The "u" and "v" in older written English is confvsing
2.7182818284590...
served the purpose of 2 functions: to transliterate both the "u" and
the "v". The symbolic representation was the "v". So, in the older
days, a word like "Massachusetts" would be "Massachvsetts".
I've got qvestions on this arrangement:
1. How would the word "vulgar" be spelt? As "vvlgar"?
2. When did the letter "u" come about?
3. I noticed that the "W" is pronounced "Double-u", when in fact,
it's a "double-v". Any comments?
4. How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
"u" and "v"?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> In older written English, there seems to be one written letter which
> served the purpose of 2 functions: to transliterate both the "u" and
> the "v". The symbolic representation was the "v". So, in the older
> days, a word like "Massachusetts" would be "Massachvsetts".
Please check the facts before complaining.
In Latin studies, V is the capital, u the lower case.
In English, v was initial, u was medial.
> I've got qvestions on this arrangement:
> 1. How would the word "vulgar" be spelt? As "vvlgar"?
vulgar
> 2. When did the letter "u" come about?
ca. 1800 BCE or earlier
> 3. I noticed that the "W" is pronounced "Double-u", when in fact,
> it's a "double-v". Any comments?
See above. u and v were not finally separated until the early 19th
century.
> 4. How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
> "u" and "v"?
They knew their language.
Ruud Harmsen
<tange...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>I've got qvestions on this arrangement:
>1. How would the word "vulgar" be spelt? As "vvlgar"?
Possibly yes. Such spellings certainly do occur in older Portuguese
text, in a period when v and u certainly were already different
sounds. But thet were spelled alike.
>2. When did the letter "u" come about?
>3. I noticed that the "W" is pronounced "Double-u", when in fact,
>it's a "double-v". Any comments?
Double v in French, double u in English. Because u and v were
originally just variants of the same letter (like like i and j were),
it makes no difference.
>4. How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
>"u" and "v"?
They simply knew the words they read in the context, so there was no
problems. Cf. how literate people easily read English (despite all its
irregularities) or vowelless Hebrew of Arabic.
Not that stress and intonation aren't written in English either,
although they are important. People can easily fill these in too.
--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> In older written English, there seems to be one written letter which
> served the purpose of 2 functions: to transliterate both the "u" and
> the "v".
> I've got qvestions on this arrangement:
> 1. How would the word "vulgar" be spelt? As "vvlgar"?
How would an ancient Greek spell "yip yip"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yip_Yip_Yaphank
With iota iota pi?
Not with eta, presumably, since that was [e:] in Attic Greek.
> 4. How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
> "u" and "v"?
From context; the same way that the Portuguese know whether to
pronounce the <i>s in their words as [i] or [j].
LEE Sau Dan
>> How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
>> "u" and "v"?
How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> >>>>> ">" == 2 7182818284590 <tangent1...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
> >> "u" and "v"?
>
> How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
Not on the basis of context.
Peter T. Daniels
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 15, 5:00 pm, LEE Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
> wrote:
>
> > >>>>> ">" == 2 7182818284590 <tangent1...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > >> How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
> > >> "u" and "v"?
>
> > How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
>
> Not on the basis of context.
Vallins, *Spelling* (2nd. ed., ed. Scragg, 1965), quotes this passage
from the early 17th century:
"Vnadvised cunning, or not suffientlie aduised, doth plaie to much
vpon the foren string, being verie loth to leaue out anie one letter,
as _elliemonsinarie_ for _amner_, _hospitall_ for _spitle_, and
_victuall_ for _vittle_." (Cited only as Mulcaster, Elementarie)
Paul J Kriha
news:d9b5654b-125c-46ff...@u36g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On May 15, 5:00 pm, LEE Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
> wrote:
> > >>>>> ">" == 2 7182818284590 <tangent1...@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > >> How did people know how to pronounce words which ambiguated the
> > >> "u" and "v"?
> >
> > How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
>
> Not on the basis of context.
Don't the other letters in those words constitute a context for the "o"?
pjk
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:5c554929-5cbe-4dce...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
[...]
> Vallins, *Spelling* (2nd. ed., ed. Scragg, 1965), quotes this passage
> from the early 17th century:
> "Vnadvised cunning, or not suffientlie aduised, doth plaie
> to much vpon the foren string, being verie loth to leaue
> out anie one letter, as _elliemonsinarie_ for _amner_,
> _hospitall_ for _spitle_, and _victuall_ for _vittle_."
> (Cited only as Mulcaster, Elementarie)
Presumably Richard Mulcaster's 'Elementarie', first
published in 1582. He was an early champion of the
suitability of English for all purposes:
I do not think that anie language, be it whatsoever, is
better able to utter all arguments, either with more
pith, or greater planesse, than our English tung is, if
the English utterer be as skillfull in the matter, which
he is to utter.
Brian
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
If o in a context like women must be [I], then woven would be
pronounced [wIvEn].
> pjk
LEE Sau Dan
>> > >> How did people know how to pronounce words which
>> > >> ambiguated the "u" and "v"?
