Unanswered Questions
74 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
8
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Historical pronunciation of Hindi यह and वह
The Hindi 3rd person singular proximal and distal pronouns यह and वह are commonly pronounced [jeː] and [ʋoː], in contrast to the [hyper-correct?] pronunciations [jəɦ(ə)] and [ʋəɦ(ə)] one might expect ...
- 3,132
7
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0
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204
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Northumbrian pronunciation of ge-/gi- prefix and -g suffix
I'm working on a musical setting of Cædmon's Hymn, and I'd like to have the primary setting be in the Northumbrian dialect of its earliest written example (the 737 "Moore" Bede manuscript). I'm ...
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5
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Etymology of initial "g-" in Sicilian "giurana" (frog)
Most Romance words for "frog" derive from Latin rana (e.g. es. rana, it. rana, pt. rã. See also va. renoc ("toad")).
However, an unexpected initial g- appears in the cognates of several Gallo-:
fr. ...
- 3,132
5
votes
0
answers
448
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Cellar door and Indo-European languages
Where I grew up (UK) there was a pub called The Drysalters. I always liked this name without having any idea what a drysalter was, or having any association or emotional connection to the pub itself.
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- 31.1k
5
votes
2
answers
388
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Arabic word stress in the presence of an elided hamza ("hamzat al-waSl")
Word stress in MSA follows a precise set of rules, which are described consistently in various Arabic grammar textbooks, e.g. Ryding's "A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic" (2005). ...
CommunityBot
- 1
5
votes
1
answer
535
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Gulf Arabic vowels allophones
No matter how much I browse, I cannot find any true researcher's really precise and accurate data on the issue. Actually, I cannot find any Gulf Arabic Phonology compendium, so any help will be ...
CommunityBot
- 1
4
votes
0
answers
107
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Historically, when was whitespace used versus interpuncts versus no-separation?
The Wikipedia article on whitespace claimed until recently that the use of whitespace as a word separator was rare until its promotion by Alcuin of York in the Carolingian Renaissance. But I've found ...
- 538
4
votes
0
answers
48
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Dataset for distribution of different systems for 'yes' and 'no' cross-linguistically?
The Wikipedia article for 'Yes and no' lists various distinct, common, systems for expressing the affirmative and the negative, ranging from no explicit terms (instead relying on echo responses) to ...
- 203
4
votes
0
answers
109
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Where can I find a list of English words that contain a rare combination of phonemes
I am looking for a wake up word for a digital product that would be easily detected with a voice recognition engine.
This calls for a word that has a rare combination of phonemes so the product is ...
- 6,601
3
votes
0
answers
126
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How did خشاب become the Persian word for magazine?
In Iran magazine (in a gun) is called خشاب (kheshab). I tried to find a relation to another language but I failed.
The only thing I found is that خشب (khashb) means wood in Arabic.
In Arabic magazine ...
- 465
3
votes
0
answers
111
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Strange vowel harmony in Arabic loanwords within Turkish—why could it be?
Some Arabic loanwords have a palatalised, for example, /lʲ/ in final position, and it is more understandable in the case of those words. However, some others go against vowel harmony for no apparent ...
- 5,291
3
votes
0
answers
123
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Can a trill be creaky?
Or in other words, is it possible to pronounce [ʙ̰], [r̰], [ʀ̰], or [ʢ̰]?
I tried to pronounce these phones by myself, and I always failed. It seems the airstream from the constricted glottis cannot ...
- 337
3
votes
0
answers
84
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Is there any IPA TTS software that also considers tone
I want to create audio files for a conlect of Chinese I am studying, and therefore tone is one aspect I have to consider. Many of the IPA to speech software I've seen so far don't consider tone (or ...
- 31
3
votes
0
answers
127
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The schwa in [meɪkəθ] for *maketh* in KJV English
This Wiki article seems to suggest that words like makes had lost their final syllable schwa in normal speech already by Chaucer's time (palmeres > palmers is the example they give). The rule, as ...
- 267
3
votes
0
answers
204
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Lexical difference between classical and modern standard arabic
I've seen that linguists do not consider fuṣḥa as one, but two varieties: classical and modern.
I know that the grammar is nearly identical, but how about the lexicon? false friends etc? Is there for ...
CommunityBot
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