La caza del bosón de Higgs

[Perikles]

The boson is named after the Indian physicist Bose. Boson in English, and the word was coined in English, pronounced bózon. Why does Spanish have bosón ?

OK, hardly of great import, but I was wondering whether some general rule was being applied.

[aleCcowaN]

after

electrón, neutrón, protón, fotón, pión (I'll never write intentionally "pion"), leptón, muón (I'll never write intentionally "muon"), mesón, gluón (ditto)

and any other that has slipped my mind

[Perikles]

All these names have been invented recently, and in English, where the accent is on the first syllable in every case. I wonder why the consistent change in Spanish.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

The musicality of a language is not determined by rules, but by speakers, don't you think?
In any case, it's probable that many of those words have come to Spanish through French, not through English.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

In any case, it's probable that many of those words have come to Spanish through French, not through English.

But why? When these words are barely 50 years old?

[Rusty]

'Musicality' (I like that) is the crux of the matter. When a new word is introduced into any language, it is adapted to that language's 'sound'.

In English, we have borrowed many words from other languages. And, without fail, we have altered those words to fit our way of speaking.
Take the word 'cousin', for example. We pronounce it /ˈkʌzən/, but the French, whence the word comes, pronounce it /kuˈzɛ/ (it looks like we're stressing the wrong syllable, if I were to use your argument). Likewise, 'rodeo' comes to us from Spanish. When used to describe the cowboy event, the most common pronunciation is /ˈroʊdiˌoʊ/ (Are we stressing the wrong syllable?).

Add 'cursor' to the list of English and Spanish words that have radically different pronunciations. Musicality is the answer.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Rusty

'Musicality' (I like that) is the crux of the matter. When a new word is introduced into any language, it is adapted to that language's 'sound'..

Thanks Rusty. Do you have any statistics giving the frequency of oxytone and paroxytone Spanish disyllabic words? I know that about 71% of all Spanish words are paroxytone (llano) so I assumed the 'musicality' would make oxytone (agudo) less likely. Hence my question.

[Don José]

I have no statitics, but after reading your last post, I think most of the Spanish words ending in -on are agudas (oxytone).

I am talking about nouns, because you have all those verbs comieron, fueron, dijeron..

[Rusty]

I don't have any stats. It just seems to ring true that a borrowed word ending in -on would lean towards being oxytone.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

All these names have been invented recently, and in English, where the accent is on the first syllable in every case. I wonder why the consistent change in Spanish.

-on ending from "ión", "catión", "anión" (all charged entities), all from Greek "ἰών" (ión = que va), terms created by Michael Faraday.

Also, the -on ending in Spanish (forma del aumentativo) always change the position of the stressed syllable (camisa, camisón, tela, telón, etc.)

[Perikles]

Thanks everyone