>> >
>> > How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women",
>> > "won"?
>>
>> Not on the basis of context.
Paul> Don't the other letters in those words constitute a context
Paul> for the "o"?
Don't the other letters in the words also constitvte a context for the
"v", when "u" is spelt vsing "v"?
Joe Fineman
(1715), the entry on V reads
V, Has two powers, expressed in modern English by two characters,
V consonant and U vowel, which ought to be considered as two
letters; but as they were long confounded while the two uses were
annexed to one form, the old custom still continues to be
follows.
By "the old custom" he means that U & V are treated as the same letter
in alphabetization -- all the va- words are followed by all the ub-
words, and so on.
Similarly, I & J, i & j are distinguished according to present usage,
but are mixed in alphabetization.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: Perhaps even this you will someday remember with pleasure. :||
Richard Wordingham
news:87iqxf8...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
> How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
The first step for "woman" and "won" is to recognise that the vowel is
short. The word "woman" is one of a large, irregular group where for no
apparent reason the shortness is not indicated by consonant doubling. Then
you apply 'magic w' (as some schools call it) to effectively convert <o> to
<u>. The next step is relevant only if, like most English-speakers, you
speak a dialect that distinguished the vowel sounds of "put" and "putt".
The vowel in "woman" is surrounded by rounding-friendly consonants, and so
you get /U/ (as in "wolf"), while "won" gets the more regular /V"/.
A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce "won" - they
pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was going to write '/wA.n/ or
equivalent', but that is probably less clear a statement.)
In most varieties of English, the spelling "women" is morphophonemic - it
indicates the vowel-mutation plural of "woman". (Why the plural should
retain the more original vowel - the Old English is _wifman(n)_, with late
OE spellings in -mm-, and spellings wum-, wom- appear in the 13th century -
is another question.)
Richard.
Brian M. Scott
<jrw...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
<news:U_qXj.15453$U61....@newsfe12.ams2> in sci.lang:
[...]
> A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce
> "won" - they pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was
> going to write '/wA.n/ or equivalent', but that is
> probably less clear a statement.)
Where? I don't think that I've ever heard a native speaker
do this.
[...]
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
> Here is an odd datum on the transition: In Dr Johnson's dictionary
> (1715), the entry on V reads
1755
> V, Has two powers, expressed in modern English by two characters,
> V consonant and U vowel, which ought to be considered as two
> letters; but as they were long confounded while the two uses were
> annexed to one form, the old custom still continues to be
> follows.
>
> By "the old custom" he means that U & V are treated as the same letter
> in alphabetization -- all the va- words are followed by all the ub-
> words, and so on.
>
> Similarly, I & J, i & j are distinguished according to present usage,
> but are mixed in alphabetization.
Raven McDavid's Introduction to a reprint of Webster's smaller (1808)
dictionary mistakenly claims that it was the first one to separate I/
J, U/V. According to Abercrombie citing Venezky, it was William
Perry's Royal Standard Dictionary of 1801.
LEE Sau Dan
>> A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce
>> "won" - they pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was going to
>> write '/wA.n/ or equivalent', but that is probably less clear a
>> statement.)
Brian> Where? I don't think that I've ever heard a native speaker
Brian> do this.
Maybe, those people are talking about shopping in Korea? :)
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> "LEE Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in messagenews:87iqxf8...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
>
> > How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
>
> The first step for "woman" and "won" is to recognise that the vowel is
> short. The word "woman" is one of a large, irregular group where for no
> apparent reason the shortness is not indicated by consonant doubling. Then
> you apply 'magic w' (as some schools call it) to effectively convert <o> to
> <u>. The next step is relevant only if, like most English-speakers, you
> speak a dialect that distinguished the vowel sounds of "put" and "putt".
> The vowel in "woman" is surrounded by rounding-friendly consonants, and so
> you get /U/ (as in "wolf"), while "won" gets the more regular /V"/.
>
> A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce "won" - they
> pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was going to write '/wA.n/ or
> equivalent', but that is probably less clear a statement.)
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 16, 7:00 pm, "Richard Wordingham" <jrw0...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> > "LEE Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in messagenews:87iqxf8...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
>
> > > How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?
>
> > The first step for "woman" and "won" is to recognise that the vowel is
> > short. The word "woman" is one of a large, irregular group where for no
> > apparent reason the shortness is not indicated by consonant doubling. Then
> > you apply 'magic w' (as some schools call it) to effectively convert <o> to
> > <u>. The next step is relevant only if, like most English-speakers, you
> > speak a dialect that distinguished the vowel sounds of "put" and "putt".
> > The vowel in "woman" is surrounded by rounding-friendly consonants, and so
> > you get /U/ (as in "wolf"), while "won" gets the more regular /V"/.
>
> > A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce "won" - they
> > pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was going to write '/wA.n/ or
> > equivalent', but that is probably less clear a statement.)
>
> How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
> with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
> phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case? Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration, so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"....
