Omniscience [was Re: German <w> (was:Dubya and before that, minimalpairs)]

[Leo A. Connolly]

>> Robert Whiting wrote:

>>> ... I had a German-speaking
>>> colleage who pronounced English <v> as [w] (as in "willage").  When I
>>> pointed out to her that she could easily pronounce the [v] sound in
>>> <village> she said, "Oh, no, German doesn't have that sound -- we use
>>> <v> for [f] like in <Vater>.  Well, what can you say?  Now if 'village'
>>> were written *<willage>, she would have had no trouble pronouncing it.

Leo Connolly replied:

>> Sure she would have.  The fact is, some Germans pronounce <w> as
>> labiodental [v], while others use a bilabial fricative.  When speaking
>> English, the latter use the bilabial fricative in lieu of the English
>> bilabial glide /w/ and the labiodental fricative /v/.  Since this is
>> obviously wrong in each instance, but English has no bilabial fricative,
>> English speakers usually believe these Germans have said [v] instead of
>> /w/ and [w] instead of /v/, when in fact they said neither.  Spelling
>> had nothing to do with her pronunciation problems.

Robert Whiting rejoined:

> My only problem with this scenario is how do it know?  How does this
> highly intelligent sound know that when it appears in English <will>
> it has to sound like [v] but when it appears in English <village> it
> has to sound like [w]?  And if this sound is that smart, won't it
> eventually take over the world?  It has already made my Austrian
> colleague into a German.  But it is good to know that it is possible
> to pronounce so apodictically about the speech habits of someone that
> one has never met or conversed with.

Several comments:

1.  "It" (the sound, I presume) doesn't have to know anything.

2.  Many millions of German speakers realize /v/ (written <w> or, in
foreign words,
<v>) as a voiced bilabial fricative.  These speakers then lack the
voiced labiodental fricative, even though they have a voiceless
labiodental /f/ written <f> or <v>.  I know of no German speakers who
realize German /v/ as [w], or who have a prevocalic [w] of any sort in
their language.

3.  Germans who possess [v] can, of course, handle initial English /v/
just fine with no special effort.  Those who use the bilabial fricative
cannot.  And neither group does well with English /w/; without extensive
practice, they produce [v] or the bilabial fricative for that one too.

4.  My remark concerns how *English speakers* interpret the initial
bilabial fricative.  Since it's lacking in English, it is *always* wrong
in an English word.  Any many other scholars have noted that English
speakers think that these folk perversely pronounce <village> with [w]
and <will> with [v], when in fact they use the bilabial fricative for
both.  I repeat: this is not my analysis, but since I've observed the
phenomenon myself, and have convinced a few people who had claimed that
their spouses did it backwards in English to listen a bit more closely,
whereupon they found that (mirabile dictu) I was right, I think it at
least highly that your colleague talks as I said -- since millions of
German speakers (probably half the country) use the bilabial fricative.

5.  It did no good for you to point out that she could easily pronounce
[v] in village, since she obviously could do nothing of the sort.  She
was probably, like most German speakers, utterly unaware of the
irrelevant difference in place of articulation, just as they won't
notice the irrelevant lack of aspiration in many South Germans'
pronunciation of German /p t/.  Your description suggests that she
interpreted your comment as referring to the *letter* <v>, which most
commonly does stand for /f/.  That she was aware of.

Check her out again if you can.  Otherwise, check the literature on
bilabial fricatives in German.

Regards
leo Connolly