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4 answers

Automated French/Italian/German to IPA transcription

I'm looking for a website or software that will take text written in a source language and produce a transcription in IPA. The languages I am interested in are French, Italian and German, but if you know resources for other languages I would be…
Robin
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Do any languages mention the top limit of a range first?

In many languages we usually say "between min and max" (e.g., grades "between 1 and 10"). Are there any languages where the reverse construction ("between max and min", e.g. grades "between 10 and 1") is used?
f222
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In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?

In french, there are many female given names that are derived from male given names. Those names are often obtained by adding "ine", "ette", "e" or "a" at the end of the male name. Examples include Bérnard -> Bérnadette Claude -> Claudine,…
Remi.b
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Is Slavic [zima] ("winter") derived from "snow"?

I was wondering why Thai word for "snow" was sounding similar to Slavic word for "winter": Thai: หิมะ [hì-má] "snow" Ukrainian: зима [ˈzɪ-mə] "winter" Polish: zima [ˈʑi-ma] "winter" Also, "Himalaya" हिमालय [himā-laya] is commonly referred as…
Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
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When and where did the guttural 'r' originate?

I have often wondered why French is (almost) unique in the Romance languages in using the guttural 'r' – in particular, the uvular fricative. Apart from Piedmontese / Piedmontese Italian (and even there it's far from universal), French seems to be…
Noldorin
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Have we observed classes changing from open to closed, or vice versa?

Classes of words in languages tend to be either "open" (accepting new members readily) or "closed" (rejecting new members). This distinction is fairly easy to see: compare how readily English accepted the verb "to google", versus the hundreds of…
Draconis
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What language came before Proto-Indo-European?

What is the Proto-Proto-Indo-European?
Nick Anderegg
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How can mutual intelligibility be measured?

What ways do we have of measure the mutual intelligibility of two given languages? It's easy enough to realise if there is a degree of mutual intelligibility between your own language variety and another, but what methods do we have to measure it…
Danger Fourpence
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How did Esperanto find "early adopters" for the language?

Even with the volume of constructed languages that exist, I've never seen formal analysis documenting the successive approaches Esperanto took in an effort to really engage and convert "early adopters" to the language. By engage, I mean finding…
blunders
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Are there languages with no first person?

Fiction is rife with characters who always speak in third person. Often, such characters are portrayed as having a native language or culture that lacks the concept of a first person, and hence they are supposedly unable to grasp the first person…
Superbest
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Which language would be easiest for a computer to parse?

I have an idea for a programming language that would work more like a spoken language. "sentences" would have an initial context in which specific subjects, verbs, and objects would have meaningful relationships. I'm thinking I can make it more…
Oggy Transfluxitor Jones
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Do sign languages inflect?

I saw the statement a few times that sign languages inflect in the same way that spoken languages do, but all examples I came across refer to phenomena that I would classify as word formation rather than actual inflection. (Edit.) So my question is…
kamil-s
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Is it feasible to create an IPA adaptation for cats?

I was trying to transcribe my cat's noises into IPA. For example, her wanting to be petted is like [njæː] or [njaː]. But purring doesn't seem to fit any existing notation, except maybe [ʜ]. Has anyone ever mapped a cat's phonetic inventory? Their…
Dmiters
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Is Nicaraguan Sign Language the only language born from nothing?

My interest in linguistics was sparked by John McWhorter's popular book The Power of Babel, which, in its section on creoles, includes a small piece on Nicaraguan Sign Language, which really sparked my imagination. According to that book, it's the…
TRiG
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About the Swedish /ɧ/

Swedish has quite a peculiarity that I haven't found (yet) in other languages. There are some spellings that are pronounced all the same way. Currently the number of these spellings is disputed, but it seems that a minimum list was compiled. From…
Alenanno
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