Ross Clark
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
> > with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
> > phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> > complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> > something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> > the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
>
> Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
> pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
> examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
> brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
> have a reference for this Marathi case?
It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].
> Your account of it is a bit
> hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
> aspiration,
To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
listen to Kashmiri.
> so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
the two by a Taiwanese chap.
Peter T. Daniels
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
> > > with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
> > > phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> > > complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> > > something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> > > the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
>
> > Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
> > pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
> > examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
> > brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
> > have a reference for this Marathi case?
>
> It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
> with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
> [tSA*A].
What evidence is there that it was _caused_ by the use of Devanagari
script?
What percentage of Marathi toddlers are literate in Marathi?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
> > > with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
> > > phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> > > complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> > > something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> > > the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
>
> > Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
> > pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
> > examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
> > brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
> > have a reference for this Marathi case?
>
> It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
> with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
> [tSA*A].
If by "forebears" you mean grandparents, this seems a rather late
change to attribute to the influence of orthography, since Marathi has
been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?
>
> > Your account of it is a bit
> > hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
> > aspiration,
>
> To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
> listen to Kashmiri.
>
> > so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
>
> There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
> the two by a Taiwanese chap.
But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration. It is
strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
Marathi phonetics. But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
convey any information to people who have never met him?
Ross Clark
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On May 18, 10:05 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > > On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > > How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
> > > > with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
> > > > phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> > > > complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> > > > something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> > > > the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
>
> > > Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
> > > pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
> > > examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
> > > brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
> > > have a reference for this Marathi case?
>
> > It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
> > with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
> > [tSA*A].
>
> If by "forebears" you mean grandparents,
Progressing from his grandparents to his father to himself.
> this seems a rather late
> change to attribute to the influence of orthography, since Marathi has
> been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
> generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?
It has been written in Devanagari only for 50 years, except for non-
literary dialects most of which are not written.
> > > Your account of it is a bit
> > > hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
> > > aspiration,
> > To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
> > listen to Kashmiri.
> > > so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
> > There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
> > the two by a Taiwanese chap.
> But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
> same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.
He wasn't a phonetician, so it never occured to him that one was
aspirated. Asked about the difference between the two, he showed a
difference between the angles of contact of the tongue which was the
way I was able to reproduce it to his satisfaction.
> It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
> Marathi phonetics.
The IPA table doesn't have a row for affricates. Pinyin does.
> But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
> a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
> convey any information to people who have never met him?
Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
Chinese speaker.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
What other causes can it be? Sound change? If so, I'd like to see
sound change rules that led Malayalis to call Chief Minister Antony
[&nt@n.i] when his name is [Vnto:n.i]!
> What percentage of Marathi toddlers are literate in Marathi?
Do adults learn from toddlers?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
an incompetent?
>
> > > > Your account of it is a bit
> > > > hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
> > > > aspiration,
> > > To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
> > > listen to Kashmiri.
> > > > so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
> > > There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
> > > the two by a Taiwanese chap.
> > But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
> > same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.
>
> He wasn't a phonetician, so it never occured to him that one was
> aspirated. Asked about the difference between the two, he showed a
> difference between the angles of contact of the tongue which was the
> way I was able to reproduce it to his satisfaction.
Was he a native speaker? Do you have any reason to think that his
pronunciation is common?
>
> > It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
> > Marathi phonetics.
>
> The IPA table doesn't have a row for affricates. Pinyin does.
Irrelevant. Affricates are composites of stop and fricative. They can
be represented in IPA as well as in Pinyin. But what you appear to be
suggesting is that there is a difference in point of articulation
which IPA does not recognize.
>
> > But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
> > a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
> > convey any information to people who have never met him?
>
> Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
> Chinese speaker.
It would be good if you could point us to some of those. The ones I
find all want you to pay money to listen to their sounds.
Ross Clark
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
That opens up a train of thought. I am not now sure it was the
influence of Devanagari; it might have been the introduction of a
prestige dialect. It might have been that [ts] and [tS] were one
phoneme in complementary distribution with one letter in Modi. If so,
this would have displeased the Sanskritizers who would have wanted
words with Sanskrit etymology to always have [tS]. [tsAra] means
fodder and doesn't have any Sanskritic etymology I can find. It might
not be used in literary Marathi which has added Sanskritic terms and
dropped "less civilized" (Marathi words underived from Sanskrit). This
might be how its distinct articulation survives to a point.
> Where did they find such
> an incompetent?
Sanskritization was a fad (or desanskritization in the case of
Tamilnadu); Panjab resisted Devanagarization and Sanskritization due
to resistance from Sikhs but Sanskritizers were influential in
Maharashtra. Modi did not have separate letters for different lengths
of [i] and [u] because they are not phonemic in Marathi. Spelt in
Devanagari, Marathi now has etymology based differences between short
and long [i] and [u]. Sanskrit doesn't have multiple phonemic
articulations for affricates. To make Marathis change their
pronunciations back to a single point of articulation, it was useful
to not add a letter for [ts].
> > > > > Your account of it is a bit
> > > > > hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
> > > > > aspiration,
> > > > To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
> > > > listen to Kashmiri.
