Why is there so much confusion around the Cyrillic breve (and other diacritics)?

2»

Answers

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,407
    edited September 22
    Yes, I was aware of the German umlaut—but there’s not much variation possible in the size of its dots!
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,088
    Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.
  • Erik
    Erik Posts: 37
    Erik said:
    café in English
    Christian Thalmann said:
    Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.
    Indeed, your comment gives me a sense of déjà vu!

    That said, I expect the hypothesis in @Thomas Phinneyʼs comment is well founded if not absolutely, precisely accurate in its wording:  Although diacritics often find their way into English, they tend to act, to use his phrase, “as appendages/​extras” rather than part and parcel of the fundamental system; commonly, they are omitted outright.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,208
    In English, diacritics frequently omitted by people who do not know how to type/enter them. Occasionally they could contribute to disambiguation (e.g. résumé and pâté.) But English is also just chock full of heteronyms: words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently, with different meanings. These are super common (lead, tear, close, desert, alternate, object, convict, moped, invalid, etc.). I am not suggesting that adult native speakers/readers find any of this confusing. But I expect it is one of the things that contributes to English being so hard to learn.

    In languages such as German, French, Spanish and Italian, it seems there are many words that would be spelled identically if not for the diacritics.

    Apparently only a little of this in Cyrillic with the breve, from what I can find easily? It is more that with a breve it is a completely different letter, from a native speaker POV? Clarification welcome.  :smile:
  • Dsche
    Dsche Posts: 29
    I would say that failing to distinguish between *и* and *й* is a sign of gross illiteracy (though lately I have noticed some confusion between the words *войны* [wars] and *воины* [warriors] among, shall we say, young internet users).

    However, the situation with the letter *ё* is truly chaotic; it is often omitted—even in children's books—where it is actually necessary. Over time (literally within a single generation), the pronunciation of certain place names changes because they are initially written without the *ё* under the assumption that everyone knows how to read them (which is not the case!), and soon the correct pronunciation vanishes completely; there are many such instances.
  • SCarewe
    SCarewe Posts: 119
    Even my Russian teacher two years ago told us not to pay too much attention to the ё, because people are using it less and less. It was very confusing.
  • Dsche
    Dsche Posts: 29
    SCarewe said:
    Even my Russian teacher two years ago told us not to pay too much attention to the ё, because people are using it less and less. It was very confusing.
    There was a (historically brief) period when the keyboards of portable typewriters—and later, early computers—simply lacked a key for the letter *ё*. Technical limitations offered an excuse for such carelessness, and that is understandable. That era has passed, yet the laxity remains; by now, the issue has become almost a matter of religious conviction.
    Personally, I am a staunch advocate of the letter *ё* and try to include it in all the typesetting work I am commissioned to do—though clients often object, and I have to yield.
    Incidentally, in one of the children's books I mentioned, the very first sentence of the first chapter contains a word that requires the letter *ё* (yet omits it): *Почему ты плачешь, когда поешь?* "Why do you cry when you eat?" (It should be *Почему ты плачешь, когда поёшь?* "Why do you cry when you sing?").
    The difference is significant, and I have no clear explanation for why this carelessness continues to spread.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,845
    edited September 22
    It is more that with a breve it is a completely different letter, from a native speaker POV? Clarification welcome.
    Yes, и is a vowel, and й is a consonant. In Russian and Belarusian, й is a soft letter that only occurs after a vowel in native words. In Ukrainian, й can occur at the beginning of syllables, including the beginning of words, — mostly followed by о, since the Ukrainian alphabet does not include the Russian ё /jo/ —, where it takes a harder pronunciation like the English y in yoghurt or the Serbian ј in један.
    When talking about Cyrillic letters and diacritics, it is important to note that they do not have consistent pronunciations across different languages. So, for example е is a compound /je/ in Russian, but a simple vowel /e/ in Ukrainian, which in turn has distinctive compound letters є /je/ and ї /ji/) that do not occur in the modern Russian alphabet.
    Since we’re talking more generally about diacritics now, it is worth noting that liturgical books will often use an acute accent to indicate syllabic stress, which can occur on any vowel and, hence, on any compound letter. In Ukrainian, this results in e.g. твої́м.
  • Erik
    Erik Posts: 37
    Dsche said:
    *Почему ты плачешь, когда поешь?* "Why do you cry when you eat?"
    Because someone keeps taking the diereses away.
  • Dsche
    Dsche Posts: 29
    There is a truly puzzling story surrounding the Russian letter *ё*: a 1945 reference work lists the words *еще* (meaning "still" or "yet") and *ещё* (meaning "more" or "additional") as distinct, independent words.
    I have never observed such a distinction in actual speech—not even among older speakers. Nor is it possible to verify this distinction through books, precisely because the use of the letter is optional.
    Thus, it remains entirely unclear whether we are dealing with a figment of the compiler's imagination or an example of a word’s sudden demise caused by the neglect of diacritics.


