| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Looking for languages that permit three identical letters in a row Thread poster: Ricki Farn
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Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 14:20
English to German
Hi all,
since the last spelling reform, German words can contain three identical consonants in a row. This happens in compounds where the first part ends in two identical consonants, and the second part starts with the same consonant. Before the reform, one of the three instances used to be dropped. Example: oxygen+bottle = Sauerstoff+Flasche = Sauerstoffflasche (used to be: Sauerstofflasche).
I am curious what other languages contain words with three identical letters ... See more Hi all,
since the last spelling reform, German words can contain three identical consonants in a row. This happens in compounds where the first part ends in two identical consonants, and the second part starts with the same consonant. Before the reform, one of the three instances used to be dropped. Example: oxygen+bottle = Sauerstoff+Flasche = Sauerstoffflasche (used to be: Sauerstofflasche).
I am curious what other languages contain words with three identical letters in a row (and for what reason).
Have a nice weekend,
Ricki (who uses a different word, a hyphen or a paraphrase instead of such a monster) ▲ Collapse
| | | | Heinrich Pesch 
Finland
Local time: 15:20
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 14:20
English to German
TOPIC STARTER | What does it mean? | Oct 14, 2006 |
For heaven's sake Heinrich, what does that mean?
and the reason is, presumably, that Finnish ortography was created from scratch by a bunch of linguists who wanted to be reeaally precise?
Thanks for this word,
Ricki
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Not consonants, but vowels:
copil = child
copii = children (indefinite)
copiii = *the* children (definite form)
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Kirill Semenov
Ukraine
Local time: 15:20
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
There is only word, as far as I know, but it's interesting because all three vowels in the row are pronounced.
In Latin chars, it's
"dlinnosheee" (each "e" is pronounced as "ye").
The word is an adjective and means "having a long neck" (mostly applied to creatures and animals - say, a giraffe).
| | | | parsifalia
Local time: 14:20
English to French
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stress + situatie = stresssituatie - a horrrible word indeed!
| | | | Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:20
Russian to English
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In memoriam | Comparative of dlinnosheee? | Oct 14, 2006 |
Would "one animal is longer-necked than another" in Russian be "одно животное длинношеее другого"?
| | | | Kirill Semenov
Ukraine
Local time: 15:20
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
| It's not comparative | Oct 14, 2006 |
Jack Doughty wrote:
Would "one animal is longer-necked than another" in Russian be "одно животное длинношеее другого"?
No, Jack, it's not. Simply as in "giraffe is a long-necked animal" ("Жираф - длинношеее животное").
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Henk Peelen
Netherlands
Local time: 14:20
Member (2002)
German to Dutch
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SITE LOCALIZER | Grilllade, fitnessstore, fitnessshop | Oct 14, 2006 |
French, German and Swedish as far as I know
Found it incidentally
For the liquids (l & r) more than two in a row is not surprising
Well, the same counts for the sibilant s
Dutch language accepts a lot of English words nowadays (99% too much in my opinion). Known example is the word shop which is also verbalized into shoppen (shop, go shopping). The funny thing is that the English word shop is akin to the Dutch word for buy kopen (German kaufen, Swedish köpa... See more French, German and Swedish as far as I know
Found it incidentally
For the liquids (l & r) more than two in a row is not surprising
Well, the same counts for the sibilant s
Dutch language accepts a lot of English words nowadays (99% too much in my opinion). Known example is the word shop which is also verbalized into shoppen (shop, go shopping). The funny thing is that the English word shop is akin to the Dutch word for buy kopen (German kaufen, Swedish köpa), so shoppen and kopen actually have the same meaning. The Dutch (Bahasia Indonesia as well) word for shop is winkel. It means actually corner; in the Middle Ages the stallholders on the market more and more turned their stalls at the corner of the market square into permanent stores. Therefore this first shops were called "winkel". Other wise the word winkel is hardly ever used for corner; in 99.99% of the cases it's "hoek", akin to English hook. The Dutch word that's akin to corner is horn or hoorn ("pointed"), you find it in the horn of an animal and in toponyms like Uithoorn ("outer pointed shape of land").
