ADS-L Digest - 23 Dec 2008 to 24 Dec 2008 (#2008-359)

[Chris Waigl]

On 25 Dec 2008, at 06:00, Rosemarie wrote:
>
> Re: the above: are you referring to examples such as these I've
> observed:
> - a German boy alternately pronounces his name Sascha and Zascha
> [snip]
>
> Neither of them seems to hear anything different in the various ways
> they
> say their own names!  I've always thought maybe they were joking.
> Are you
> saying they really can't hear the differences?

I do that, except that my name isn't Sascha.

I grew up in a region of Germany where the regional variant of
Hochdeutsch as well as local dialects have initial s always unvoiced.
The way it came across was that many Northern German people had an
affected way of occasionally adding an unnecessary buzzing sound to
the beginning of words starting in s, and while I was definitely not
supposed to pick up what was referred to as dialect, I *was* supposed
to adopt the high-prestige regional features.

It took growing up into my 20s, when I was studying away from home,
that I realized things were more complicated. I remember the
conversation very well: I had said 'sechs' (six), and one of my
friends thought I was talking about Sex (sex). It was a total surprise
to learn he pronounced the former with [z] and the latter with [s] --
and that this wasn't a personal idiosyncrasy. At that point I had to
concentrate very hard to even hear the difference.

These days, I vary. After living abroad for over 14 years now, my
regional features have bleached, and I do do initial [z], sometimes. I
don't consciously choose whether to use [z] or [s], but am pretty sure
that when I'm speaking German in a meeting at work, I'd be more likely
to say the number 6 as [zEks], whereas around my family, or a
colleague who grew up in the same town as myself, it would probably
come out as [sEks]. I'd similarly be able to employ the two
pronunciations for the name Sascha, leaning towards ['sa.S@].

An anecdotal data point for your consideration.

Cheers,

Chris Waigl

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