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April 22

Questions

Why so few languages have C.V split, when consonant-final (closed) syllables are followed by vowel-initial (onsetless) syllables? Why nearly all languages syllabify CVCV as CV.CV and not CVC.V? Are there languages where C.V split is common?
Are there any words in English where letter H is pronounced at the end of word?
Why does Spanish pronounce letter S as voiced /z/ between vowels and use ⟨ss⟩ for /s/ sound there? Why does Spanish pronounce S as voiceless in this enviroment, unlike e.g. Portuguese?
Why do so few languages have two low vowels?

--40bus (talk) 17:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

CV is the one syllable type which exists in all languages whatsoever. English [h] is famously in complementary distribution with [ŋ], so no. And there's less room at the bottom of the vowel triangle than at the top (as I said in one of my past answers). AnonMoos (talk) 20:06, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any languages that disallow CV syllables? --40bus (talk) 15:46, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some languages place contextual restrictions on CV syllables, but CV is the only syllable type guaranteed to be found in every language (as I said). If intervocalic consonants following a stressed "checked" vowel (such as the [k] in "backer") are considered ambisyllabic (which I consider to be the most sensible analysis), then English places contextual restrictions on CV syllables... AnonMoos (talk) 21:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It has been argued that the phonotactics of Arrernte does not allow CV syllables, although this appears to require a specific analysis of words that on the surface appear to be exceptions, such as ye and kele. --Lambiam 21:07, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The question about Spanish contradicts itself. But remember what you have been told about "why" questions. Also, remember what you have been told about "why" questions, and what you have been told about "why" questions. —Tamfang (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The premise of question 3 is wrong. Spanish ⟨s⟩ is /s/ between vowels, as in casa /ˈkasa/. It's Portuguese where single ⟨s⟩ between vowels is /z/ (e.g. casa /ˈkazɐ/) and double ⟨ss⟩ is /s/ (e.g. cassa /ˈkasɐ/). Spanish doesn't have /z/ as a phoneme at all, though /s/ surfaces as [z] before a voiced obstruent, as in desde. And (modern) Spanish doesn't use ⟨ss⟩ at all. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:59, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does Spanish also use letter X in native words at all? --40bus (talk) 16:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@40bus: Not normally. There's extraño, which was formerly spelled and pronounced estraño but the spelling and later the pronunciation were changed under the influence of the Latin source. Otherwise ⟨x⟩ is only found in loanwords, including learned borrowings from Latin. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:01, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why does Spanish use letter X less frequently than Portuguese and Catalan? --40bus (talk) 14:19, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding 2) Only if there was some dialect or accent that used a sort of "linking H" as a form of Epenthesis; I can't think of any English words that have an audible Voiceless glottal fricative at the end of a word. "H insertion" does occur in some dialects, but this is invariably at the start of words. Regarding the other three questions, please read the second and third sentence Tamfang wrote above.--Jayron 32 12:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

5. Spanish Q and Bulgarian Ъ are examples of letters that don't appear in their own names but in some other letters' names. Are there any other examples of this in world's languages?
6. Are there any words in Dutch which have double vowels before a single consonant followed by vowel, e.g. taalen?
7. Can consonants be geminated after long vowels in Estonian? --40bus (talk) 15:46, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(5) W is an example in English. Deor (talk) 16:02, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~And in Spanish.~~ --Error (talk) 18:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

6: Yes, compounds where the consonant belongs to the first part. For example: faalangst, deelauto, schoolontbijt. A couple of spelling reforms ago it was more common. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The old spelling can still be seen in many Dutch proper nouns, such as Veelerveen and Hoogerwerf. --Lambiam 20:52, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or in any book or newspaper printed before 1934. PiusImpavidus (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And also compounds where the first part ends with double e and the second starts with a single consonant: meenemen, pleefiguur, zeehond. In contrast to the other vowels, e is doubled in word-final position. If single, it's a schwa. PiusImpavidus (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~5. Y is i grec in Romanian and ipsilono in Esperanto. C is ze in Basque. Ç is ce trencada in Catalan. ß is eszett in German. X is equis in Spanish.~~ --Error (talk) 18:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't see the "in some other letters' names" part. --Error (talk) 18:22, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For #7, see the Wikipedia article titled gemination: "Other languages, such as English, do not have word-internal phonemic consonant geminates." What that means is that, while a geminated consonant may occur from time-to-time in speech, these geminates are allophonic with the ungeminated consonant, that is they are considered non-phonemic in that there is no minimal pair in English by which the geminated consonant means something different than the ungeminated consonant. The only time gemination occurs in English (and only in some dialects) is at word boundaries where the one word ends with a consonant and the next word begins with the same consonant. For example, in the phrase "That is a fast truck", when spoken in careful speech, some dialects will geminate the "t" sound in "fast truck", whereas "My car is faster" the "t" is faster is ungeminated. --Jayron 32 12:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

