ok fuck let's commit to the jump then.
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@elilla there's... *a* vowel in there... somewhere... i'll find it eventually...
@mi unlike Czech (and to a degree English!), Polish has no consonantal nuclei, so every syllable has a vowel. but some of those syllables do challenge a bit with how much they pack in one syllable, yes.
together with the other datum that affricates are phonemically distinct from their stop+fricative sequences, I'm thinking the trick is that the affricates are *really* felt as "one sound", in the way that English speakers treat their diphthongs as "one sound".
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> Why does Portuguese sound like Russian or Polish?
we do??
@elilla From some distance, yes. Like, hearing the sound, the melody, but not able to distinguish words. Like, people talking about 5-10 metres away. Get closer, and the effect disappears. I have noticed that many times, having some Portugese folks in the team.
Worth to note, it happens only for pt_PT. The Brasillian variant doesn't have this effect. Also, confirmed repeatably by listening to Brasil folks in the office.
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@mi unlike Czech (and to a degree English!), Polish has no consonantal nuclei, so every syllable has a vowel. but some of those syllables do challenge a bit with how much they pack in one syllable, yes.
together with the other datum that affricates are phonemically distinct from their stop+fricative sequences, I'm thinking the trick is that the affricates are *really* felt as "one sound", in the way that English speakers treat their diphthongs as "one sound".
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@elilla BTW, can you hear, and pronounce, the difference between kończyna and koniczyna? Those are two completely different words. One comes from "koń", the other from "koniec".
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dunno, apical trills and nasal vowels? penultimate accent?
having a lot of trouble finding youtubo videos that analyse Polish phonetics, with actual phonetics knowledge, in either English or Portuguese or German. like it's all amateur language teachers who use imprecise terminology like "this is letter is not like this letter, it's softer"… yes Grażyna but if you don't tell us that 'ć' has a low coronal movement with a more frontal articulation and lip spread vs. 'cz' having a retracted postalveolar tongue tip, then saying one is "softer" is completely meaningless to us, we don't know how the difference is produced or how to reproduce it ourselves.
like I don't care if they're professional linguists or use the IPA, but you need to actually explain the articulatory phonetics for me to understand how the phonetics are articulated
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@elilla BTW, can you hear, and pronounce, the difference between kończyna and koniczyna? Those are two completely different words. One comes from "koń", the other from "koniec".
@agturcz oh that one doesn't sound tricky at all—I understand the 'n' becomes a /ɲ/ before the 'i' in this case, right? and the 'i' is pretty distinctly audible so the samples on wiktionary are clearly different to me.
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having a lot of trouble finding youtubo videos that analyse Polish phonetics, with actual phonetics knowledge, in either English or Portuguese or German. like it's all amateur language teachers who use imprecise terminology like "this is letter is not like this letter, it's softer"… yes Grażyna but if you don't tell us that 'ć' has a low coronal movement with a more frontal articulation and lip spread vs. 'cz' having a retracted postalveolar tongue tip, then saying one is "softer" is completely meaningless to us, we don't know how the difference is produced or how to reproduce it ourselves.
like I don't care if they're professional linguists or use the IPA, but you need to actually explain the articulatory phonetics for me to understand how the phonetics are articulated
it's frustrating because phonetics is legitimately easier to understand from video than texts, but it looks like I'll be stuck with texts for Polish. if there's a good analysis somehwere it's hard to find among all the language fluff.
I wonder if I can find a phrasebook (on paper at the library) that includes IPA
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it's frustrating because phonetics is legitimately easier to understand from video than texts, but it looks like I'll be stuck with texts for Polish. if there's a good analysis somehwere it's hard to find among all the language fluff.
I wonder if I can find a phrasebook (on paper at the library) that includes IPA
the orthography of Polish is actually pretty consistent, just uses a lot of digraphs and takes a while to get used to. but once you do you can infer a passable pronunciation. it still would be much easier for me at level 0 with IPA. there's also all sorts of non-phonemic processes that change the phonemes from their canonical forms (like any language) but at level 0 you don't have to stress about that, just be aware that it exists so you don't get confused when trying to relate what people actually say in real life to the written canonical forms. (like any language.)
