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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: OT: Polar seabirds (was Re: Gender Bending Moro)
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. NATLANG: A Romanian Sound Change
From: JS Bangs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Pleasantries
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: History of constructed languages
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Christopher Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. ADMIN: Pascal set to NOPOST for calming down
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: ADMIN: Pascal set to NOPOST for calming down
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: ADMIN: Pascal set to NOPOST for calming down
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 00:18:24 +0100
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Polar seabirds (was Re: Gender Bending Moro)
Joe wrote at 2005-04-03 20:20:50 (+0100)
> # 1 wrote:
>
> > Joe wrote:
> >> >>
> >>
> >> Just to say - Arctic flightless seabirds are Auks, Antarctic
> >> ones Penguins.
> >
> >
> > And my English-French dictionnary says "penguin" for both
> > "manchot" AND "pingouin", says "auk" as second translation for
> > "pingouin", and translates "auk" as "pingouin" AND "manchot",
> > so...
> >
> >
> > But I'm pretty well sure that some species of those in Arctic
> > (whatever their name are :-)) fly, may it be for only 5-15 meters
> > and that those in Antartica are flightless, are always very
> > straight, and walk by balancing their weight on their feet (what
> > makes them looking very funny!)
>
>
> Correct you are - my mistake. Auks can still fly, though their
> wings are very short, and as such they have to flap very
> quickly. The species I'm most familiar with is the Puffin, which
> can by identified by its brightly coloured beak.
No doubt, Joe, you were thinking of the Great Auk (pinguinus
impennis), which was flightless and became extinct in the mid 19th
century. The word "penguin" originally referred to the great auk,
according to my dictionary (note the name of the genus).
The word itself, with reference to auks, is of uncertain origin but
may be from Welsh _pen gwyn_ "white head", referring to a distinctive
white patch on the head of the bird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Auk
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 17:39:18 -0600
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I seem to be at odds with the entire English-speaking world. Not only do I
> distinguish /i\/ from /@/ (which apparently is unheard of in both American
> and British dictionaries, but to my ear as clear as a bell in actual
> speech on both sides of the pond),
Odd, I have the opposite problem: hard to find the distinction between the
unstressed /i\/-like sound and /@/, and always have to go to my AHD to find
out what the 'standard' is. (It sometimes, but not always, seems to follow
the orthography, which is to say the spelling doesnt help.)
Er, unless you mean the /i\/ of words like "just". I recognize that one.
(And so apparently does the AHD, though like the above sound not
distinguishing it from unstressed /I/.)
> but I clearly have [V] for /V/, and never [EMAIL PROTECTED] A stressed /@/ in
> my lectis pronounced as whatever vowel it was reduced from, which is
> almostuniversally reconstructable based on English's lovely
> morphoetymologicalspelling, and a small measure of knowledge of etymology.
I have no trouble distinguishing [V] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] either, though the
stressed /@/
is almost never enforced to its unreduced form, except in a few function words
which are always normally unstressed (e.g. to, an, the). Ordinary words spoken
slowly with emphasis on each syllable would still have the schwatic sound,
unless specifically trying to indicate the spelling as well (though admittedly
this is probably the most common reason for stressing schwas at all).
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 00:23:56 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
> > am willing to entertain the idea that classes, in
> > a language which already has them, can shift to
> > reflect a male bias.
>
> Do you have any possible examples in mind?
With me focusing on staying employed and staying alive, it's never
been a research topic on which I spent much time; so, no, not beyond
those already noted by others here (i.e. Spanish, etc.) for which
one would need a great deal of data about proto-"Latin".
> >Q: Am I the only one who perceives professional linguists
> >as prone to grab onto an idea and run it to its extreme?
> >(e.g. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean here; it is my impression that
> most linguists are not enthused about Sapir/Whorf at all,
> and have no inclination to take it to extremes.
I was using the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as an example (that's what
the "e.g." preceding means). "Language can influence thought" was
ramped up to "Language determines thought", which was batted about
until rejected; and is now re-appearing as the "can influence"
version.
Same with the hypothesis of language classes being related to social
gender. Saying "classes, in a language which already has them, CAN
shift to reflect a male bias" is to me less extreme than "male bias
IS exhibited via classes in languages".
