These are the questions that keep me up at night

[conuly]

I can't figure out if the word "wanderlust" is a loanword or a calque. I think it must be a calque if we say it like we'd say an English word spelled that way, and a loanword if we say it like we'd say a German word spelled that way (or like we think Germans would say it, anyway).

Poll #19414 Wanderlust

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 125

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How do you say the word "wanderlust"?

View Answers

With a w at the beginning
112 (89.6%)

With a v at the beginning
6 (4.8%)

I'm not sure. I've never actually said it or heard it said
7 (5.6%)

I'm not familiar with this word
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[redbird]

I'm not sure how informative pronunciation is, given the tendency of English-speakers (and probably speakers of other languages, but I don't know this as a fact) to alter words so they're easier for us to pronounce, and sometimes to make pronunciation match spelling. (IIRC, there was a specific and deliberate movement/pressure in Britain to make pronunciation closer to spelling. The example that I recall was that we now pronounce the h in forehead, and in the 19th century the word was pronounced "forrid."

I also suspect that a lot of people learned "wanderlust" from reading, may not have bothered looking up the meaning (no need), and pronounced it the way it looked. Some of them may not know that if in German, it would start with a /v/ sound.

[conuly]

In this case, very informative, since the calque of German wanderlust would still be spelled, well, wanderlust.

[redbird]

It's more that I suspect people don't realize that the "lust" in that doesn't mean what the English "lust for wandering" would.

[archangelbeth]

...it doesn't mean "yearning strongly to wander"? O_o

[movingfinger]

Wanderlust means desire to travel, but not with the overpowering compulsion that the English word "lust" connotes. "Lust" in German is a broader word for pleasure, zest, relish, even just fancying something whimsically. Usage in the two languages is probably makes this a distinction without a real difference.

[oloriel]

Lust on its own can just mean "feel like doing something", really. You could ask someone Hast du Lust, Schwimmen zu gehen? and it wouldn't mean "are you lusting after a swim", but just "do you feel like going for a swim?". You could have "Lust" to do a lot of things - like reading a book, shopping, going for a walk or watching TV without being compelled to do all (or any) of them. It can also be used in the sense of motivation.

But in Wanderlust, there actually is an element of being compelled, at least in modern useage - though it's not actually all that commonly used anymore. Although it has slightly different connotations, today one would be more likely to speak of being urlaubsreif, i.e., "ripe for a vacation". XD

[fred_mouse]

I find your 'forehead' example to be interesting, because I use both interchangeably, although I suspect one would be disapproved of by my mother as being 'Catholic', by which she would have meant a pronunciation used in the Catholic schools, which is probably a remnant of anti-Irish prejudice. To test this, I've just asked the teens (13-19), and they are all of the fore-head rather than forrid pronunciation. So even without them having been explicitly exposed to the pressures, there is still that movement happening in the language.

The other one I remember hearing about was the change to include the 'l' in almond and salmon. Which I don't think anyone around here does (Australia, West Coast)

[conuly]

Learning that people used to say forrid suddenly made "There was a little girl/with a little curl" ever so much more poetic.

[jesse_the_k]

Ah!

[moem]

I'm not sure what sound /v/ indicates. I say wanderlust with a w, just like all the Germans I know. But English is as much of a foreign language to me as German is, and I believe that the way Germans say the w sounds a bit v-ish to native English speakers' ears. Is that right?

[conuly]

A v in English is a voiced labiodental fricative - that is, it's like an f, but with voicing. Labiodental means you make the sound (phoneme) by touching your top teeth to your bottom lip. Fricative means you only slow the airflow a little bit as you make (articulate) the phoneme. And voiced, of course, means you use your vocal cords :)

A w in English is a voiced labial-velar approximant. Labial-velar means you round the lips (labial) while moving the back of the tongue towards the soft palate, or velum. Approximant means you barely stop the airflow at all - indeed, w is considered a semivowel.

We can describe all consonants in this method, and put them on a neat chart. Voiced or unvoiced, place of articulation, manner of articulation.

[conuly]

Sorry if you know all that. I never remember who knows just what.

[moem]

I don't know shit about these things and you lost me at fricative. I just know that it's a w and it sounds like a w. I may not be the right person to discuss the topic with and I'll bow out now.

[conuly]

Wait, you got past labiodental!?

LOL. "Fricative" just means a sound like f or s. When you say those sounds, you can put your hand in front of your mouth and feel the breath escaping. Try it with s.

But if you kept your tongue in the exact same place and stopped your breath entirely as you made the sound, you'd be saying t t t instead. That's called a "stop", or sometimes a "plosive". But stop is a better term.

If you kept your tongue in the same place still, and this time redirected your breath through the nose and used your voice, you'd be saying n. That's a nasal.

These three sounds all have the same place of articulation - you make them by putting your tongue in the same place. But they are distinguished by their manner of articulation - how you make the sounds, what you do to the airflow.

(Now I'll say sorry again. It's very very hard to shut me up once I get started.)

[moem]

I was trying to indicate that I don't really want to know. Sorry if I made you waste your time.

[chickenfeet]

Lots of examples of pronunciation being moved closer to spelling. Oddly I'm extremely inconsistent on this.

I say "forrid"
I say "med'cn" whereas the 3 syllable version seems to have become more common
I say "sold-jer" with an L, not the older "sojer"

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