Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Great Vowel Shift

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 275 posts

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#141

Post by ajmurmann »

anticristi wrote: post #15

Any non-native English speakers feeling like: So is that why we need to suffer a lingua franca that does not map 1:1 spoken and written? This must be the world's largest tech debt. :)))

It was my second language, do I started out assuming that this was a problem with any language you'd learn.

I do, however, wish natives English speakers were more aware of this for their own sake. Most seem to default pronouncing vowels in foreign words as if it was English, whereas they'd be much closer to the correct pronunciation of they defaulted to pronouncing it like words for any language other than English they might know even a little of. To me this should be one of the first things you learn when learning your second language as a natives English speaker. It even holds true for romanizations of Asian languages like pinyin for Chinese or Hepburn for Japanese

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#142

Post by eindiran »

supergarfield wrote: post #92
irrational wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a shame Spanish didn’t become the lingua franca since it does have almost a 1:1 spoken and written. Of course, it could have been worse. We could have ended up with French as the lingua franca (yes, I know what franca means) where there is almost no correlation between written and spoken language.

This might be somewhat subjective, as I don't know how you'd measure correlation between spoken and written, but French seems to have a much higher match between written and spoken language than English. Going from spelling to pronunciation in French follows (admittedly complex) rules that are rarely broken except for common words (or endings such as -ent). Vowel pronunciations for a given spelling are far more varia…

> how you'd measure correlation between spoken and written

There are a number of ways currently used, but I have a new one to propose: compare the size of two G2P models (1 for each language), which have similar RMS errors. Assuming they are generated using similar techniques, the one which requires the bigger model probably has a less clean phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#143

Post by Scarblac »

mason55 wrote: post #73
ajuc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially its very large vocabulary Vocabulary isn't a problem IMHO. The fact that I have to learn each word twice (how to write it and how to say it) - is. I was learning German for 3 years at school. After the first month I had no problems with pronunciation. Now after almost 2 decades of not using it I can still pronounce any German word I see. I've been learning English since I was 10 or so. I'm 36 now. I stil…

> I still have many English words I know (and use correctly in writing) that I'm not sure how to pronounce. Do you mind sharing some examples? As a native English speaker, I'm so curious! Do you think that if you heard them without seeing the word you'd realize what the written form was? Or might there be words where you know the written form and the spoken form and don't realize it's the same word?

I once lost a bet because I couldn't believe "finite" and "infinite" sounded so different.

But the best examples are in the poem _The Chaos_ (http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html).

Through, though, throw, tough... I know a trough exists but I have no idea how it's pronounced.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#144

Post by yongjik »

soldehierro wrote: post #49
keiferski wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is a great lingua franca IMO because of its inherent decentralization and willingness to accept new words. There is no academy regulating its use, as is the case with French and Spanish.

In the case of Spanish, I can't speak for French, having an academy (the RAE in this case) regulating the language sounds like a problem on paper, but really isn't a problem in practice. The RAE accepts Americanisms and treats American Spanish just as it would European Spanish (referring to the continent(s), not the country) and encourages lingusitic diversity. Anglicisms are only discouraged when an acceptable Spani…

Oh how I envy you. Here in Korea we are stuck with the tax-funded imbeciles of National Institute of Korean Language, whose hobby is saying "ALL you Koreans are using the Korean language wrong!" with a straight face at every occasion.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#145

Post by eointierney »

yesenadam wrote: post #125
eindiran wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vowel shift is a term of art in linguistics, so I'm not sure the pun would be worth it.

> Vowel shift is a term of art in linguistics Aside: I see "term of art" everywhere on HN lately. Why?! What does it add to saying "Vowel shift is a linguistics term" or "a term in linguistics"? Why do people want to sound like patent lawyers? Am I missing something?

Terms of art are pre-scientific jargon that survive mainly due to utility. They are common in crafts such as pottery or the Law. They are references to heuristically derived conveniences. They're linguistically cool.