40bus's question was about Estonian, though. --Theurgist (talk) 13:33, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So it was. I misread it as English. Carry on. --Jayron 32 13:41, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For #5, note that while the official name of that Bulgarian letter is "ер голям", it is very commonly called "ъ", like the other vowel letters, whose names are just themselves. --Theurgist (talk) 13:34, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

8. Does Turkish use letters Ç, Ğ, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü in enumeration? Would chapters in books be named bölüm A, bölüm B, bölüm C, bölüm Ç, bölum D? --40bus (talk) 14:17, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Usually it goes like A–B–C–D–...; see e.g. here, or here under Madde 6. I do not know if the once forbidden^[1] letters Q, W and X would be skipped. --Lambiam 21:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why they discriminate against special letters? --40bus (talk) 10:03, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you keep asking "why" questions? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:14, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They should use special letters. --40bus (talk) 16:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Who says so, besides you? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:38, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The letters Ç, Ğ, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü are as much letters in Turkish alphabet as are all basic Latin letters, so why not use them? --40bus (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You would have to ask the inventors of that alphabet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:11, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

40Bus -- You sound a little like Wikinger, who was highly concerned that the letters digamma, qoppa, san(pi), and sho were unduly neglected in the Greek alphabet (even though sho was never used to write the Greek language, among other things)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

9. Are there any languages where relative clause precedes noun and which use relative pronouns? The WALS map does not display any such languages.
10. Why voiced pharyngeal and glottal plosives are not possible?
11. Can fricatives be preaspirated or breatchy voiced? --40bus (talk) 14:18, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This section will be moved to the archives relatively soon. AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 25

Ancient Greek Seas

Did the Caspian Sea and the Atlantic Ocean have a specific name in the Ancient greek language? Thank you! 82.52.31.81 (talk) 14:51, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As noted at the Wikipedia article titled Atlantic Ocean (which you linked and presumably read), in the first section after the lead, titled "Toponymy" discusses several ancient Greek names for the Atlantic Ocean. In the Wikipedia article Caspian Sea, under the "Etymology" section, it states "Among Greeks and Persians in classical antiquity it was the Hyrcanian ocean." which is, admittedly, not referenced to a great source. However This source and This source are far better and confirm the name. --Jayron 32 15:09, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your quick answer! How would you write "Hyrcanian Ocean" in Ancient Greek (I mean translated and written in the Ancient Greek alphabet)? --82.52.31.81 (talk) 15:17, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has the spelling of Hyrcania as Ὑρκανία, which matches the Wikipedia article. Presumably something like " Ὑρκανίασ θάλασσα", Herkanias Thalassa, though I'm not 100% sure I have gotten the adjectival form of Hyrcania correct here. Someone who knows a bit more about Ancient Greek can probably correct that better. This suggests the people who lived there were known by the demonym Ὕρκανοι, Hyrkanoi, which in Latin was Hyrcani. this source is an english translation that contains the word Hyrcanian, which in this greek text is written Ὑρκανοὺς, Hyrkanous. So perhaps Ὑρκανοὺς θάλασσα, Hyrkanous Thalassa, would be the best option for Hyrcanian Ocean. --Jayron 32 16:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ancient Greeks called it Κασπία θάλαττα and Κάσπιον πέλαγος and Ὑρκανία θάλαττα.(There's a scanning error or something in that last one on the Pegasus Project page; I've supplied Ὑ rather than Γ as the initial letter.)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Deor (talk • contribs)