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 00:31:21 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >I'll seek out the book _Gender_ to read, but I seldom take one
>Another book is _Gender Shifts in the History of English_ by Anne
Seems I'll be reading neither for a while: my local libraries don't
have them, interlibrary loan is on indefinite hold for city & county
systems, and I can't afford $75/book right now.
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 22:00:11 -0500
From: JS Bangs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: NATLANG: A Romanian Sound Change
There is an interesting change that occurs in rural Moldovan dialects
of Romanian whereby labials become palatalized velars before the vowel
/i/. I have verified that this change occurs before all labial
obstruents:
Standard Dialect Orthography
[co'pi][co'k_ji] copii (children)
['bi.ne] ['g_ji.ni bine (well)
[fi] [Si] fii (sons)
[vin] [Zin] vin (wine)
I'm not sure exactly what the environment for this change is, and I
don't have the data to figure it out. What I do remember is hearing in
my Linguistics class that this sort of change shouldn't be possible.
It has to do with feature geometry–the [labial] feature is a lip
gesture, which the tongue position can't affect. Obviously this isn't
the case, because this sound change *does* take place, but I'm
wondering if any one knows of any similar examples or can shed light
on this particular change.
(Note: Cross-posted to my blog at http://jaspax.com)
--
JS Bangs
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://jaspax.com
"I could buy you a drink
I could tell you all about it
I could tell you why I doubted
And why I still believe."
- Pedro the Lion
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Message: 6
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 23:48:44 -0500
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Joseph Bridwell
> Q: Am I the only one who perceives professional linguists as prone to
> grab onto an idea and run it to its extreme? (e.g. Sapir-Wohrf
> hypothesis)?
I'd say this happens in every study or endeavor. And just to
clarify, since your parenthetical comment is ambiguous, I don't
there's ever been a majority of linguists who really bought into
the Sapir-Whorff hypothesis, and it's certainly true now that
very few support it.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 09:00:09 +0300
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
On Apr 4, 2005, at 1:19 AM, Paul Bennett wrote:
> I seem to be at odds with the entire English-speaking world. Not only
> do I
> distinguish /i\/ from /@/ (which apparently is unheard of in both
> American
> and British dictionaries, but to my ear as clear as a bell in actual
> speech on both sides of the pond), but I clearly have [V] for /V/, and
> never [EMAIL PROTECTED] A stressed /@/ in my lect is pronounced as whatever
> vowel it
> was reduced from, which is almost universally reconstructable based on
> English's lovely morphoetymological spelling, and a small measure of
> knowledge of etymology.
I distinguish /i\/~/I/ (as in "pIn", "-tiOn") from /@/~/V/ (as in
"About", "histOry"); the latter feels a little different than stressed
/V/ ("gut", "bug"), but not much.
> On this subject (honestly, there's a connection if you dig for it),
> what
> is the Hebrew pronunciation of the word anglicised |schwa|, or for that
> matter the approved pronunciation in English speaking linguistics
> circles?
> I flit between /Sv@/ and /SwA/, and several others.
> Paul
Modern Israeli Hebrew: /Sva/
(or /Se'va/ if you have a thick Mizrahhi accent)
The way it's written indicates a hypothetical Classical Tiberian Hebrew
pronunciation of [EMAIL PROTECTED]:] (or [EMAIL PROTECTED]:]); you can add the
orthographic
final |alef| /?/ to the end if you want, but final alefs are generally
silent.
-Stephen (Steg)
"...i gave you love / you gave me fire
i took you in / you took me higher
if i wasn't what you wanted
then tell me what it was..."
~ cailyn's song #2 ("all of me") by jms
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 8
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 02:19:39 -0400
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pleasantries
Scott wrote:
> I have recently begun thinking about pleasantries for my conlang
> wikilret. There is a formal gender and a deference infix for verbs when
> the object of the sentence is of higher social standing. But I'm still
> thinking about how to handle pleasantries such as please, thank you,
> your welcome, etc.
>
> So how do natlangs or your conlang handle such words or circumstances?
>
Kash: please: maturo 'I beg', more formal turole 'begging'; one or the other
_must_ be used when addressing an imperative to a superior/older.
Maturo/turole also can mean 'excuse me', e.g. if you bump into someone, or
want to interrupt.
(Indonesian has two ways of saying please: tolong 'help' and coba 'try'; I
think the distinction is, tolong if you're asking for something to be done
for your behalf; coba if you're telling someone to do something for
themselves or just generally.)
