Talk:foreign

welsch

Somebody tagged this as "to be checked". I've never heard anybody use that word, especially not in that meaning. I consider it to be a clearly outdated term meaning "Italian or French", analogue to windisch, wendisch "West Slavic (or simply anything from or in the East)" and teutsch "German".

I'm a native speaker (northern standard) – does that mean I could have simply deleted it without first discussing it here? Dustsucker 14:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but preferably with the correct word substituted. —Stephen 14:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Spanish

I understand that there is a word in spanish very similar "foreino" which is used to refer to buses going outside of city limits. As to the source of the word, I believe it comes from latin foreign - for meaning outside of - reign meaning kingdom Dwarf Kirlston 06:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

RFD

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foreign

As noun, "foreigner". The (non-durably archived) citation shows the kind of "fused-head" construction that is possible in principle for every sense of every English adjective. To keep such things would mean adding a noun sense for every sense of every adjective not derived from a noun. DCDuring TALK 22:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Move to rfv, if it exists, keep it. Otherwise, don't. --Mglovesfun (talk) 08:43, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

And yet we have a noun sense at (deprecated template usage) poor. (Isn't foreign as a noun often a deliberately facetious parody of ignorance? "I 'ate them foreigns.") Equinox ◑ 20:39, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I would RFV except I can already see that Google Books shows the noun in genuine use. DAVilla 06:31, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Kept as no consensus. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 19:24, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

RfD 2

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foreign

Sense: "Belonging to a different culture."

Eating with chopsticks was a foreign concept to him.

The usex shows a use that I would gloss as "alien, strange". And not everything "belonging to a different culture" is foreign. For example, the various Native American cultures are not called "foreign" by more recent arrivals, except sometimes in the sense of "alien, strange", nor is the culture of the American pilgrims, or of Mormons, etc. This just seems like a sloppy definition to me. DCDuring TALK 07:24, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I would say someone was trying to express a "pertaining to an outside country" sense, but then I noticed we already have it as sense 2. Maybe this should be considered an RFV issue. Either way delete unless someone shows citations which cannot be subsumed under other senses. As for the usage example, I would say it just means "unfamiliar, unknown" here, which may or may not be conflated with "alien, strange". — Keφr 09:11, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

A few citations for languages described as foreign in their own lands:

• "While he felt that academically gifted students did well with Welsh, mandatory foreign language simply gave weak students a chance to feel like a failure."
• "Drawing on New Zealand examples, she states that a foreign language – in this case Maori – within a predominantly anglophone context functions as something which "threatens meaning and subject formation, including the idea of a coherent national identity"
• "As Pfeiffer noted on the integration of Navajo children to the US schooling system: Navajo children are taught in a foreign language: they are taught concepts which are foreign, they are taught values that are foreign, they are taught lifestyles which are foreign, and they are taught by human models which are foreign."

Also some useful hits at google books:"foreign in its own country", google books:"foreign in their own country", google books:"foreign in their own land" etc. I suppose you could argue that the Welsh, Maori and Navajo are nations, even if they're not states - perhaps merge this into the "relating to a different nation" sense. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:40, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

To me at least some of that kind of use seems to be playing on the two senses of foreign, but I am open to citations, rewording, etc. And we have foreign language as an entry, not that the single definition there is adequate as currently worded. It should be made to earn its keep by freeing us of the need to specifically cover the cases above. (If not, we should delete it.) DCDuring TALK 04:22, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it's redundant. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:03, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Yep, it seems redundant with sense #6: "alien, strange". --Hekaheka (talk) 07:03, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Sense deleted; translations put below {{ttbc-top}}; foonyms moved to other senses. — Keφr 22:48, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation

@Leasnam, re diff: is it {{a|cot-caught}} merger? (WP says that merger affects /ɔ/ and /ɒ/ and that the father-bother merger is the one affecting /ɑ/, but we give the cot-caught merged pronunciation of words like sought as /sɑt/, so...) I've occasionally seen it mislabelled as "NYC" or "East Coast", but it doesn't actually seem to be geographically restricted in that way. (See also Wiktionary:Tea_room/2022/April#quarantine... but IMO if it's not cot-caught it's probably best without a label, just like you entered it, rather than misrepresented as a New York thing as in some entries; w:New York accent says "/ɔ/ [and] /ɔr/ [...] are kept strongly distinct from /ɑ/".) - -sche (discuss) 23:12, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I noticed the NYC label at origin, which shows a separate pronunciation. Leasnam (talk) 23:16, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

orange has it too, labelled 'East Coast' Leasnam (talk) 23:17, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I merge cot-caught, and father-bother are also the same for me; but I don't say /ɑ/ in origin, foreign, orange - those are clear 'o's, long 'o's as in 'storage'. Seems the pronunciation like /ɑ/ is making them short 'o's. I'm no accent expert, but it looks to me like shortening of the vowel. I wonder, do the same speakers also pronounce 'porridge' like /ˈpɑɹɪd͡ʒ/ ? Leasnam (talk) 23:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Now this has me thinking...is it related to pairs like 'taurus' /ˈtɔːɹəs/ vs. /ˈtɑɹəs/ ? Leasnam (talk) 23:30, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Irrelevant (formal)

Unrelated, as in Your observations are utterly foreign to the matter in hand. JMGN (talk) 14:40, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@JMGN The OED has Not related to or concerned with the thing or person being considered; of a different nature or character; strange, unfamiliar, alien., which I think captures this sense. It's a bit broader than "irrelevant", as it also covers ideas like "foreign concept", but I think that's fine. alien is probably a synonym.

I'd say that it's probably archaic in contexts where it could be misinterpreted to mean "of foreign origin" (e.g. the OED has the 1681 citation "What have I to do with mysteries, and things that are foreign to me?"), but it does still see use in certain contexts, I agree. I'm not sure it's specifically formal, though: in the example you give it feels a bit euphemistic as a way to soften the blow, but the OED has a 2005 citation that feels pretty colloquial ("In hospital all the treatments and medications they gave me and being put on oxygen was all so foreign to me that it scared the holy ghost out of me."). Theknightwho (talk) 15:16, 28 July 2024 (UTC)