> > > > > so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
> > > > There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
> > > > the two by a Taiwanese chap.
> > > But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
> > > same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.
>
> > He wasn't a phonetician, so it never occured to him that one was
> > aspirated. Asked about the difference between the two, he showed a
> > difference between the angles of contact of the tongue which was the
> > way I was able to reproduce it to his satisfaction.
>
> Was he a native speaker?
Yes.
> Do you have any reason to think that his
> pronunciation is common?
I have no way to tell. I didn't ask anyone else.
> > > It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
> > > Marathi phonetics.
>
> > The IPA table doesn't have a row for affricates. Pinyin does.
>
> Irrelevant. Affricates are composites of stop and fricative. They can
> be represented in IPA as well as in Pinyin. But what you appear to be
> suggesting is that there is a difference in point of articulation
> which IPA does not recognize.
IPA recognizes differences in point of articulation. He suggested a
change in angle of contact. I tried that and found that changing the
angle also changed the point of articulation. Moving the tongue back
from dental to denti-alveolar without changing angle of contact and
without adding aspiration also met his approval. What DID not meet his
approval was adding only aspiration, like in Kashmiri.
> > > But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
> > > a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
> > > convey any information to people who have never met him?
>
> > Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
> > Chinese speaker.
>
> It would be good if you could point us to some of those. The ones I
> find all want you to pay money to listen to their sounds.
Oh, dear! I thought there must be some free ones by now. I hadn't
found any at that time, but that was a long time back.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
The original Marathi distinction you are talking about was [ts] vs
[tS], right?
I can't find anything to tell me whether Modi script recognized this,
but certainly Devanagari does not.
I can imagine some pressure towards spelling pronunciation [tS] for
[ts], particularly if the [ts] words were stigmatized as un-
Sanskritic. Still it would be surprising if a robust phonemic contrast
were wiped out in just a couple of generations by this.
Here's one.
http://clp.arizona.edu/cls/chn/chnpro/mconson/mconson.htm
There's no obvious difference in point of articulation that I can
hear.
Ross Clark
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
Yes. I just found this; it says they ARE in complementary distribution
before all vowels except /a/ and /A/:
http://members.tripod.com/~marathi/marathi.html
The letters ch, j and jh of this group are pronounced in two ways and
this is peculiar to Marathi alone. One of them is a palatal affricate
(a mUrdhanya) and the other one is a dental affricate (or a dantya,
danta = teeth). This is a striking feature of the Marathi phonological
system alone. The contrast between the two sounds is noticed when they
appear before the vowels a and aa. For ex. palatal: chaar (four), jag
(world), dental: chaaraa (fodder), jaag (awakening), jaD (heavy),
jharaa (stream)
Even today, there is some confusion among the Marathi speaking people
regarding a few words as to which sound (palatal or dental) is the
correct one. Examples of such words are :chakalI (a food item), jaroor
(need), chaadar (a blanket) etc. However, the rules for these sounds
are well defined when they appear before other vowels. Palatal
affricates occur before the vowels i, ii e, ai and au (Ex. chivaT,
chain, chev, chayrya, jevaN, jiiv, chiir, zhiij, zep etc.) whereas
dental affricates occur before the vowels u, uu and o (Ex. chuuk,
churaa, jugaar, jor, chor, zop, zoLii etc.) But there is no means of
distinguishing these two distinct sounds in the script. Hence while
reading Marathi, you really have to know where the palatal affricates
occur and where do the dental affricates occur. This makes it
difficult for a non-Marathi person to read or speak in Marathi because
the dental affricates for these letters are almost absent in other
languages. The dental affricate for the letter 'jh' is somewhat closer
to the English sound for 'z'.
Me: Actually, it is closer to the sound of <z> in Russian <zdes>
(meaning "near" as far as I remember); it's <j> that has an alternate
pronunciation of [z].
> I can't find anything to tell me whether Modi script recognized this,
Well, what do you know; it didn't have such a distinction.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/modi.htm
> but certainly Devanagari does not.
> I can imagine some pressure towards spelling pronunciation [tS] for
> [ts], particularly if the [ts] words were stigmatized as un-
> Sanskritic. Still it would be surprising if a robust phonemic contrast
> were wiped out in just a couple of generations by this.
According to the above article, "charaa" has [ts] but according to the
Marathi speaker I consulted, of the current speakers some use [tS],
only his forebears used [ts] and that now, no one uses [ts] but
rather, something between [ts] and [tS]. It was this inbetween sound
that I attempted to describe as Pinyin <c>.
> http://clp.arizona.edu/cls/chn/chnpro/mconson/mconson.htm
> There's no obvious difference in point of articulation that I can
> hear.
I'm not hooked up to speakers right now, but I'll listen to those
presently. In the meanwhile, check out this difference between
Kashmiri [ts] and [ts<h>].