Good find. I tried only looking under Hyrcania there. It appears both "Hyrcanian" and "Caspian" we in use. --Jayron 32 16:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm pretty sure the scanning error was much worse than you presumed, φάλαττα is probably supposed to be θάλαττα, thalatta, the attic form of thalassa, ocean. See [2]. The φ, phalatta or falatta seems to be gibberish. --Jayron 32 16:57, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My error as well as a scanning error. I just stupidly grabbed the wrong letter in the dropdown Greek menu at the bottom of the edit window when I was trying to fix up what the reference had. Deor (talk) 17:04, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on whether the sea would have been named after the landscape (Ὑρκανία, Hyrcania) or after the people (Ὑρκανοί, Hyrcanoi), it would be Ὑρκανίας θάλασσα, Sea of Hyrcania, or Ὑρκανών θάλασσα, Sea of the Hyrcanoi. In both cases the case has to be genitive, hence not -ους, but -ων. Another detail is that in this part of the Ancient Greek world, it would probably be θάλαττα (thalatta) instead of θάλασσα (thalassa), cf. Thalatta! Thalatta!. --T*U (talk) 16:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Ὑρκανία θάλαττα the first word is an adjective. This source states, "Ὑρκανία θάλαττα is sometimes used in the sense of Caspian Sea; sometimes it merely indicates the eastern part of it." --Lambiam 21:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is how gendered a language is a measurable quantity?

I often hear that English is less gendered a language than Hebrew or Spanish or Hebrew as for English, boy and girl can be simply switched out in "The tall boy quickly jumps onto the green horse" where in other languages, putting in girl for boy can change other words. Additionally in some languages horse and sheep may be gendered (not the gender of the animal) causing green to have different forms for each. Are there any ways of quantifying this, so that Spanish gets an 8.6, Hebrew a 9.5 and English a 2.4 (to make up random numbers). Presuming there is some way of measuring it (or even looked at subjectively), what languages are "less" gendered than English? Naraht (talk) 19:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If a language has different words for a male parent and for a female parent, is it gendered? Or if it has different words for a male monarch and for a female monarch? Apart from such things, the only aspect in which modern English is gendered is in the singular third-person pronouns and personal determiners (he/she/it, him/her/it, and so on) where the first two of each triple have to agree with the natural (non-grammatical) gender of the implied referent (not counting the affectation of referring to ships as she). In many other languages, all nouns have a grammatical gender, and there may be grammar rules requiring that various parts of speech (articles, adjectives, verbs) "agree" – that is, assume different forms accordingly. For more, see Agreement (linguistics) § Gender. Different gendered languages have different gender systems; see Grammatical gender § Gender contrasts. One measure of how gendered a language is, is the number of genders (sometimes called noun classes). Tuyuca may be the record holder in the number of classes. Another measure is the number of parts of speech that need to agree, but it is not always clear how to count this. (For French, it is articles, personal possessive determiners, adjectives and participles, but one can say they are just all modifiers.) The product of these two measures is an indication of the complexity. There are also many languages that have no grammatical gender at all, including Afrikaans, English, Persian and Turkish. Turkish also has no natural gender for pronouns; the pronoun o stands for he/she/it. --Lambiam 20:32, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam -- As far as I know, just about every language in the world has different basic stems to express the meanings "mother" and "father", except a small number of Polynesian languages, which have one word to express "mother", "father", "uncle", "aunt", and other non-in-law relations of one's parental generation. The Hawaiian word is makua, but of course this can be differentiated by suffixes (makuahine "mother, aunt" vs. makua kāne "father, uncle"), just as English can differentiate "male cousin" and "female cousin". Esperanto has a very unnatural system, where the word for "mother" (patrino) is bizarrely formed by adding a feminine suffix to the word for "father" (patro)! AnonMoos (talk) 10:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've occasionally idly wondered which was more gendered, English of the first half of the 20th century, which had separate "he" and "she" pronouns, but a small and declining number of nouns distinguished by sex, or Finnish of the first half of the 20th century, which had no female/male pronoun distinctions whatsoever, but where it was pretty much obligatory to add the female -tar/-tär suffix onto nationality, occupation, and agent nouns referring to women. I don't have any answer which could be expressed as a numerical point score. AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OP. I know there are some elements of gender in just about all languages, but English seems to have chucked most of them to the curb, though the Turkish o seems to have us beat in that particular area. As an English native speaker (with *minimal* knowledge of other languages), noun classes just make my head hurt.:) Naraht (talk) 14:09, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Japanese, male and female speech often diverge significantly, although that might not be gendering in the strictest sense(?) I.e. the words for "you" differ depending on the adresser, not the adressee. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Same with Thai, e.g. for ”hello”, a male speaker would add “khrap” where a female would add “kha”:

