Standard US English Dialect?
Wilson Gray
hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Apr 14 02:00:27 UTC 2008
To the best of my both meager and antiquated knowledge, it's only the
pronunciation of "gogo" as "gong-o" that's peculiar to Tokyo. Whether
there are other such words, I haven't the foggiest.
-Wilson
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 4:09 AM, Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
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> Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Current Tokyo practice doers not seem to match the "standard"
> suggestions, in which initial /g is [g] and intervocalic /g/ is [N]
> (the velar nasal, oft written "ng," but only one sound). The
> important exceptions even in the standard duggestions are:
>
> 1) Compounds (e.g., Sekaiginko "World bank")
> 2) After prefixes (e.g., o [honorific prefix] + genki = "ogenki" (with [g])
> 3) The number 5 (go), no mater how it is combined, is always
> pronounced with [g]
> 4) Reduplicative or onomatopoetic words (e.g., gara-gara "rattle") have [g]
>
> But Hibiya (2005) shows that Tokyo speakers born between 1965 and 79
> (for which we have a large spoken corpus) range from 30 to 95%
> [g]-users in those positions where the "rule" would require [N].
>
> dInIs
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> >Poster: Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> >Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >I what you're referring to is the nasalization of the second "g",
> >which is listed in my standard Japanese accent dictionary. AFAIK, this
> >is a part of NHK Japanese and may or may not be followed by Tokyoites.
> >I'm not very familiar with Tokyo speech, though, so it might be that
> >it's widespread there.
> >
> >Very good memory. Gogo means afternoon, with the first "go" being noon
> >and the second being after. BB
> >
> >On Apr 12, 2008, at 3:56 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I don't know what NHK Japanese sounds like, but the Tokyo dialect is
> >> certainly different. E.g., the word usually transliterated "gogo" and
> >> pronounced more-or-less as transliterated, is pronounced approximately
> >> "gong-o" in the Tokyo dialect.
> >>
> >> I think that the word means "noon," but it was a while ago, the
> >> 1968-69 school year, that I took Japanese. However, the
> >> native-Japanese girlfriend of a roommate confirmed, ca.1987, the
> >> presence of the [N] in the Tokyo-dialect version.
> >>
> >> -Wilson
> >>
> >> On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 6:14 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com
> >> > wrote:
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> >>> -----------------------
> >>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster: Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> >>> Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> >>>
> >>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> FWIW, NHK Japanese, not Tokyo Japanese is considered the standard.
> >>> There is a difference. BB
> >>>
> >>>
> >
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>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
>
>
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