A big difference between English and Dutch / German is that English hardly ever "strings" words, whereas Dutch and German "string" very much. Would never forget the German Drehmomentwandlerauslassreglerventilfedern, Untersetzungskegelritzelkegelrollenlager or the Windenergieanlageüberwachungs-Programmbeschreibung I did find in my source text.
Anyway, a lot of that imported English words and on ll or ss, so nowadays you find a lot of fitnessstores or fitnessshop in continental Europe
[Edited at 2006-10-14 18:56] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Clare Barnes
Sweden
Local time: 14:20
Swedish to English
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One of the three letters in all the above examples would dropped, presumably for reasons of clarity. There are plenty of compond nouns in Swedish that could have three letters, but I've never come across one that does, only two letters - or can someone correct me on this?
My first thought when I saw this was Finnish - Heinrich??? How about some of the native languages of the Arctic people - Sami etc?
[Edited at 2006-10-14 19:47]
| | | | | Not 'allowed' in Swedish | Oct 14, 2006 |
As far as I can remember from my long ago forgotten school days, three identical letters in a row is a big no-no in Swedish.
You can string (almost) any amount of nouns together in a compound (without spaces), but if three identical letters meet, one has to go.
Example:
boll + låda (ball + box = box for/of balls) = bollåda, not bolllåda
or a less weird alternative
glass + strut (ice cream + cone) = glasstrut, not glassstrut
... See more As far as I can remember from my long ago forgotten school days, three identical letters in a row is a big no-no in Swedish.
You can string (almost) any amount of nouns together in a compound (without spaces), but if three identical letters meet, one has to go.
Example:
boll + låda (ball + box = box for/of balls) = bollåda, not bolllåda
or a less weird alternative
glass + strut (ice cream + cone) = glasstrut, not glassstrut
But since languages are ever evolving (and grammar being generally descriptive) , God knows how long this rule will last. Just googled on both 'glassstrut' and 'glasstrut'.
The correct spelling 'glasstrut' (2 x s) won - 754 to 163.
More than 1 out of 10 pages are incorrect!!! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Gerard de Noord
France
Local time: 14:20
Member (2003)
English to Dutch
+ ...
parsifalia wrote:
stress + situatie = stresssituatie - a horrrible word indeed!
Jazzzanger and jazzzangeres might sound less horrible in Dutch. I'm sticking to consonants, with vowels it would be to easy.
Regards,
Gerard
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Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:20
Russian to English
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In memoriam | Rephrasing my question to Kirill | Oct 14, 2006 |
So if it were comparative, as in "one animal is longer-necked than another", would that give you four in a row? Одно животное длинношееее другого?
[Edited at 2006-10-14 23:52]
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Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
(A village on Anglesey, not far from Bangor where I studied.)
There are four consecutive "L"s in there.
However, the name was invented as a publicity stunt in the 1860s (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwll ).
And in Welsh, the double L is a sound unit in its own right (roughly equi... See more Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
(A village on Anglesey, not far from Bangor where I studied.)
There are four consecutive "L"s in there.
However, the name was invented as a publicity stunt in the 1860s (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwll ).
And in Welsh, the double L is a sound unit in its own right (roughly equivalent to saying the "th" in "third" with a lisp).
(Apologies to any Welsh speakers - that is a rather coarse description, but describing where you put your tongue and where to blow the air out would be too much of a mouthful.)
So in a sense, that sequence of four letters is actually a double "LL".
[Edited at 2006-10-15 00:25] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marta Argat
Local time: 15:20
Chinese to Ukrainian
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| Три "Е" и тараканий ус | Oct 15, 2006 |
Jack Doughty wrote:
So if it were comparative, as in "one animal is longer-necked than another", would that give you four in a row? Одно животное длинношееее другого?
That would be too much. У животного А шея длиннее, чем у Б.
I think lots of people can recall this word easily thanks to this children's classics:
http://www.lib.ru/PROZA/KASSIL/kassil1.txt
(see the chapter "Три "Е" и тараканий ус")
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