Thanks: makuvus 'I thank ~I am grateful' to which the reply is _ta yale_
'there is not'
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Message: 9
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 07:57:09 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
On Sunday, April 3, 2005, at 12:43 , Thomas Wier wrote:
> I thought I should give a response to this because Pascal
> can't just go on stating falsehoods about the English
> language and linguistics in general without some response.
> However, as most of us are already aware, Pascal seems
> incapable of critical reception to his work without launching
> into vitriolic ad hominem attacks, as evidenced today by
> his attack on Joe, and thus any response of his to this
> I will not honor with a counterresponse.
Quite - which has made me hesistant to respond to this thread. But, like
you, I feel some things Pascal has said do need comment:
[snip]
>>> -Curious: Why did you use "ae" for schwa, rather than "a",
>>> when you use "a" for carrot [V]?
>>
>> I chose this to distinct between normal a and schwa. The carrot
>> [V] is just a short a, so I wrote it as such.
This is demonstrably incorrect. In no dialect of english that I am aware
of (but then I've only been a native English speaker for 65+ years) is [V]
just short a. Why the heck would IPA have separate symbols for [V] and [a]
if they are the same?
In fact _many_ British varieties of English actually pronounce /&/ as [a],
like the short a in German 'Mann' - it is not the same as [V]. The phoneme
/V/ is actually pronounced with a variety of sounds ranging from [V] to [U]
in Britain.
> In most dialects of English, including the English spoken by most
> nonnative speakers whose use you value so highly, there is no
> phonemic distinction the carrot [V] and the schwa [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Something we've debated more than once on Conlang. In RP of the SE England
_curry_ & _furry_ do not rhyme; /V/ and /@/ are not the same. But they are
in many dialects, including some Brit ones. I think a spelling reform
designed for _all_ English speakers should indicated the widest phonemic
inventory - and, of course, Pascal's scheme falls down badly in that
respect.
===============================================
On Sunday, April 3, 2005, at 01:20 , Christian Thalmann wrote:
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Well, then go and create your own spelling reform, rather than talking
>> someone else's work bad just because he's a "German".
>
> Sheesh, as if there hadn't been enough reform proposals
> already.
Quite so - it's like the auxlang market: supply far exceeds demand.
> Heck, even I've done two of those in my early
> conlang days.
Yep - I produced dozens of different English spellings reforms throughout
my teens and into my early twenties. I suspect most of the anglophone
members on this list have done so at some time or other.
> I'll have to agree with the general opinion that the
> proposed spelling is suboptimal for the needs of the
> English language. You neglect several important phonemic
> distinctions, and some choices (like |ei eu| for [ai oi])
Spelling /Qi/ as _eu_ is about as counter-intuitive as one could get! The
traditional _oi_ is near to the actual IPA representation - and, I think,
is the way most non-anglophones would also expect it to be represented.
> appear to have no other motivation than to make it look
> like German. In this light, the name "Advanced English"
..is a misnomer.
Would a spelling reform of German, based on a faulty analysis of German
phonology, the ignoring of "difficult" sounds (e.g. "We will not
distinguish between ü & u because they both 'sound the same'") and the
incorporation of some English eccentricities like spelling _mein_ as
'mighn' rightly be called "Advanced German"? I think not.
==============================================
In any case, how is English spelling reform Conlanging? Aren't there any
lists anywhere for those who want to investigate or propose English
spelling reforms?
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 10
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 07:53:30 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: History of constructed languages
On Friday, April 1, 2005, at 07:58 , David J. Peterson wrote:
> Ray wrote:
>
> <<
> Yes, certainly - in Dante's 'Divine Comedy' there is a fragment of a
> diabolic language.
> >>
>
> Hey, I'm reading that. I'm up to Canto 29 of Purgatory. Where
> is this language? Did I miss it?
Inferno -
Canto VII, line 1: Papè Satàn, papè Satàn aleppe!
Canto XXXI, line 67: Raphèl may améch zabì almì!
(Note: à = a-grave; è = e-grave; ì = i-grave)
=========================================
On Friday, April 1, 2005, at 10:14 , Thomas Wier wrote:
> From: Mark Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Anyway, I'm far from an expert, and I'd like to know what the first
>> constructed language for media use might've been. I'm not talking here
>> about
>> Esperanto or Volapuek etc., but a fictional languages for use in fiction.
