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

View Respondents

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

[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.