สวัสดี ครับ (sawatdee khrap)
สวัสดี ค่ะ (sawatdee kha)

cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 02:52, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Burmese has two polite terms of address similar to English "sir" and "ma'am", except that in English the choice between them is determined by the gender identity of the addressee and in Burmese by the gender identity of the speaker. Men address people of all genders as ခင်ဗျာ hkămya, while women address them as ရှင် shin. I have no idea what Burmese-speaking enbies do. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 26

English tense of "is eaten"

In the sentence "This type of rice is eaten all over the world." what tense is represented by 'is eaten'? RJFJR (talk) 04:53, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Present tense, passive voice. --Wrongfilter (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More specifically, the simple present. --Lambiam 09:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Damn it, never good enough... But, isn't "simple" more of an aspect? --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC) [reply]

True, but then you could just have said "Present tense", full stop. --Lambiam 14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I could have, but I suspect that the passive voice is what actually prompted the question. I hope you didn't take offense, my comment was thoroughly tongue in cheek. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My seconds will contact your seconds. --Lambiam 20:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These days, we have to say "My seconds will reach out to your seconds. (*vomit*) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see now. I was trying to figure out why that form to be was in there and it threw me. (I was trying to figure out how to explain to a non-native speaker of English why it should be is eaten rather than is ate.) Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 01:57, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Péter Pan

I have a very important question to ask. I don't speak French but I just noticed that, according to our Wiktionary, péter means "flatulate" and pan can be an onomatopoeic French word meaning "Bang!". Was it ever an issue for the French translations of Peter Pan? 195.62.160.60 (talk) 11:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe so. The French are as familiar with common English first names as the English are with French names like Pierre, and the Greek god Pan, which was the inspiration for the character and the last name, is well known by that name in French. Does it mean that someone wouldn't have made a silly joke? Of course, toilet humor and puns exist in all languages, I'm sure someone thought to make such a joke. But it would not have presented any confusion or caused any sort of misunderstanding. --Jayron 32 12:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although the names of English language characters are often changed in translation, the French Wikipedia article Peter Pan suggests that this is not the case in this instance. Bizarrely, Christopher Robin becomes Jean-Christophe in French, even though they can manage Robin des Bois for Robin Hood. Also there's Janneman Robinson in Dutch, even though Christoffel is a well-known forename in the Netherlands. Alansplodge (talk) 13:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just about every single Bandes dessinées character has a separate name in Dutch... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Captain Hook and his sidekick Mr. Smee are le capitaine Crochet and M. Mouche in the French translations. --Lambiam 15:49, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While not very common, the name Peter occurs as a masculine given name in France (Peter Franquart, Peter Luccin, Peter Sampil), and the name Wendy as a feminine given name (Wendy Bouchard, Wendy Delorme, Wendy Obein). But perhaps these were named after the fictional Peter and Wendy. --Lambiam 15:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Wendy, almost certainly named chronologically after Wendy Darling, if not directly named after them. The modern name Wendy as a girls name was basically nonexistent prior to Barrie's introduction of it (it can be found as a masculine first name and as a surname, though both are exceedingly rare to the point that it is doubtful Barrie had ever heard the name before). Basically, Barrie invented the name out of whole cloth, and any use of it in the modern world comes from Peter Pan (if not directly, then at some point in the chain). --Jayron 32 15:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly agree, but Wendy Wood (born 1891), as a contraction of Gwendoline, slightly predates Barry's play, although whether she adopted the name later in life, I have been unable to determine. Gwendolen is a Welsh name derived from Queen Gwendolen, a legendary British queen and I imagine would be unknown in France. Alansplodge (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to the point, it is unlikely that Barrie named his character after a preteen living in South Africa... --Jayron 32 18:24, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but my point was that "Wendy" may have been a known but uncommon contraction of "Gwendoline" at that time. Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. --Jayron 32 18:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had assumed she was called Wendy because she wends her way. (Aside: Is anything but a way ever wended?) I grew up with the pin–pen merger, which I had to unlearn and which probably still pops up from time to time, so I also associate "Windy" with this name. --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Wendy Darling#The name Wendy. Deor (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WHAAOE! Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes we have even more than one. Much the same points are made in the lead of Wendy. Deor (talk) 18:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 28

