[Lexicog] new nosey word

Sat Apr 10 17:43:22 UTC 2004

I had some typos in the previous post.

The same philosophy is shared by the writing system of some other Slavonic
languages in ex-Yugoslavia, e.g. Serbo-Croation (now Serbian, Croatian and
Bosnian) and Macedonian (I am not sure about Slovenian but I guess the same
applies to it too).

This theory is needed, as the written language is missing an additional
vowel that is in fact present in the spoken language. It is pronounced
approximately (not exactly) as the vowel in the word "cut". This vowel is
present in practically all Slavonic languages but for some reason, the
grammars try to ignore it, except in Bulgarian, where there is a special
letter for it. 

So, in the languages of ex-Yugoslavia and ex-Czechoslovakia, the grammar
considers that if a word is missing enough vowels, "r" and "l" can introduce
it. Looking phonetically, this is like sometimes read "r" as just "r" and
sometimes as "r"+"*" (where "*" stands for the vowel in "but"). The same
applies to "l".

In Russian, they have a letter for the combination "*"+"y". Here "y" is read
as the English consonant (e.g. as in Yankee). They have similar letters for
the combinations "ya" and "yu" (so does Bulgarian).

So, I consider that "r" and "l" are not really vowels and cannot be vowels.
They are just a combination of a consonant and an optional vowel.

In fact, missing the explicit sound "*" causes further problems, as
sometimes one wants to pronounce a word with "y" preceding "r" and sometimes
- following it. What they do in ex-Yugoslavia is, they use an apostrophe in
one of these cases, e.g. "vrv" vs. "v'rv", to be read as vr*v and v*rv
respectively.

In other cases when something is pronounced as "*", normally the grammar
says to write "a" and as a consequence people tend to pronounce it as "*".
Bulgarian is not afraid of "*" but still the Eastern dialects systematically
pronounce a large part of the written "a" or "ya" (when not stressed, but
even when stressed as a verb ending) as something between "a" and "*". In
this respect, I like the written system of Romanian, which has a letter for
"a" and "*", but also for a sound between them (in fact, it is this latter
one that is used in "but"). If Bulgarian adopts the Romanian written system,
the Eastern dialects should use this middle sound for the non-stressed "a"
and "ya".

Finally, I think in Czech "r" as a vowel is read as "r"+"*" while in Serbian
it is "*"+"r".

Preslav

-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Ullrich [mailto:jfu at centrum.cz] 
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 2:09 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] new nosey word

Fritz

In Czech, my native language, probably the longest word without vowels is
“scvrnkls”. It means something like “you pushed it away with you finger”. 
I think most of the Czech vowel-less words usually have about three to five
consonants, but quite frequently they can be combined into sentences,
similar to the famous Czech tongue twister:

Strc prst skrz krk. (Stick your finger through your throat.)

In such Czech words it is indeed “r” and “l” that are phonetically
vowel-like.

Jan

Jan Ullrich
Lakota Language Revitalization Project
Indiana University, Bloomington
www.lakotalanguage.org

w nosey word
> 
> 
> Peter,
> 
> As you know Slavic languages, is it true that there are words
> in these languages that consist only of consonants (not just 
> three but 7 to 10)?
> Can you give an example? Or can someone else?
> 
> Fritz Goerling
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 09/04/2004 05:44, Mali Translation wrote:
> 
> > Are there languages that can build tapeworm words like
> > German "Automobilausstellungsleiterantragsformularvordruckspapier"
> > (= automobile exhibition director application form preprint paper)? ...
> 
> 
> I don't think Wayne's example is a tapeworm of this kind, multiple root 
> words strung together. It is more like a root with multiple affixes. In 
> agglutinative languages these can become very long, rivalling your 
> German compound, like the following Turkish example which I have 
> reconstructed from memory (and perhaps not entirely accurately)?
> 
> Çekoslovakyalilastirilamayanlardansinizmi?
> 
> Are you one of those who could not be Czechoslovakianised?
> 
> But can anyone rival Wayne's sequence of four e's, one with an accent? I 
> heard of a language written in Cyrillic script in which there was a 
> possible word with a sequence of seven u's, but that happened because 
> the same letter was used for u and w.
> 
> > ...
> >
> >
> > I got an interesting Cheyenne word today. I think it was used 
> as a putdown
> > of someone, which makes it even funnier within the Cheyenne system of 
> > joking
> > relationships:
> >
> > Nétsêhe'êsêsóhkometséeeese. 'You have a long narrow nose flared (at the
> > nostrils).'
> >
> ...
> 
> -- 
> Peter Kirk
> peter at qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> ---
> Príchozí zpráva neobsahuje viry.
> Zkontrolováno antivirovým systémem AVG (http://www.grisoft.cz).
> Verze: 6.0.648 / Virová báze: 415 - datum vydání: 31.3.2004
>  
> 

Yahoo! Groups Links

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com.  Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/HKE4lB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/