# Tongue twister, tongue-twister



## Philip(pe)

As a transation for "_tongue-twister_", the Wordreference Anglo-Romanian dictionary only suggests "frază greu de pronunţat," which is not very helpful. I would like to add here these better translations:
_încurcătură de limbă
îmbârligătură de limbă
sclintelă de limbă
frântură de limbă_

Do native speakers agree with these translations? Can you think of other ways of saying this? Any one-word translations?


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## Philip(pe)

These are also used:
_scrântitură de limbă
frământare de limbă_


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## danielstan

Well, as native speaker I don't know any one-word translation for "_tongue-twister_".
As for the translations proposed above I guess they would not be understood as intended (I never heard such expressions in real life).

A possible translation, but as a paraphrase, could be:
"*exerciţii de dicţie"*


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## farscape

Totally agree, especially with the more formal but appropriate translation proposed by danielstan.

BTW, _*sclintelă*_ is not a Romanian word. Maybe you meant scrânteală?


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## irinet

Eu le-aș numi/ I would call / translate them as,  _împleticeli de limbă _because we have the idiom: _mi se împleticește limba în gură. _Lit. transl_.:  I have my tongue twisted into my mouth when I utter these impossible phrases. Or 'they made me twist my tongue'._
But they are known as _exerciții de dicție._


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## Philip(pe)

It is interesting that native speakers are in disagreement with the terms proposed by the Romanian version of Wikipedia. I wonder why this is the case, does the author of the wikipedia article not know the subject?
Frântură de limbă - Wikipedia


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## Philip(pe)

farscape said:


> BTW, _*sclintelă*_ is not a Romanian word. Maybe you meant scrânteală?



"Încurcăturile de limbă (numite şi îmbârligături de limbă sau sclinteli de limbă) sunt cuvinte sau propoziţii a căror citire, înţelegere sau exprimare orală se realizează cu destulă dificultate." Jocuri de Cuvinte

So this one, "sclinteli de limbă", is a mystery to me, but it definitely seems to exist: Romanian Google finds a good number of uses: "sclinteli de limbă" - Google Search

On the other hand the word is not in any of my dictionaries. Any insights into this?


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## danielstan

OK, disagreement among native speakers... so who to believe?

I repeat my opinion - I never heard someone using these expressions in real life. But seems that I need to say more than this...
Usually, when somebody mentions some Romanian tongue-twisters he/she uses them in a context like (from memory):
"- Poți să spui repede:
     'Capra sare piatra, piatra crapă-n patru. De-ar crăpa și capul caprei... etc. etc.'
 ?" 
("- Could you say quickly: 'Capra...' ?")

I looked over the uses of "sclinteli de limbă" that you mentioned: "sclinteli de limbă" - Google Search
In this blog: Îmbîrligături de limbă
the author says:
"... unde _tongue twisters –_ „Şase saşi în şase saci”, „un vultur stă pe pisc cu-n pix în plisc”, etc. – s-a tradus prin _îmbîrligături de limbă _sau_ sclinteli de limbă. "_
To me this is proof that " _îmbîrligături de limbă _sau_ sclinteli de limbă "_ are not used in common speech.

Another example from the google results above: Imbarligaturi de limba Forum romanii in Italia
Here, too, the author gives a definition for the Romanian translations of "tongue twisters" :
"Incurcaturile de limba(numite si imbarligaturi de limba sau sclinteli de limba)
sunt cuvinte sau propozitii a caror citire, intelegere sau exprimare orala se realizeaza cu destula dificultate."
Again, proof that we are not using such expressions in normal speech.


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## farscape

Try dexonline.ro - the site contains the on-line versions of all major Romanian dictionaries: I can't find sclinteli (sclinteală?).


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## irinet

Hi,
1.If that word is not in use, it means that it is too old or it may be specific/ narrowed to a region; but sorry to add more: _sclinteală _sounds too far-fetched to me. It is so because I have never, and I mean never, heard or used that word.

However, this word may exist in Bucovina, the Northern part of Romania and, why not, across the borders. *Sextil* *Pușcariu* mentioned the process of dissimilation of  'r - l' alternating to various parts of the country. It seems that the 'r' over 'l' won in this phonemic context, which was not the case with _a clinti _(= to move sth that is heavy - a word in use), but that would be another story. And I believe that DanielStan can be of help here.
To conclude, though I've come from the Southern part of the Moldovian region, I have had no idea of the existence of _sclinteală. So, it might be used far North._

And despite the controversy, I wouldn't find either _scr/lânteli _fit as we do not physically hurt our tongue when uttering tongue twisters, right? So...

2. On the other hand, _îmbârligătură,_ nowadays, has a negative connotation and it is so often used or heard as a slang word. I am not so amazed of Wikipedia or Dex, though. It wouldn't be the first time when these got some users even more confused because they are not updated.

[* To avoid confusion, I would have noted that _scrânti _is of general use, while _sclinteală could_ be in use in X region.]
_
3.Exerciții de dicție or jocuri de cuvinte are my favourite _and everyone would understand what they refer to. What's more, these phrases are academic, and they do not sound so odd nor old to anyone.

Last but not least, _împleticeli de limbă (tongue twisters) _still sounds better to me to this context that *m-a sclintit de tot* (made me sound crazy/funny).


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## danielstan

Some help:
(note: I spell 'L' instead of 'l' in order to avoid confusion with 'I' = capital 'i')

'L' and 'R' are 2 sounds with many similarities:
- they are 'liquids' (one could easily pronounce a long 'RRR' or a long 'LLL')
- the tongue position is similar when articulating both 'R' and 'L'.
These similarities in articulation make the 2 sounds interchangeable in many languages, Romanian included.
Many phonetic transformations in a language are driven by sounds or group of sounds with similar tongue movements and positions during articulation.

So, there is no surprise that a Romanian word has regional variants like: _a scrânti, scrânteală, sclinteală_ and so.
Another example, often cited by linguists: dexonline
(_colastră, coraslă_)

There is a phonetic rule in Romanian for the Latin inherited words which have transformed the intervocalic L (vowel + L + vowel) into intervocalic R (vowel + R + vowel)
Examples:
lat. _solem > _rom. _soare_
lat. _caelum > _rom. _cer_

There are 3-4 exceptions:
lat. _Rosalia > _rom. _Rusalii  _(religious term, could have entered Romanian from South Slavic languages which imported it from Latin)
lat. _colostra > _rom. _colastră  _(but the variant  _coraslă  _suggests an evolution: lat. _colostra _> *_corastră _> rom. _colastră_, _coraslă_)
lat. _schola > _rom. _școală _(supposed loan from South Slavic languages, after they loaned a Latin cultivated word)

On topic - I try to draw some conclusions:
the one-word or two-words Romanian translations for "_tongue twister"_ are simple word-by-word translations published on various blogs or articles
 (like many other American expressions who got stupid Romanian word-by-word translations in the era of internet.
Examples: "_per sources" = pe surse_, "_fast forward" = pe repede înainte_, "_to apply for"_ =_ a aplica pentru_, "_Great Depression"_ = _Marea Depresie, "1000 troops" = 1000 de trupe, "was pronounced dead" = a fost pronunțat mort_ etc.)

We don't have in current use a good Romanian translation for this expression.


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## irinet

Thank you, Daniel, for your helpful input.


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