  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,262
    Christian Thalmann said:
    Even English has words like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Piñata and Erdős number.
    It would be more strictly accurate to say, in cases like those of which you have given examples, that English texts may contain accented letters, due to the fact that foreign words can be incorporated into an English text, and when it is done, an attempt may be made to reproduce those words accurately in their original form within the language to which they are native.
    That would avoid giving the misleading impression that accented letters are in any way intrinsic to the English language and its script.
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,262
    Erik said:
    However, diacritics in loanwords do not always preserve their use in the source language.  The acute accent in maté is not only absent in its Spanish source; itʼs contrary to Spanish spelling‐pronunciation rules and seems to be there only to prevent confusion with the otherwise homographous mate and encourage disyllabic pronunciation.
    As you yourself point out in your next example, from the Japanese, what is going on here seems obvious.
    Since French (at least in Canada and the United Kingdom, if not so much in the United States, but to an extent even there) is the only language with diacritics with which English speakers might possibly be hoped to have at least a nodding acquaintance (as opposed to "may be assumed to know", which, of course, is wildly overoptimistic), if one wishes to indicate that M-A-T-E is not pronounced "mayt" but "matay", the French acute accent lies to hand.
    As for the Brontë sisters, aren't they Germans? But then I think that Beethoven was a Dutchman.
    But speaking of the umlaut, it certainly is true that, for a time, it was indeed an English practise to use the diaresis. And in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, one will see what I thought was the perfectly ordinary English word "rôle" still rejoicing in its French circumflex.


  • SCarewe
    SCarewe Posts: 119
    Brontë is ultimately of Irish origin (anglicised spelling). Beethoven's name goes back to Flemish, yes, but his ancestry is German for at least two generations.

    By the way, using the term umlaut here is not accurate, as the name suggests. It serves a different function here, but I don't want to drift too much off-topic.
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,262
    edited September 27
    SCarewe said:
    Brontë is ultimately of Irish origin (anglicised spelling).
    Since I couldn't stand Wuthering Heights in high school, I had failed to look this stuff up. A quick web search has since remedied my ignorance. I see that the Brontë sisters' father was the one who had the bright idea to use a diaresis, and other people had tried to get the name pronounced right by spelling it Bronté. I had also not known that it was originally Ó Proinntigh... and was changed to Bronte from  Prunty because Prunty was a common name, though it had no danger of being mispronounced, while Bronte was the name of some Greek colony in Sicily or something like that.
    But if it were to have pseudo-Greek roots, clearly they ought to have spelled it Brontæ!

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,407
    We named our daughter Zoë, because that’s the way it’s traditionally spelled in English. 
    At least, since it first became used in England in the 1850s.
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,088
    edited September 28
    John Savard said:

    But if it were to have pseudo-Greek roots, clearly they ought to have spelled it Brontæ!
    Apparently, βροντή means «thunder», and that would normally be transliterated as brontē. Another accent!
  • Erik
    Erik Posts: 37
    John Savard said:
    But if it were to have pseudo-Greek roots, clearly they ought to have spelled it Brontæ!
    Christian Thalmann said:
    Apparently, βροντή means «thunder», and that would normally be transliterated as brontē. Another accent!
    Yeah, you never know what youʼll find upon seeking synonyms in the Brontǣ̈saurus.

Categories