In Math, lemma is a term of the art.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#146

Post by henrikschroder »

tialaramex wrote: post #96
ajuc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially its very large vocabulary Vocabulary isn't a problem IMHO. The fact that I have to learn each word twice (how to write it and how to say it) - is. I was learning German for 3 years at school. After the first month I had no problems with pronunciation. Now after almost 2 decades of not using it I can still pronounce any German word I see. I've been learning English since I was 10 or so. I'm 36 now. I stil…

So, the good news is that lots of native English speakers don't know how to pronounce things either. Of course I know how to say all the words I speak frequently and hear others using - but if I use a word I haven't heard there's a risk I'll say it wrong. You just learn not to worry about it (the biggest problem really is when you unconsciously try to correct somebody else and realise you've got not basis for your as…

> never the "beach" because she's concerned she'll manage to make people think she said "bitch".

Is her native language Spanish?

It's really cool how you can have "blind spots" depending on your native language. To me, the difference between beach and bitch is huge, because my native language uses short and long vowels extensively, and there are tons of words that only differ in a single vowel length.

But at the same time, I have other blind spots in English. For example, I have to make an effort to remember to use sounding "s" and "j" where appropriate, and the lack of those is a dead give-away for identifying Swedish English speakers.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#147

Post by firstplacelast »

smnrchrds wrote: post #14

Canadian English is going through a vowel shift right now. The shift is much smaller than the great vowel shift, but still notable. https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/in-the-midst-of-the-can...

In the US there is a Northern Cities Vowel shift going on right now, that this linguist claims is the biggest vowel shift since “The Great Vowel Shift.” See this video starting at 7:10 https://youtu.be/IsE_8j5RL3k

Maybe related to what’s happening in Canadian English?

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#148

Post by fuzzer37 »

adamrezich wrote: post #134
asveikau wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to associate this with Brits. I have definitely noticed a rise in young Americans doing this in the last year or two though. The typical American "nearly silent" one you are describing tends to be more of a flapped /ɾ/, by the way. is often the same.

> The typical American "nearly silent" one you are describing tends to be more of a flapped /ɾ/, by the way. is often the same. yes, exactly! also out here in South Dakota we specifically pronounce the "t" in "Dakota" as a "d," I've noticed.

Is that the same thing as "D-Troit" verses "Duh-Troit" for Detroit? That's one of my favorites.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#149

Post by aasasd »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #119
aasasd wrote: post #37

Moreover, there wasn't just one or a few shifts: they happen all the time and there were plenty of them. Apparently a big discovery in etymology (in 19th century iirc, and I forget the guy's name) was that words mostly don't change pronunciation individually, but the same parts in different words change in the same way. Which allows to track those changes over time and thus backtrack how modern words should've sounde…

Is this Grimm's Law, by Jacob Grimm of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" fame?

Sure sounds like it. Though I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't forget Grimm's name like that (the tales are childhood's staple where I am)—so maybe Rasmus Rask or Karl Verner was instead mentioned when I heard of the general concept being attributed at all. Which, rather weirdly, was only one time in a lecture by Andrey Zaliznyak on Youtube, even though I heard of how shifts work before and after that—you'd think such an important discovery would at least more often bear the name of its author.

Re: Great Vowel Shift

#150

Post by jgwil2 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #90
gxqoz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McWhorter is a linguist (as well as a political commentator). His argument isn't that English is easier because people already speak it natively. Instead, English lost a lot of its complexity (especially around suffixes) during the Viking invasions when it was taken up by adult speakers. This doesn't mean that learning the language is easy--no language really is. And English has some things that make it harder to mas…

From a Slavic perspective, the really complex thing about English grammar is the sequence of tenses. Having spoken English for almost 30 years by now, I am still not sure if "X has died" or "X died" is correct, or in which context. But the other direction would be worse. Languages like Czech, with its 20+ classes of declension, must be a true nightmare for any English native speaker to learn.

A good guideline I've heard is that you say "X has died/eaten/gone" but "X died/ate/went this morning." So simple past if there is a specific time attached and present perfect if it's a general statement. More examples:

"Have you [ever] been to New York?" "Did you go to New York last week?"

"Have you seen Star Wars?" "Did you see Star Wars this afternoon?"

Might not work in every circumstance but a good rule of thumb.

Post reply on HN