Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 September 18

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history of Spanish language

Is it true that there was a King in Spain's history who had a speech impediment and could not pronounce the /s/ sound, so he ordered that everyone should pronounce "s" as the /th/ sound, which we hear in Castillian but not im Mexico? If that is only a rumor, how did it change from /th/ sound to /s/ sound in the Americas? Thank you!!

No, this is a common myth. Read this and this for more information. Bhumiya (said/done) 01:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Do people really pronounce /s/ in Mexico? I didn't think "i'panics" pronounced /s/ anywhere... Btw, I'd prefer IPA. 惑乱 分からん 10:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Good for you! If we start requiring that every question on this desk use IPA and nothing else, the only people left will be linguists -- and I hope you recognize that that would be a bad thing. Tesseran 09:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with IPA? I'm fine as long as we don't get X-SAMPA up in here. Hyenaste ^(tell) 00:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

coda (i.e., syllable final) /s/ is definitely pronounced in most of Mexico. In general, you can say in Latin America that if it's inland, the /s/ is pronounced as something like [s]. If it's near the coast, it's [h] or nada, Lima being the biggest exception and there are a few others.

I remember reading an amusing debunking in snopes.com of the Spanish king lisp business but I couldn't find it searching the site. Anyone have a URL. What bugs me about that legend is that it is so bigoted. It depends on the assumption that the Spanish are or were so blindly authoritarian that they would massively latch onto even a speech defect of their king. mnewmanqc 13:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The version of the myth I heard was that the courtiers adopted the pronunciation spontaneously to flatter the king, rather than it being commanded. Either way it's hogwash. ColinFine 23:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Simultaneous Interpretation

A professional interpreter once explained to me that if he were a native bilingual, this would be more of a burden to performing his job. He said the 'need to translate' was much greater, if one of the languages (usually source, but also target) was an acquired second language; this motivational difference gave him (and other monolinguals) the edge over bilingual translators. I have to admit that he was an amazingly fast and accurate interpreter, who also replicated due emotional emphasis in his voice. Individual differences between interpreters are greater than any potential motivational edge, and native bilinguals carry their own obvious advantages too, but, all other things being equal, I still wonder whether there could be any truth to this or not. My question is whether you know anything about this and what your experiences are. Thank you.---Sluzzelin 13:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I've read about ways in which bilingual or bidialectal speakers code switch back and forth depending on context, thus the two registers occupy contextual roles and are used depending on what the speaker talks about, the emotions the speaker is trying to convey, etc. This may not be the case with someone who learns a second language later on and sees both languages as capable of being used in the same situations etc. Although when learning a second language it's going to slow you down if you construct a phrase in your native language and then try to translate it rather than just constructing a phrase in the second language. AEuSoes1 22:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

My experience is that interpreters are often highly competitive people, and that bilingual interpreters tend to look down on non-bilingual interpreters, and vice-versa. But bilingualism is itself a much-debated topic; some linguists even claim that no such thing exists. Mu 02:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Given any two randomly selected researchers in a field such as second-language acquisition, translation, bilingualism, et sim., you are bound to have two researchers who disagree vehemently over whether bilinguals are inherently better or worse simultaneous interpreters. The main problem is that much of the evidence is subjective. It’s a wonderful topic for a PhD dissertation, if you’re so inclined... — Jéioosh 04:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies. True, I have seen many conflicting reports even on neurological studies concerning mono-/bi-/multilinguality. And I think you're right, most of this was probably trash talk. ---Sluzzelin 07:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Total Undergraduates at all Division 1 universities

I would like a list of all divsion 1 schools with out going through each respective university for their totals

Thank you very much

Douglas L Diershow

What has this to do with language?--Light current 02:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess it's written in a language. Other than that not much. --AstoVidatu 03:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Does our list of universities help you?--Shantavira 06:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Arabic text, requesting translation

Google translate wouldn't help much... Can somebody, please, translate this into English or a romance language? Thank you very much.

1.KEAM says:

تصبحي على خير باي فش نصيب لك تحكي معي باي اه بس عرفك على حالي انا اسمي توفيق من المشهد بتحبي تحكي اشي انا بقولك عن حالي تعرفي شو بس انتي اسألي النجوم بدلولي علي صدقيني بس عرفيني علا حالك؟

2.KEAM says:

تصبحي على خير باي فش نصيب لك تحكي معي باي اه بس عرفك على حالي انا اسمي توفيق من المشهد بتحبي تحكي اشي انا بقولك عن حالي تعرفي شو بس انتي اسألي النجوم بدلولي علي صدقيني بس عرفيني علا حالك؟

3.KEAM says:

حكي واضح

4.KEAM says:

يذا بدكيش النجوم بس سألي قمر قمر ميش موجود صباح اسألي شمس ويشمس بدلك علي وسدقيني رايحه شمس توقلك

5.KEAM says:

يذا بدكيش النجوم بس سألي قمر قمر ميش موجود صباح اسألي شمس ويشمس بدلك علي وسدقيني رايحه شمس توقلك

6.KEAM says:

سري على الزعاج

Which Arabic dialect is it? Of which nationality were the speakers? Are you sure it isn't Persian? (See Arabic script#Arabic_alphabets_of_other_languages) (As a footnote, the 1st and 2nd, as well as the 4th and 5th post appear to be the same.) 惑乱 分からん 14:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It kind of looks Arabic -- words like شمس "sun", اسمي "my name", على "on", and انا "I". But there are strange repeated words and other apparent oddities, and at my level of knowledge of Arabic, an overall subject matter doesn't leap out. I'm reluctant to devote a significant amount of time to it without knowing whether they're actual real sentences... AnonMoos 14:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)