Peter T. Daniels
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 17, 4:25 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On May 17, 6:05 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> > > > On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > > > How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
> > > > > with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
> > > > > phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> > > > > complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> > > > > something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> > > > > the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
>
> > > > Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
> > > > pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
> > > > examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
> > > > brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
> > > > have a reference for this Marathi case?
>
> > > It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
> > > with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
> > > [tSA*A].
>
> > What evidence is there that it was _caused_ by the use of Devanagari
> > script?
>
> What other causes can it be? Sound change? If so, I'd like to see
> sound change rules that led Malayalis to call Chief Minister Antony
> [&...@n.i] when his name is [Vnto:n.i]!
No idea. google thought you were writing an email so I see nothing but
Ampersand Ellipsis before the At. Bht there's no [s] or [S] in
"Antony."
> > What percentage of Marathi toddlers are literate in Marathi?
>
> Do adults learn from toddlers?-
Toddlers turn into adults. They have mastered their language before
some of them learn to read.
Is it now your claim that phonemes only merge when they are written
the same? Then how do you explain English "cheap" = "cheep" or "brake"
= "break"?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
OK. So we have a Marathi distinction which has _never_ been recognized
in writing. It's only marginally contrastive now (could be a result of
dialect mixing or something), and we have no information on whether
that situation was any different in the past. It's not at all clear
that the distinction has been eliminated as a result of written
influence. But written language certainly offers no _help_ to people
who may be confused about which affricate belongs in which word. And
the Sanskritizing written tradition could quite well have given rise
to sporadic spelling-pronunciations which have (in part) created this
confusion.
>
> > but certainly Devanagari does not.
> > I can imagine some pressure towards spelling pronunciation [tS] for
> > [ts], particularly if the [ts] words were stigmatized as un-
> > Sanskritic. Still it would be surprising if a robust phonemic contrast
> > were wiped out in just a couple of generations by this.
>
> According to the above article, "charaa" has [ts] but according to the
> Marathi speaker I consulted, of the current speakers some use [tS],
> only his forebears used [ts] and that now, no one uses [ts] but
> rather, something between [ts] and [tS]. It was this inbetween sound
> that I attempted to describe as Pinyin <c>.
>
> >http://clp.arizona.edu/cls/chn/chnpro/mconson/mconson.htm
> > There's no obvious difference in point of articulation that I can
> > hear.
>
> I'm not hooked up to speakers right now, but I'll listen to those
> presently. In the meanwhile, check out this difference between
> Kashmiri [ts] and [ts<h>].
Where? I don't have any Kashmiri speakers handy.
Anyhow, I'm not sure what this has to do with the general question.
Ross Clark
Ruud Harmsen
<benl...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
>represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
>presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
>an incompetent?
You mean whenever a language is starting to be written, a competent
person always devises a script variant for it that is in line with the
phonemics of the language in question?
Interesting.
>> Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
>> Chinese speaker.
Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benl...@ihug.co.nz"
<benl...@ihug.co.nz>, a.k.k Ross Clark in sci.lang:
>It would be good if you could point us to some of those. The ones I
>find all want you to pay money to listen to their sounds.
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/pinyin1.html#sound
I find it very hard to actually hear the aspirations where they are
supposed to be, and the lack of it where they aren't.
(This sentence of mine is clumsy English, sorry.)
When I heard this sample the first time -- years ago, when I already
knew what PinYin was supposed to represent -- I found it quite
astonishing. It made it clear to me that life is often much more
complicated than thought, and that you can't learn the sounds of a
language by a description alone.
--
Ruud Harmsen
Ruud Harmsen
<benl...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>http://clp.arizona.edu/cls/chn/chnpro/mconson/mconson.htm
Click on "Mandarin Word" first. The actual sample page is in a frame.
Giving the deeplink is useless because the site switches it back to
the frame itself.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
> Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benli...@ihug.co.nz"
> <benli...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>
> >So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
> >represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
> >presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
> >an incompetent?
>
> You mean whenever a language is starting to be written, a competent
> person always devises a script variant for it that is in line with the
> phonemics of the language in question?
>
> Interesting.
Well, there have been a lot of competent jobs done, even by people
without formal linguistic training.
I guess I was thinking within the time frame implied by Ranjit's "50
years". In the mid-20th century I would have expected the Indian
government to have access to some linguistically informed help. But
then the Marathi site talked about Modi script being used only until
the 18th century. And when we add in the fact that the contrast may be
only limited, and factor in Sanskritocentric attitudes, I guess
spectacular incompetence need not be invoked.
Ross Clark
>
> >> Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
> >> Chinese speaker.
>
> Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benli...@ihug.co.nz"
> <benli...@ihug.co.nz>, a.k.k Ross Clark in sci.lang:
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benli...@ihug.co.nz"
> <benli...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>
> >So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
> >represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
> >presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
> >an incompetent?
>
> You mean whenever a language is starting to be written, a competent
> person always devises a script variant for it that is in line with the
> phonemics of the language in question?
>
> Interesting.