>
> I think it's fair to say that conlanging as a fictional enterprise
> is something new in the 20th century.
That is not how I understand Umberto Eco's accounts of Gabriel de Foigny's
"La Terre ausrale connue" or Denis Vairasse's "L'Histoire des Sevarambes".
> Conlanging in some form goes
> way back. I believe I posted some years ago about my discovery
> that the brother of one of the Hellenistic Successors (_diadokhoi_)
Even earlier, there is a fragment of made-up language in one of
Aristophane's comedies (I must look it out).
[snip]
> ...........Jesse brought up the potentially earlier example of
> _Gulliver's Travels_, and IIRC Thomas More's _Utopia_ might contain
> some similarly poorly developed constructed language materials (if
> only lexemes). But all of these were to the best of my knowledge very
> cursory, and don't represent fictional languages in the sense of
I don't know enough about More & Utopia to comment, but certainly in the
case of Gulliver's travels, the fragments from Dante & the Aristophanes
line, I agree these don't represent fully developed fictional languages.
But Foigny certainly got beyond that; he did provide a sort of dictionary
and some grammatical rules at least.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 10:58:50 +0300
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
On Apr 3, 2005, at 6:43 AM, Patrick Littell wrote:
> Since someone is going to bring it up eventually, I figure I'll do it:
> Proto-Semitic polarity. The plurals of masculine nouns being feminine
> and plurals of feminine nouns being masculine. (Scads weirder than
> Moro, in my opinion, although probably not indicative of any sort of
> excessive gender-bending among ancient Semitic peoples.) There's
> still bits of this in Arabic, mostly of the masculine singular =>
> feminine plural variety. I can't say I understand the details, so
> I'll leave it to one of our resident Semiticists to fill me in. Did
> this also work with explicitly sexed groups? I think it doesn't with
> modern "walad" (boy); "awlad" (boys) is still masculine (right?), even
> though most of the nouns I know in that plural-class go through
> polarity.
I'm pretty sure that in Arabic, only non-human (or non-animate?) plural
nouns take singular feminine agreement; humans take masculine or
feminine depending on gender/sex.
I remember learning a theory that the masculine feminine-looking
numbers in Semitic started as some kind of collective, but i don't
remember if that theory said the same thing about feminine forms in
general.
-Stephen (Steg)
"...i gave you love / you gave me fire
i took you in / you took me higher
if i wasn't what you wanted
then tell me what it was..."
~ cailyn's song #2 ("all of me") by jms
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Message: 12
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 09:00:23 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> On this subject (honestly, there's a connection if you dig for it), what
> is the Hebrew pronunciation of the word anglicised |schwa|, or for that
> matter the approved pronunciation in English speaking linguistics
> circles?
> I flit between /Sv@/ and /SwA/, and several others.
I go for [SvA:], because it looks German.
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Message: 13
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 09:22:13 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Ray Brown wrote:
>
>> In most dialects of English, including the English spoken by most
>> nonnative speakers whose use you value so highly, there is no
>> phonemic distinction the carrot [V] and the schwa [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> Something we've debated more than once on Conlang. In RP of the SE
> England
> _curry_ & _furry_ do not rhyme; /V/ and /@/ are not the same. But they
> are
> in many dialects, including some Brit ones. I think a spelling reform
> designed for _all_ English speakers should indicated the widest phonemic
> inventory - and, of course, Pascal's scheme falls down badly in that
> respect.
While we're YAEPTing - 'furry' is [f3:ri] in my RP-ish Oxfordshire
dialect.
However, I would never merge [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [V], for my dialect, that
is. They
follow different rules. Schwa can't occur in monosyllabic words, and
occurs only in unstressed syllables - because it's a reduced vowel.
However, [V] can quite easily occur in monsyllables, but rarely in
unstressed ones, because it tends to be reduced to schwa. But this does
not mean they are the same - many vowels can be reduced to schwa, in
totally unstressed syllables.
Rather I'd say it's just that their nature (in my dialect, again) means
they cannot have minimal pairs. Rather like [N] and [h], in native words.
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 08:50:47 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> I chose this to distinct between normal a and schwa. The carrot
> >> [V] is just a short a, so I wrote it as such.