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@agturcz oh that one doesn't sound tricky at all—I understand the 'n' becomes a /ɲ/ before the 'i' in this case, right? and the 'i' is pretty distinctly audible so the samples on wiktionary are clearly different to me.
@elilla Correct
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ok I wrote the squat and 1 host who seemed compatible. nobody uses email or bewelcome anymore so it's unlikely I'll get a reply, but I'll give it a day and go chase them on social media. there's bound to be someone willing to host me in Poznań
@elilla let me know if you'd like to come to Wrocław instead/in addition to Poznań!
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> Why does Portuguese sound like Russian or Polish?
we do??
@elilla yes I agree that Portuguese can be mistaken for a Slavic language. (I don't know Portuguese nor a Slavic language.)
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dunno, apical trills and nasal vowels? penultimate accent?
@elilla voiced palato-alveolar fricatives.
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@elilla voiced palato-alveolar fricatives.
@bebatjof
wouldn't that make French also sound like Russian -
@bebatjof
wouldn't that make French also sound like Russian@elilla was about to add that it's of course a combination of certain sounds (and lack of others). Nasal in French is more outspoken than in Portuguese and Polish, which have an "ng" residue imo.
Of course I need to add that I know French, and basics of Spanish and Italian. So when I'm hearing people in language guessing mode: "definitely European, not Germanic or Scandinavian, nor Fr-Sp-It, some aspects of Slavic, but also Romance, maybe not Polish or Russian or Ukrainian or Romanian cause I'd recognise those, but how does Croatian sound? Portuguese?"
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> Why does Portuguese sound like Russian or Polish?
we do??
@elilla I would say it's more true of Portuguese Portuguese than Brazilian
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@elilla was about to add that it's of course a combination of certain sounds (and lack of others). Nasal in French is more outspoken than in Portuguese and Polish, which have an "ng" residue imo.
Of course I need to add that I know French, and basics of Spanish and Italian. So when I'm hearing people in language guessing mode: "definitely European, not Germanic or Scandinavian, nor Fr-Sp-It, some aspects of Slavic, but also Romance, maybe not Polish or Russian or Ukrainian or Romanian cause I'd recognise those, but how does Croatian sound? Portuguese?"
@bebatjof yeah all the things we have in common with Polish that I can think of:
- nasal diphthongs
- alveolar trills
- voiced postalveolar fricatives that aren't affricates
- penultimate accent (commonly)
- seven-vowel system (almost the same; they misss one level of u/o/ɔ, and compensate with an additional ɨ
- /ɲ/ ≠ /nj/
- brightness (alveolars are dental, shibilants aren't rounded)
- (for BP) /x/
- being cool people -
@bebatjof yeah all the things we have in common with Polish that I can think of:
- nasal diphthongs
- alveolar trills
- voiced postalveolar fricatives that aren't affricates
- penultimate accent (commonly)
- seven-vowel system (almost the same; they misss one level of u/o/ɔ, and compensate with an additional ɨ
- /ɲ/ ≠ /nj/
- brightness (alveolars are dental, shibilants aren't rounded)
- (for BP) /x/
- being cool people
Absolutely. You're analysing this véry phonetically (🧡) which is not how everybody thinks (sorry). Can I interest you in morphology? (eg words that I suspect to be nouns ending in o or a).
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@bebatjof yeah all the things we have in common with Polish that I can think of:
- nasal diphthongs
- alveolar trills
- voiced postalveolar fricatives that aren't affricates
- penultimate accent (commonly)
- seven-vowel system (almost the same; they misss one level of u/o/ɔ, and compensate with an additional ɨ
- /ɲ/ ≠ /nj/
- brightness (alveolars are dental, shibilants aren't rounded)
- (for BP) /x/
- being cool people -
@elilla From some distance, yes. Like, hearing the sound, the melody, but not able to distinguish words. Like, people talking about 5-10 metres away. Get closer, and the effect disappears. I have noticed that many times, having some Portugese folks in the team.
Worth to note, it happens only for pt_PT. The Brasillian variant doesn't have this effect. Also, confirmed repeatably by listening to Brasil folks in the office.
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dunno, apical trills and nasal vowels? penultimate accent?
ok I found the *real* reason Polish and Portuguese are alike: we both use a cognate of maccheroni to mean "pasta" generically