"Whenever"? "Always"? Perhaps not. But if a grammatogenist has _not_
had careful scribal training, they're likely to come up with a
phonemic symbol inventory in either inventing a script or adapting one
from an existing one -- obviously, because they're not aware of
nonphonemic distinctions.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> On May 18, 5:25 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > I'm not hooked up to speakers right now, but I'll listen to those
> > presently. In the meanwhile, check out this difference between
> > Kashmiri [ts] and [ts<h>].
>
> Where? I don't have any Kashmiri speakers handy.
Sorry; I neglected to attach the link. Listen to tsh and ts
http://www.koshur.org/SpokenKashmiri/Sounds/index.html
> Anyhow, I'm not sure what this has to do with the general question.
If Kashmiri tsh is [ts<h>] and Mandarin <c> didn't sound the same, it
didn't seem that it could be [ts<h>]. Well, on the page you gave me,
Mandarin <c> does sound like [ts<h>] and doesn't sound like that
Taiwanese chap's pronunciation. This reminds me of the time I gave the
French pronunciation of forte and it turned out, as pointed out by
Isabelle Cecchini, that what I heard was a Parisian dialect.
>
> Ross Clark
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On May 18, 8:39 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> > Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benli...@ihug.co.nz"
> > <benli...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>
> > >So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
> > >represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
> > >presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
> > >an incompetent?
>
> > You mean whenever a language is starting to be written, a competent
> > person always devises a script variant for it that is in line with the
> > phonemics of the language in question?
>
> > Interesting.
>
> Well, there have been a lot of competent jobs done, even by people
> without formal linguistic training.
> I guess I was thinking within the time frame implied by Ranjit's "50
> years". In the mid-20th century I would have expected the Indian
> government to have access to some linguistically informed help. But
> then the Marathi site talked about Modi script being used only until
> the 18th century.
My friend's father has used Modi, so it was used in the 20th century.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On May 17, 9:26 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> Toddlers turn into adults. They have mastered their language before
> some of them learn to read.
>
> Is it now your claim that phonemes only merge when they are written
> the same?
If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
> Then how do you explain English "cheap" = "cheep" or "brake"
> = "break"?
Not comparable since English isn't written in a phonetic script.
Suppose English were written in IPA and there are two words written
with the same IPA spelling even though they are supposed to be
pronounced a little differently. Would you pronounce them differently?
शुभानन गांगल
> On May 18, 2:42 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
>
>
>
>
>
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On May 17, 7:10 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > > On May 18, 1:21 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
>
> > > <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > On May 17, 4:41 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > > > > On May 18, 10:05 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > > > <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > > On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > > > > > > phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
> > > > > > > > complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
> > > > > > > > something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
> > > > > > > > the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.
>
> > > > > > > Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
> > > > > > > pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
> > > > > > > examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
> > > > > > > brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
> > > > > > > have a reference for thisMarathicase?
>
> > > > > > [tSA*A].
>
> > > > > If by "forebears" you mean grandparents,
>
> > > > Progressing from his grandparents to his father to himself.
>
> > > > > this seems a rather late
> > > > > change to attribute to the influence of orthography, sinceMarathihas
> > > > > been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
> > > > > generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?
>
> > > > It has been written in Devanagari only for 50 years, except for non-
> > > > literary dialects most of which are not written.
>
> > > presumably represented in the Modi script)?
>
> > That opens up a train of thought. I am not now sure it was the
> > influence of Devanagari; it might have been the introduction of a
> > prestige dialect. It might have been that [ts] and [tS] were one
> > phoneme in complementary distribution with one letter in Modi. If so,
> > this would have displeased the Sanskritizers who would have wanted
> > words with Sanskrit etymology to always have [tS]. [tsAra] means
> > fodder and doesn't have any Sanskritic etymology I can find. It might
> > dropped "less civilized" (Marathiwords underived from Sanskrit). This
>
> I can't find anything to tell me whether Modi script recognized this,
> but certainly Devanagari does not.
> I can imagine some pressure towards spelling pronunciation [tS] for
> [ts], particularly if the [ts] words were stigmatized as un-
> Sanskritic. Still it would be surprising if a robust phonemic contrast
> were wiped out in just a couple of generations by this.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Where did they find such
> > > an incompetent?
>
> > Sanskritization was a fad (or desanskritization in the case of
> > Tamilnadu); Panjab resisted Devanagarization and Sanskritization due
> > to resistance from Sikhs but Sanskritizers were influential in
> > Maharashtra. Modi did not have separate letters for different lengths
> > of [i] and [u] because they are not phonemic inMarathi. Spelt in
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
नमस्कार,
आपल्या सर्वांची भाषा मराठी आहे. मराठीने मराठीचा मराठीसाठी मराठीपणातून
विचार करावा. आजच्या मान्यवरांना 'शुद्धलेखनाच्या नियमांचा विचार' असा
रितीने करता येत नाही. संस्कृत व इंग्रजीपेक्षा, मराठी भाषा कशी व कोठे
भिन्न आहे आणि आजच्या मराठीसाठी 'शुद्धलेखनाचे नियम शून्य असावेत' हे
दाखवून देणारे पुस्तक आपल्याला सोबत पाठवत आहे. ईमेलने पाठवता येणारे
मराठीतील शुद्धलेखनाबाबतचे हे पहिलेच पुस्तक ठरते.