>
> This is demonstrably incorrect. In no dialect of english that I am aware
> of (but then I've only been a native English speaker for 65+ years)
is [V]
> just short a. Why the heck would IPA have separate symbols for [V]
and [a]
> if they are the same?
>
> In fact _many_ British varieties of English actually pronounce /&/
as [a],
> like the short a in German 'Mann' - it is not the same as [V]. The
phoneme
> /V/ is actually pronounced with a variety of sounds ranging from [V]
to [U]
> in Britain.
Incidentally, in my experience, the pronunciation of /V/
as [a] and /&/ as [E] are the most persistent features of
German accent, even after [T], [D] and [r\`] have long been
mastered.
-- Christian Thalmann
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Message: 15
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:24:17 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
Hi!
Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> >
> > On this subject (honestly, there's a connection if you dig for it), what
> > is the Hebrew pronunciation of the word anglicised |schwa|, or for that
> > matter the approved pronunciation in English speaking linguistics
> > circles?
> > I flit between /Sv@/ and /SwA/, and several others.
>
>
> I go for [SvA:], because it looks German.
However, many modern dialects of German don't distinguish [a] and [A]
(anymore?) -- the two collapse in the middle. I regularly write that
vowel as simply [a], but I suppose it should be [a_"] to be very
precise.
And for some strange reason, I have a short vowel there, I don't know
why. So I have [Sva_"] in German. This is close to modern Hebrew. :-)
I think I keep the vowel when speaking English, but say [Swa_"].
**Henrik
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________________________________________________________________________
Message: 16
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:03:49 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
Henrik Theiling wrote:
>Hi!
>
>Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>
>>Paul Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>On this subject (honestly, there's a connection if you dig for it), what
>>>is the Hebrew pronunciation of the word anglicised |schwa|, or for that
>>>matter the approved pronunciation in English speaking linguistics
>>>circles?
>>>I flit between /Sv@/ and /SwA/, and several others.
>>>
>>>
>>I go for [SvA:], because it looks German.
>>
>>
>
>However, many modern dialects of German don't distinguish [a] and [A]
>(anymore?) -- the two collapse in the middle. I regularly write that
>vowel as simply [a], but I suppose it should be [a_"] to be very
>precise.
>
>
Well, yes - my German is no doubt imperfect. Also, [a] isn't in my
dialect, so when it's in the middle of English speech, it gets
Anglicised (even more).
>And for some strange reason, I have a short vowel there, I don't know
>why. So I have [Sva_"] in German. This is close to modern Hebrew. :-)
>
>
>
Is a short vowel unexpected, then? I just want to reassure myself that
my German isn't too bad. ;p
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Message: 17
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 09:29:06 -0400
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
On Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:03:49 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Henrik Theiling wrote:
...
>>And for some strange reason, I have a short vowel there, I don't know
>>why. So I have [Sva_"] in German. This is close to modern Hebrew. :-)
>
>Is a short vowel unexpected, then?
Exactly. As in most Germanic languages, there's an interrelation of vowel
quantity and syllable structure: Short stressed vowels can only occur in
closed syllables (hence they're also called _checked_ vowels); a stressed
vowel in an open syllable must be long (therefore, these are also called
_free_ vowels).
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 18
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:20:38 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
> > is the Hebrew pronunciation of the word anglicised |schwa|, or for
>
> I go for [SvA:], because it looks German.
According to my Biblical Hebrew grammar [EMAIL PROTECTED] I usually say [SwA].
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Message: 19
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 10:17:37 -0400
From: Christopher Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I seem to be at odds with the entire English-speaking world. Not only do I
> distinguish /i\/ from /@/ (which apparently is unheard of in both American
> and British dictionaries, but to my ear as clear as a bell in actual
> speech on both sides of the pond),
Lotta people do. I do, most of the time, though I can't think of a minimal pair.
Muke Tever wrote:
>Odd, I have the opposite problem: hard to find the distinction between the
>unstressed /i\/-like sound and /@/, and always have to go to my AHD to find
>out what the 'standard' is. (It sometimes, but not always, seems to follow
>the orthography, which is to say the spelling doesnt help.)
>
>Er, unless you mean the /i\/ of words like "just". I recognize that one.
>(And so apparently does the AHD, though like the above sound not
>distinguishing it from unstressed /I/.)
