LL-L "Phonology" 2003.09.03 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: jannie.lawn <jannie.lawn at ntlworld.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.09.02 (01) [E]


Re the dropped initial "h", Gabriele Kahn wrote:
I've always wondered why Americans say "a hotel", why in Britain it seems to
be "an hotel". Is this to accomodate regional speakers who don't say the
"h"? On the other hand, in Britain it's "herbs", while the Americans say
"erbs" - something I could never bring myself to say, so I cultivated the
art of saying "half an h".

I think that the dropped initial 'h' only features in certain parts of the
UK, and certainly not in Cambridge, just as it features in certain parts of
the Netherlands.  (I remember my dad talking about it on some occasions.)
Checked also with my husband, who comes from Norwich, UK, and he definitely
says 'a  hotel'.

So, there we go.  Maybe the British will know more about specific areas
where they drop the initial 'h'.  From memory, I think it may be more the
North-West of the country, but I may be wrong.

Groeten, Jannie Lawn-Zijlstra
Cambridge, UK

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From: UB82DN at aol.com <UB82DN at aol.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.09.02 (05) [E]

Liewe Laaglanders,

There is also the stressed instance of /hy/, that is, /c, / = German ch in
'ich.' This is most notable in words like 'huge' and 'Hugh.' It is not quite
'sh.'

I cannot say how often, or where, this pronunciation occurs, but one does
hear it now and then. Perhaps it is the next step before something like
/ky/.

Cheers,
Joe Stromberg,
Auburn, Alabama

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From: UB82DN at aol.com <UB82DN at aol.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.09.02 (05) [E]

Liewe Laaglanders,

At the risk of changing the subject, has anyone seen a decent article or
treatise on the optional, 'mobile' (whatever) /s/ in Indo-European? I am
mostly
interested in Germanic. I am beginning to see it everywhere I look:

(s)melt, kick ~ schicken [?], steer ~ thjorr (taurus), (s)plash, spume
(Latin) ~ foam, (s)tack, etc. (I may be wrong about some of these.)

I suppose the ultimate solution is to buy a copy of Julius Pokorny's famous
dictionary, but it is still hovering around $525 used, according to Amazon.
In
the meantime, I would settle for a decent journal article on the subject.

Cheers,
Joe Stromberg,
Auburn, Alabama

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Phonology"

The "wh" (Sampa /W/) sound is used in Scots and Scottish English but not in
English English. It's just an unvoiced "w" but the tongue is higher at the
back so that if it's pronounced emphatically a guttural element can creep
in: /(x)W/.

In Scottish English the /W/ is pronounced corresponding to the written "wh"
in standard English spellings. Scots almost always corresponds but there are
a few words where it's different. For example, "whelk" is "wulk" in Scots nd
"weasel" is "wheasel".

In Scots we only drop our "h"'s in unemphatic pronouns and a handful of
other words. Examples are "hotel", "hospital", "herb" being pronounced
without the "h".

In some dialects of Scots a "y" sound /j/ is added before an initial vowel,
eg "aits" (oats) -> /jIts/, "earth" -> /jIrT/, "ane" (one) -> /jIn/, "erb"
(herb) -> /jIrb/. Some of these usages are more widespread than others.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Joe (above):

> There is also the stressed instance of /hy/, that is, /c, / = German ch in
> 'ich.' This is most notable in words like 'huge' and 'Hugh.' It is not
quite
> 'sh.'

"Stressed"?!  Hmmm ...  I think that's how I say such words all the time
(IPA [ç], SAMPA [C]), certainly with the words mentioned above, perhaps with
a tad less friction unless stressed.  Well, but then again, I can't claim to
be setting any standard now, can I?  ;)

Wait a second!  I do only use this sound in emphatic mode in other cases,
such as "human."  In non-emphatic mode I say something like [j] with just a
touch of aspiration.  (But I clearly don't distinguish <w> and <wh>).

I never thought that there was a difference.  A phonemic difference?  Or is
it only that when I say "huge" it is almost always emphatic.  ("The building
is *huge*.")  Why always in the case of "Hugh"?  Perhaps to clearly
distinguish it from "you"?

Thanks for making me think about this, Joe.

Sandy (above):

> The "wh" (Sampa /W/) sound is used in Scots and Scottish English but not
in English
> English. It's just an unvoiced "w" but the tongue is higher at the back so
that if it's
> pronounced emphatically a guttural element can creep in: /(x)W/.

This sound fascinates me (as you may have noticed already).  I am only now
slowly beginning to distinguish it from /f/ [f] when I do not look at the
speaker (such as when listening to the CDs accompanying Wir Colin's Scots
textbook).  But perhaps I then only distinguish these two sounds because of
context, i.e. I know the words and their spelling.

On the whole, however, I think this is one non-native pair that I eventually
will be able to distinguish, at least passively.  I have a much harder time
distinguishing between <v> and <f> in Dutch and in some Lowlands Saxon
dialects of the Netherlands, though on the whole I can distinguish between
them and Dutch <w>.  Clearly, the Dutch <v> is voiceless.  Native speakers
tell me that the difference is that <f> is really voiced and <v> is somewhat
less voiced, but perhaps this is too subtle a difference for non-natives to
deal with until they are thoroughly exposed to it.  It's all right in
careful speech, but it gets harder while listening to natural speech.

Sandy again:

> In some dialects of Scots a "y" sound /j/ is added before an initial
vowel, eg "aits" (oats)
> -> /jIts/, "earth" -> /jIrT/, "ane" (one) -> /jIn/, "erb" (herb) ->
/jIrb/. Some of these usages
> are more widespread than others.

I wonder if this is a case of "breaking," as in Frisian (e.g. _ean_ > _ian_,
_ien_, _jan_, etc.).  Note "earth" < OE _eorðe_.  Might Scots _aits_ and
_ane_ be derived from an Old English dialect that had something like
*_eātes_ instead of _ātes_, and *_eāne_ instead of _āne_?  What about French
_herbe_ > _herb_.  Reanalysis as */earb/?  My point is that there must be
some reason why only some words have this [j-].  Note Westerlauwer Frisian
_ien_ 'one'.


Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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