प्रत्येक मराठी भाषकाला, जगातील सर्व भाषांत, 'मराठी शास्त्रशुद्ध व
सर्वश्रेष्ठ का ठरते' हे यातून कळावे यासाठी ते ईमेलने एकमेकांना पाठवता
येईल अशी सोय केली आहे. ५१२ KB ची PDF मधील फाईल बनवून पाठवत आहे. आपला
ईमेल पत्ता कळवा व मोफत पुस्तक मिळवा.
आपले विचार जरूर कळवा.
आपला, शुभानन गांगल
१९/२०, आयडियल अपार्टमेंटस, गुलमोहर रोड, जुहू, मुंबई ४०००४९
फोन ९१-२२-२६२०१४७३ , मोबाईल ९८३३१०२७२७ , ईमेल ganga...@gmail.com
Ruud Harmsen
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:
>If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
>There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
>language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
And another story is that some French king's speech defect changed the
French r, which later spread all over France and to large parts of
Germany, the Nederlands, Scandinavia en Portugal. Any truth in it?
Peter T. Daniels
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 17, 11:24 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > On May 17, 9:26 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > Toddlers turn into adults. They have mastered their language before
> > some of them learn to read.
>
> > Is it now your claim that phonemes only merge when they are written
> > the same?
>
> If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
No one "decides" to do any such thing.
> There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
> language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
Absolutely. These things are _not_ at any conscious level.
Labov showed that community members do in fact imitate eccentricities
of respected leaders' speech -- and are completely unaware that they
are doing so. The imitated features are very rarely at the level of
consciousness.
> > Then how do you explain English "cheap" = "cheep" or "brake"
> > = "break"?
>
> Not comparable since English isn't written in a phonetic script.
It sure was when those spellings were established. <ea> and <ee>
denoted different vowels that have since merged.
> Suppose English were written in IPA and there are two words written
> with the same IPA spelling even though they are supposed to be
> pronounced a little differently. Would you pronounce them differently?
Of course. Why would a phonetic transcription affect the way I speak a
language?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Sun, 18 May 2008 06:41:08 -0700 (PDT): "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
> >There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
> >language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
>
> And another story is that some French king's speech defect changed the
> French r, which later spread all over France and to large parts of
> Germany, the Nederlands, Scandinavia en Portugal. Any truth in it?
No.
Why don't you _research_ the alleged "story" and find out what, if
any, data underlie it?
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
It's much faster and more reliable to ask you.
Can you point me to some not-too-expensive books I could order, that
explain how the various uvular r's came about? That would interest me
a lot.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
>> language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
>
>Absolutely. These things are _not_ at any conscious level.
>
>Labov showed that community members do in fact imitate eccentricities
>of respected leaders' speech -- and are completely unaware that they
>are doing so. The imitated features are very rarely at the level of
>consciousness.
OK. But even then, it can change (part of) a language, can't it?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Can anyone tell me whether Mr Gangal is making a contribution to the
discussion, or simply advertising his Free Marathi Font?
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Sun, 18 May 2008 08:36:58 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >On May 18, 11:10 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> >wrote:
> >> Sun, 18 May 2008 06:41:08 -0700 (PDT): "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> >> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
> >> >There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
> >> >language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
>
> >> And another story is that some French king's speech defect changed the
> >> French r, which later spread all over France and to large parts of
> >> Germany, the Nederlands, Scandinavia en Portugal. Any truth in it?
>
> >No.
>
> >Why don't you _research_ the alleged "story" and find out what, if
> >any, data underlie it?
>
> It's much faster and more reliable to ask you.
>
> Can you point me to some not-too-expensive books I could order, that
> explain how the various uvular r's came about? That would interest me
> a lot.
No.
Nor do I understand the question.
"Came about" from what?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Sun, 18 May 2008 08:36:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
> >> language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
>
> >Absolutely. These things are _not_ at any conscious level.
>
> >Labov showed that community members do in fact imitate eccentricities
> >of respected leaders' speech -- and are completely unaware that they
> >are doing so. The imitated features are very rarely at the level of
> >consciousness.
>
> OK. But even then, it can change (part of) a language, can't it?
What is "it"?
The phenomenon documented by Labov in Philadelphia has nothing to do
with "people imitating the king's lisp" and whatever the uvular fable
may be (I've never encountered that one before).
benl...@ihug.co.nz
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 18, 2:51 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 18, 8:39 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benli...@ihug.co.nz"
> > > <benli...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>
> > > >So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
> > > >represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
> > > >presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
> > > >an incompetent?
>
> > > You mean whenever a language is starting to be written, a competent
> > > person always devises a script variant for it that is in line with the
> > > phonemics of the language in question?
>
> > > Interesting.
>
> > Well, there have been a lot of competent jobs done, even by people
> > without formal linguistic training.