[dZi\st]? I'd think you were saying 'gist' /dZIst/. English has [i\] but not
/i\/. Generally, high vowels reduce to [i\] and non-high vowels to [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
Muke quoting Paul Bennett
>> but I clearly have [V] for /V/, and never [EMAIL PROTECTED] A stressed /@/
>> in my
lectis pronounced as whatever vowel it was reduced from, which is
almostuniversally reconstructable based on English's lovely
morphoetymologicalspelling, and a small measure of knowledge of etymology.
>
>I have no trouble distinguishing [V] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] either, though the
>stressed /@/
>is almost never enforced to its unreduced form, except in a few function words
>which are always normally unstressed (e.g. to, an, the). Ordinary words spoken
>slowly with emphasis on each syllable would still have the schwatic sound,
>unless specifically trying to indicate the spelling as well (though admittedly
>this is probably the most common reason for stressing schwas at all).
People generally concede that English has phonemic /V/ that's realized as
[V] in stressed syllables, though it can be reduced like other vowels. At
any rate, convention says that a stressed schwa is [V] and an unstressed
form of [V] would always be [EMAIL PROTECTED] Schwa is a reduced vowel; in
spectrograms,
you always tell it because it's extremely short and usually neutral, sort of
like a tap except it's a vowel (and probably five times wider, but that's
1/3~1/2 the width of normal vowels). [V] has a medium F1 and a medium F2, so
if you have a full-length vowel you can't identify (in the spectrogram),
it's probably [V].
Are you using different definitions for [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [V]? I'm not
certain that
English has a phonemic schwa, though you'd probably want it for some
syllabic consonants at least.
-CWright
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Message: 20
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 11:16:31 -0400
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:25:16 -0700, Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
>>
>> Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
>> I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
>> away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
>
>I don't think it would have to do with your ethnicity, merely with that
>you are working with a language non-native to you. If an American-English
>speaker attempted a spelling reform of German, similar remarks could be
>expected.
If it were so, uch a concern could surely be expressed more cosiderately
without making such an ugly ad-hominem attack:
"Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect." -> that's a
rather crude and very unpolite sweeping stake about all Germans being
retarded (or otherwise being mentally incapable) and thus it's impossible
that they can come up with something really good.
About being a native speaker or not - that doesn't say ANYTHING about the
proficiency of the person in question! It's very well possible that a
non-native speaker is better than a native one. Just to name an example:
recently, all native speakers of British English at Oxford university (!)
were tasked to complete a simple "Basic Proficiency test for non-native
speakers" - originally intended to make sure that non-native speakers have
at least a basic grasp of English. However, a whopping 20% of the NATIVE
speakers miserably FAILED in this simple test!
About me not being able to take critic - I can, but not when it's initiated
with a personal attack at me (and not only me, but all Germans in General).
You can't expect me to sit still in that case!
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Message: 21
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 09:23:56 -0600
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become
official!)
Christopher Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Muke Tever wrote:
>> Odd, I have the opposite problem: hard to find the distinction between the
>> unstressed /i\/-like sound and /@/, and always have to go to my AHD to find
>> out what the 'standard' is. (It sometimes, but not always, seems to follow
>> the orthography, which is to say the spelling doesnt help.)
>>
>> Er, unless you mean the /i\/ of words like "just". I recognize that one.
>> (And so apparently does the AHD, though like the above sound not
>> distinguishing it from unstressed /I/.)
>
> [dZi\st]? I'd think you were saying 'gist' /dZIst/. English has [i\] but not
> /i\/.
But "gist" ["dZIst] has word stress, while [dZi\st] never does (the stressed
version is [dzVst]).
> Generally, high vowels reduce to [i\] and non-high vowels to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Maybe, but that's assuming that you can recognize what the unreduced vowel
is, which isn't always clear (English spelling does not generally lead me
to a naturalistic underlying sound... as I said, the spelling doesn't help.)
> Muke quoting Paul Bennett
>> I have no trouble distinguishing [V] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] either, though
>> the stressed /@/
>> is almost never enforced to its unreduced form, except in a few function
>> words
>> which are always normally unstressed (e.g. to, an, the). Ordinary words
>> spoken
>> slowly with emphasis on each syllable would still have the schwatic sound,
>> unless specifically trying to indicate the spelling as well (though
>> admittedly
>> this is probably the most common reason for stressing schwas at all).
