Pronunciation of "Samoa"

[Uri Tadmor]

Hi Chris,
 
When I lived in Honolulu, which has a large Samoan community, I made a very similar observation, with a small difference: I often heard a rearticulated short vowel (aa) instead of one long vowel (a:).  This is most conspicuous in slow, careful speech, but not limited to it.  The stress is consistenly on the penult, as you point out.  In fact, I made a similar observation about Hawaiian--that, for exmple, the location of the main campus of the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, is pronounced (maa'noa) and definitely not ('ma:noa).  Since there is no glottal stop between the two short vowels they can coalesce phonetically to one long vowel (which in rapid connected speech can even shorten), but the stress is always on the penult.  Systemically this analysis makes sense, because it would mean that all Hawaiian vowels may occur adjacent to each other, including like vowels.  Eliminating the alleged constraint against adjacent like vowels would make
 the phonology more economical.
 
Best,
 
Uri

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Today's Topics:

  1. Pronunciation of "Samoa" (Christopher Allen Sundita)


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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2012 12:35:47 -0800
From: Christopher Allen Sundita <csundita at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [An-lang] Pronunciation of "Samoa"
To: an-lang at anu.edu.au
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    <CAAcA2aLFO_yixdJebbti6ESHn5z2==HcjpsXVc+m0n77GW5B_Q at mail.gmail.com>
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I was looking at the Wikipedia article on Samoan (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language ) and I disagreed with
how the Samoan pronunciation of the name of the language was
represented in IPA, ['sa:moa]. Saying it out loud makes me think of a
Finnish word :-)

Listening to Samoans say it (in English) over the years, it seems like
that the primary stress falls on the penult while the lengthened first
syllable bears secondary stress. I'd render it in IPA as [,sa:'moa].

I'm not sure. But I'm interested in knowing what those of you familiar
with Samoan phonology think...

Thanks / Fa'afetai!

--Chris Sundita
Seattle


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