Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2025 August 13

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August 13

French from France

I think we'd use the term "Castillian Spanish" to distinguish the dialect spoken in Spain from the one in Latin America. Simiilarly, Neuhochdeutch is "Standard" German as distinct from Bayern or Austrian German etc. Is there a similar term for French from France, as contrasted with Quebecois French? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:90F2:5EEC:2BFD:58B4 (talk) 03:01, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with "French French"? --142.112.140.137 (talk) 07:30, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The variety of French that is considered the "proper standard", the prestige dialect, is known as Parisian French. Also called "French of France", this term is problematic since Meridional French, spoken in the South of France, has marked differences with the prestige dialect. However, the term "Parisian French" is also problematic, since the variety of French one hears spoken in the streets of Paris, by native Parisians, is also different from the "proper" Parisian French heard spoken on TV by high-ranking politicians.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:31, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The prestige varieties of a language have often been based on the speech of the upper classes in the capital, I believe, so as that group were already in power, and needed to adapt the least. I believe Received Pronunciation has a similar history. (Standard German and Swedish, on the other hand, might have been based on some bureaucratic levelling based on traits that were perceived to be generally understood.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:55, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the title of our own article we've gone with French of France, and on French Wikipedia it's Français de France. --Antiquary (talk) 08:01, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Français métropolitain" is also commonly used, as mentioned in the article. Xuxl (talk) 16:00, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised that no one has already mentioned francien, the language of Ile-de-France (olim Francie). Is that term dated? —Tamfang (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a real language?

At 06m26s of this 1980s video recording, there is a tobacco advertisement which purports to be a discussion between some Native Americans.

Is this in a real language, and if so, which? Marnanel (talk) 11:46, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't tell you which one, but it sounds complicated enough to be real. In other words, it doesn't feel phony enough to be pseudo-Native American gibberish. I'd be interested to know not only what language it is, but also if he's actually saying what the subtitles say he's saying. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:08, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it sounds similar to other snippets of Native American languages I have come across. Neither that ad or the following with the Arabic sheik could have been made today, probably. Then, Native Americans are said to possess a higher level of self-irony than what's generally perceived, anyway. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:38, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

1. Are there any lexical words in English with structure similar to e.g. as, has, is, us and was, i.e. one syllable and /z/ (spelled ⟨s⟩) at the end?

   • "us" isn't like the others. It's pronounced like "uss". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:59, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

   Does, goes. I'm sure there are more Xuxl (talk) 00:35, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

   Loads.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:03, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

   If we can believe Wiktionary, us is pronounced like /ʌz/ (or /əz/ in unstressed positions) in some UK dialects.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:50, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

   A late friend of mine always said it like that. But she lived her whole life in Australia, as did her parents. It's so odd that it remains almost one of her defining features. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:36, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

2. Does English have equivalent of Finnish varsi like in phrases "tien varsi", "joen varsi" and "radan varsi"?
3. Does English have equivalent of Finnish puolella like in phrases "Suomen puolella", "vuoden 2025 puolella", "elokuun puolella", "torstain puolella" and "kesän puolella"?
4. Do English speakers ever use full stops to separate dates? Are there any other countries who write dates as (d)d.(m)m.yyyy, where dates are not zero-padded, like 13.8.2025 or 9.8.2025?
5. Does English have more adjectives that are compared with separate words rather than endings than other Germanic languages?
6. Does English ever use hyphen to separate parts of a closed compound word? --40bus (talk) 21:37, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

   1) "lens", "yaws", "mews", "ides and nones" unless you insist on vowel+s -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 18:43, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1.) I don't think so. A quick check of the [Wiktionary rhyme lists https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Rhymes:English/%C3%A6z] shows lexical words spelled with -zz or -se but not plain -s.

2.) "Side" maybe. The first two phrases are rendered "road side" and "river side" by Google translate. However, a look at [1] shows that the Finnish meanings do not form a coherent group from an English language point of view. Some are arms, some are shafts, some are rods.

3.)Not really. "Suomen puolella" seems to mean "on the Finnish side" of a battle or dispute, right? But in the other phrases I don't think English would use any word corresponding to "puolella" just a prepositional phrase, "about 2025", "in August", "on Thursday", "in summer".

4.)No English speakers never use full stops to separate dates. I've only seen that style used by people whose primary language was not English.

6.)As far as I can tell, the definition of a 'closed compound' is one that is not written with a hyphen, so the answer to your question is trivially 'no'. But more generally there are plenty of words in which the use of the hyphen varies by dialect, meaning, personal preference, or over time, so there are plenty of words that could easily be considered closed compounds that are often written with a hyphen. It is simply a variable feature of English spelling. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:32, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

4.) @Eluchil404's answer is incorrect. Full stops can be seen in British English and Australian English, at least. Bazza 7 (talk) 18:59, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Previously discussed at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2025 July 20#Date format. 2A02:C7C:F0EC:ED00:E10D:241C:BE19:855D (talk) 12:05, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed; see Date and time notation in the United Kingdom#All numeric dates, although the example given there shows the month in Roman numerals which is somewhat archaic. Alansplodge (talk) 22:18, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re 1: What is your definition of "lexical word"? I think as (other than as the plural of the letter name a) would generally be classified as a function word, and declined or conjugated forms, such as has, are usually also excluded. If these are allowed, there are many examples, such as says and bees. I've heard gas as a clipping of gasoline pronounced with a /z/. Wiktionary gives /pɹɛz/ as the pronunciation of pres as a clipping of presentation, and /ɹɛz/ as the pronunciation of res as a clipping of any of reserve, reservation, reservoir, residence, resistance, resolution and resurrection.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:26, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re 5: I don't know all Germanic languages, but the English rule that the comparative of an oversized adjective is not formed by suffixation does not apply to German: the comparative of überdimensioniert is even more oversized: überdimensionierter (seen used in the wild here).  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:39, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, although workarounds to monster comparatives are also relatively common in German: Here one might use stärker überdimensioniert rather than überdimensionierter. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:A5CE:E896:4E39:F464 (talk) 12:59, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

for [1], i think 40bus gave a list of more-or-less grammatical words and wanted to know if there were similar lexical words. so yes, plurals and 3sg forms, plus clippings. in the u.s., pres and res are quite common, plus i've heard des. but there may be few that are vowel+s among the lemmas of a 19th-century dictionary. — kwami (talk) 21:26, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]