Dubya (was Re: Return of the minimal pairs (when is a morpheme not a morpheme?))

[Robert Whiting]

On Sat, 9 Jun 2001, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Whiting" <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 8:24 PM

<snip>

>> As usual, Dutch is stuck in the middle between German and English.
>> German has no [w] sound so they use the <w> graph for [v] (since
>> they use the <v> graph for [f]).  To them the name of the <w> graph
>> is 'vay' (just like the name of the Hebrew letter waw is vav in
>> German).

> [Ed]
> Modern Israelis say 'vav' too.

And for much the same reason.

> I think your statement about Germans pronouncing w as v and v as f
> goes a bit too far.

I would have thought so too, but for the fact that 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.

> These are relatively modern pronunciations (which tend to propagate to
> Holland), with lots of exceptions, almost exclusively for w. In
> certain contexts (like C+w), as Pat mentioned, and in a lot of
> regional speech, w is pronounced w. Similar things can be said about
> e.g. r (more, or less, velarized).

Yes,  there are always more ways of pronouncing things than you will find
in the manuals, and ways of pronouncing (some?/most?) things are always
changing.

> It seems to me that German pronunciation is still evolving in a
> perceptible (and uneven) way. And so is the the pronunciation of Dutch
> in the Netherlands, but emphatically not in Flanders, Belgium, which
> is phonetically and lexically more conservative, even though it's the
> original homeland of Dutch as we know it (but since the
> (religious-political) secession in the 16-17. c. and the ensuing mass
> emigration to Holland, it has become more peripheral).

I rather think that the pronunciation of any living language you care to
name is still evolving in a perceptible and uneven way.  It is the nature
of the beast.

<snip>

>>> And Double-U (pr. Dub'ya) is still another thing, nothing to do with its
>>> shape either :-)

> [Ed]
> I meant George W.

Yes.  I'm sorry, but despite the capital letter and the smiley, I just
didn't make the connection.  It wasn't until this week when Dubya was
playing in my back yard that the penny dropped, and I realized that my
response was neither apropos nor appropriate.  This of course provides new
linguistic raw material.  If things continue on their present course, then
I see the development of a new idiom, 'you pulled a Dubya' or 'that's a
Dubya', meaning "you just did or said something really stupid or
boneheaded," more or less synonymous with 'say goodnight, Gracie'.  Call
it linguistic preconstruction. :)

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi