩ occur in consonant clusters, as in made-up words socllo, mopña, sollto and liñteda?
5. Are there any words in Spanish where consonant clusters /tθ/, /kθ/, /pθ/, /tx/, /kx/ and /px/ occur, as in made-up words lotza, poczo, sopce, totja, hecge and mapjota?
6. Are there any words in Korean with three consonants in a row? --40bus (talk) 21:02, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

1 -- You can look at Romanization of Serbian. 2 -- Only in a few obviously incompletely-assimilated loanwords, such as "kvetch" or "tsetse fly". 3 -- "Uw" has never been an established English orthographic digraph, as far as I know (though it occurs in some incompletely-assimilated loanwords from Welsh). "Iw" may have been a marginal alternative to "Iu" centuries ago, but when the sounds written by "Iu" and "Eu" merged, there was no longer a real use for it. AnonMoos (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

5. I guess -tz- might be found in loanwords from Basque or Native South American languages, but it's possible it might rather be pronounced as /ts/... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:49, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

• 1: Yes, even some of the highest-circulating ones: see the front pages for 20 January of Blic, Informer and Kurir (the latter also features a Cyrillic-script ad in-between). Although Serbian clearly favours Cyrillic for anything government-operated or Orthodoxy-related, in all other cases the two scripts are in free variation and it all depends on the author's or the publisher's preference.
• 6: Orthographically that's possible when a character has a complex final and the next one has a non-silent initial, as in 읽다 ilgda. But phonologically any such clusters are simplified, so the actual pronunciation in this case is /ikt͈a/. --Theurgist (talk) 00:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
• 2: I tend to pronounce xi and psi as /ksaɪ/ and /psaɪ/ for disambiguation, though I might simplify them to /saɪ/ if only one of them is being used as a variable. Also I'd say kvetch with /kv/, phthalate with /fθ/, and tsetse with /ts/ (though maybe not everyone would). Further I'd use the German pronunciations for the chess borrowings zugzwang and zwischenzug (so the latter gives even initial /tsv/ for me). See also en:wikt:Category:English terms with initial /t͡s/. Double sharp (talk) 08:23, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Double_sharp -- the standard traditional method for distinguishing the letters Xi and Psi in English, without attempting to produce word-initial consonant clusters, is to pronounce Xi with a consonant, as in "Xylophone"... AnonMoos (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: I'm aware that it's standard (like "xylophone", "xylem", and "xenon"). Unfortunately I've heard xi with /s/ enough times (it's mentioned in Collins) that I don't trust anything but the clusters to disambiguate them by now. :) Double sharp (talk) 14:21, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

January 20

What's the common phrasing in spoken English? Is it "Not Always do I buy", "Not only does he buy but he also sells", "Not necessarily do we know", and likewise?

147.235.223.10 (talk) 16:05, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

We don't necessarily know what's the common phrasing. At least I don't always buy into your proposed ordering of the words. scnr -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 16:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

The common wording for the first and third is "I don't always buy ..." and "We don't necessarily know ...". For the second, the wording you've suggested is possible, but "He not only buys but also sells" would perhaps be more frequently encountered. Deor (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Thx all. 147.235.223.10 (talk) 18:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

January 21

Why can you say that someone is "on meth" but not "on cigarettes"?

JJP_Master (she/they) 00:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

In large part because one usually doesn't speak of the effects of cigarette use as if it's socially peculiar or of note. I would say, for example, something like "I'm on nicotine patches" though, since that's a comparatively unusual regimen. Remsense ‥ 论 00:55, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

You could, but the implication would be decidedly odd. Like you're using cigarettes as part of a medical regime, 'I'm on cigarettes to manage my anger' or similar. — kwami (talk) 04:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It's kind of a subset of the general expression that someone is "on drugs", which implies "illegal" drugs. If you're on prescription drugs, you would probably say you're "on medication". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 04:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

because "meth" is a substance and "cigarette" is the carrier. Maungapohatu (talk) 06:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

but you wouldn't say 'I'm on tobacco' either. — kwami (talk) 07:12, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Maybe it's for the same reason that we don't say "beer users"? Smoking tobacco is seen as a (somewhat less than it was in recent years) socially acceptable activity and not really considered drug use. Iloveparrots (talk) 07:19, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that you can say it, but it might make someone wonder what you are on. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 11:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

January 22

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