>
> People generally concede that English has phonemic /V/ that's realized as
> [V] in stressed syllables, though it can be reduced like other vowels. At
> any rate, convention says that a stressed schwa is [V] and an unstressed
> form of [V] would always be [EMAIL PROTECTED] Schwa is a reduced vowel; in
> spectrograms,
> you always tell it because it's extremely short and usually neutral, sort of
> like a tap except it's a vowel (and probably five times wider, but that's
> 1/3~1/2 the width of normal vowels). [V] has a medium F1 and a medium F2, so
> if you have a full-length vowel you can't identify (in the spectrogram),
> it's probably [V].
>
> Are you using different definitions for [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [V]? I'm not
> certain that
> English has a phonemic schwa, though you'd probably want it for some
> syllabic consonants at least.
Hmm. Well, not sure if you meant it in the context of English alone or not,
but [EMAIL PROTECTED] is not _necessarily_ a reduced vowel--that is, reduced
_from_ a
vowel--that's just what it is in English. If I were to say "banana" with
stress on each syllable, it _would_ be [%b@: "n{:n %n@:] (second n ambisyllabic)
and those [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s would be different from [V]'s.
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 22
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 16:34:49 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
>On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:25:16 -0700, Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
>>>I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
>>>away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
>>>
>>>
>>I don't think it would have to do with your ethnicity, merely with that
>>you are working with a language non-native to you. If an American-English
>>speaker attempted a spelling reform of German, similar remarks could be
>>expected.
>>
>>
>
>If it were so, uch a concern could surely be expressed more cosiderately
>without making such an ugly ad-hominem attack:
>
>"Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect." -> that's a
>rather crude and very unpolite sweeping stake about all Germans being
>retarded (or otherwise being mentally incapable) and thus it's impossible
>that they can come up with something really good.
>
>
It *is* so, as I have said. Frankly, you're simply making up ways to
get offended. Not only that, you proceeded to make a generalisation
about Americans, on the basis that I was one, on the assumption that
they're arrogant.
>About being a native speaker or not - that doesn't say ANYTHING about the
>proficiency of the person in question! It's very well possible that a
>non-native speaker is better than a native one. Just to name an example:
>recently, all native speakers of British English at Oxford university (!)
>were tasked to complete a simple "Basic Proficiency test for non-native
>speakers" - originally intended to make sure that non-native speakers have
>at least a basic grasp of English. However, a whopping 20% of the NATIVE
>speakers miserably FAILED in this simple test!
>
>
>
We're not discussing the grammar, we're discussing the phonology.
Which, since it is unstandardised in English, *has* no right or wrong
besides usage. The purpose of a spelling reform is to more accurately
reflect sounds in a given language.
>About me not being able to take critic - I can, but not when it's initiated
>with a personal attack at me (and not only me, but all Germans in General).
>You can't expect me to sit still in that case!
>
>
>
Of course it wasn't a personal attack against you. I was just pointing
out that, as a non-native speaker, any odd things in your spelling
reform could be accounted for by your being a non-native speaker of
English. If you choose to take that as a personal attack, it's your
problem, not mine.
And a hell of a lot of Germnas on this list have failed to be offended
by this comment.
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Message: 23
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 17:54:17 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ADMIN: Pascal set to NOPOST for calming down
Hi!
After having warned him with no effect, I just used my strange powers
to put Pascal A. Kramm to NOPOST until he has calmed down (and at
least for 24h).
Bye,
Henrik
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Message: 24
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 17:11:24 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ADMIN: Pascal set to NOPOST for calming down
Henrik Theiling wrote:
>Hi!
>
>After having warned him with no effect, I just used my strange powers
>to put Pascal A. Kramm to NOPOST until he has calmed down (and at
>least for 24h).
>
>
Well, I should probably apologise for starting a mini-flame-war. I
probably should have phrased things better.
So, sorry, everybody!
Joe
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Message: 25
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 18:16:16 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ADMIN: Pascal set to NOPOST for calming down
Hi!
Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> >Hi!
> >
> >After having warned him with no effect, I just used my strange powers
> >to put Pascal A. Kramm to NOPOST until he has calmed down (and at
> >least for 24h).
>
> Well, I should probably apologise for starting a mini-flame-war. I
> probably should have phrased things better.
There's nothing to apologise for, your original comments were not
offensive at all.
**Henrik
(a German with non-standard English pronunciation and grammar)
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