Arabic romanisation of a name

For this person, what's the preferred romanisation? BBC News prefers Julood but The Guardian goes with Jaloud. Blythwood (talk) 03:17, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Arabic script the family name is جلود.^[3] The first vowel is short. There is no standard way of pronouncing the vowels in an Arabic name, which also depends on the variety of Arabic (see also Varieties of Arabic § Vowels), and there is also no standard way of romanizing them. The ⟨u⟩ in the romanization used by BBC News is most likely meant to represent an /a/, which is not a common phoneme of English but is somewaht similar to the /ʌ/ of English hut. An English speaker naively pronouncing an unfamiliar word may produce a better approximation of how the name sounds in the mouth of an Iraqi speaker for the word julood than for jaloud, which might be made to rhyme with aloud. For a French speaker, this would be the other way around. --Lambiam 19:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of a (probably simple) arabic text on an image

The quite ambiguously named file File:Unknown image and written language..jpg shows a (likely military related) arabic inscription somewhere in Iraq. I would like to have an English translation of the about 10-15 words visible there. Pittigrilli (talk) 07:09, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the words "Allahu Akbar" in the flag have been painted out, then put back in again. Some of the words have more than one meaning, and I can't really make them fit together in a phrase, but the three words surrounding the map of Iraq are Awakening, Sacrifice, and Steadfastness. The words in the scroll probably mean "the borders of Iraq". The words under the scroll mean "6th Border Brigade", I guess. I'm not going to try to figure out the later graffiti... AnonMoos (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is very helpful, thank you. Where do/did the words "Allahu Akbar" (I know the meaning) stand? The red phrase? As the pic is from 2008, I assume that the whole wall writing is from before the US invasion 2003, hence from the Saddam rule time. As far as I know Saddam Hussein had a non-religious, quasi socialist (while dictatoric) ruling style and most/all religions (including christianity) were treated mainly equal. This would speak against the strong islamic words "Allahu Akbar" being part of the original painting as a symbol of a military unit, right? Pittigrilli (talk) 09:22, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't attempt to decipher the red text, or anything else that was not part of the original design. "Allahu Akbar" is in the flag: see Flag of Iraq. The design was done before the flag change in 2008, or by someone who opposed the flag change of 2008. If you could find out the organizational history of tthe 6th Border Brigade, that might help with the dating, but a little semi-perfunctory Google searching (in English) didn't turn up much. Christians haven't had much equality in Iraq since the 1933 Assyrian massacre -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:32, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, this answers my question. I am quite content with what you translated, so from my side we could close this. Thank you again, Pittigrilli (talk) 17:52, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The indivisible oneness of the trinity

I was recently listening to the song Hey Ladies and for some reason something just clicked to me about their particular choice of grammatical number. In case you're not a patron of the classics, the lyrics are here. The thing is, it's basically sung from the first person singular "I'm..." despite the fact that three people are singing it, either in harmony or in turns. And they're not expressing their individual perspectives (as you might typically find in a duet), but a kind of multi-person singular. Even the line "I'm Adam, and I'm adamant about livin' large" is started by Ad-Rock, but finished by someone else (Mike D, I think) without a change in perspective.

So, I guess my first question is, is this a wildly common form that I've just been oblivious to? Following on that, is it found elsewhere? It's not hard to find instances of multiple lead vocalists on a single song, but my impression is that it's unusual for such songs to take the form of a narrative with a single POV. Matt Deres (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How is this a language question? Nardog (talk) 22:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The concept has been around for a while: eg "My name is Legion, for we are many." Mark 5:1-10 [4] MinorProphet (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that this is a common and unremarkable form. Consider that choirs and congregations sing hymns with 1st person singular lyrics like "Mine eyes have seen the glory . . ."; barbershop quartets render "I dream of Jeanie . . ."; etc. I suspect examples could be found in virtually any musical genre. Perhaps a vocal expert could tell us if there's a technical term for it, but I doubt it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.18.208 (talk) 02:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 29