> > I guess I was thinking within the time frame implied by Ranjit's "50
> > years". In the mid-20th century I would have expected the Indian
> > government to have access to some linguistically informed help. But
> > then the Marathi site talked about Modi script being used only until
> > the 18th century.
>
> My friend's father has used Modi, so it was used in the 20th century.
OK. On the basis of what we know so far, we might guess that the
application of Devanagari to writing Marathi began in the 18th
century, but coexisted with Modi for a couple of hundred years. In the
mid 20th century (I saw a date of 1950 somewhere) the Indian govt
decreed that it was to be Devanagari only from then on. Nowadays
people say Modi is impractical for computer use and so on, and Mr
Gangal tells us that Devanagari is the "birthright" of all Marathi
speakers.
Ross Clark
alan
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:2be547c4-f655-4078...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
|"Came about" from what?
Ruud ---- I don't really see how Peter can fail to understand your question,
but here's an article which addresses the issue and includes some references
as well: http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-2186.html
--
alan
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:2be547c4-f655-4078...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
That's not what I was querying. I asked what he meant by "how the
various uvular r's came about." How do you connect that with Labov's
observation of unconscious prestige imitation?
Richard Wordingham
news:ej4x64pn23o4$.ba5k2ygb2p4j$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Sat, 17 May 2008 03:00:08 +0100, Richard Wordingham
> <jrw...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
> <news:U_qXj.15453$U61....@newsfe12.ams2> in sci.lang:
>> A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce
>> "won" - they pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was
>> going to write '/wA.n/ or equivalent', but that is
>> probably less clear a statement.)
> Where? I don't think that I've ever heard a native speaker
> do this.
Certainly in England. I don't know whether the distribution parallels the
pronunciation of _one_ as /wA.n/ - that pronunciation is supposed to be
commoner in Northern England.
Richard.
alan
I'm not about to pick out the relevant sections for you, but the article I
referred to above discusses "how the various uvular r's came about" ; the
authors happen to discredit the notion of a connection between the
development of the uvular r as a result of prestige imitation. Read the
article, or don't --- but if you don't, please don't comment on it.
--
alan
Trond Engen
> Peter T. Daniels:
>
>> Ruud Harmsen:
>>
>>> Can you point me to some not-too-expensive books I could order,
>>> that explain how the various uvular r's came about? That would
>>> interest me a lot.
>>
>> No.
>>
>> Nor do I understand the question.
>>
>> "Came about" from what?
>
> Ruud ---- I don't really see how Peter can fail to understand your
> question, but here's an article which addresses the issue and
> includes some references as well:
> http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-2186.html
I remember reading an illuminating online article a few years ago during
a discussion in (I think) dk.kultur.sprog. Unfortunately, I seem to have
lost the URL and, since I don't even remember what language it was
written in, I'm not able to retrieve it. But this post -- which I found,
too -- seems to contain some of the points of the article.
I remember the article stating that a spread from 17th-18th century
Parisian is chronologically implausible, and I think it preferred a
scenario with two (or more) independent origins. One of its main points
was that the uvular r is attested in several German cities (Berlin,
Hanover, Cologne?) well before the first attestation in French.
Furthermore (and I don't remember now if this is from the article, from
the usenet debate, or from my own (substitute for) thinking), the
distribution of the uvular r in Northern Europe would rather fit the
main sphere of influence of Low German, or perhaps Western dialects of
Low German, in the age of the Hanseatic league. I believe there were
more details about the chronology of the attestations in Northern
Europe, but I won't try to reconstruct them.
Not much of a reference but perhaps useful as a hint of something. I'll
try to refine my Google search tomorrow.
But thinking of it: The change from alveolar to uvular r is a prime
example of a sound change with no intermediate stages. Does it suggest
that a phoneme can jump into an unoccupied place of articulation from
almost anywhere?
--
Trond Engen
- alveolar flapper
Richard Wordingham
> Of course. Why would a phonetic transcription affect the way I speak a
> language?
Are not deficiencies in an apparently regular spelling system even more
likely to result in spelling pronunciations?
Richard.
Richard Wordingham
Balderdash! Native language acquisition takes many years. What they have
when learning to read is useful level of competence in the language. And if
they're trying to acquire the standard version of the language, writing will
have an effect - especially on vocabulary that is acquired by reading rather
than by talking.
Richard.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
I strongly doubt that the Indian government has the power to tell
either the government of Maharashtra or Maharashtrians what script
their language should be written in.
I think that Hindi ( powered specially by the creative impulse of the
Bombay movie industry and with the vast power of the Union Government
behind it) is slowly and relentlessly engulfing other "Indo Aryan"
languages and this script changeover might have been caused by this
phenomenon.
The recent unpleasantness towards "North Indians" (= Hindi speakers)
by militant Maharashtrians is, in my opinion, an attempt by Marathi
speakers to defend their language from a more or less uncoerced
extinction.
mb
> the authors happen to discredit the notion of a connection between the
> development of the uvular r as a result of prestige imitation
Let's rather say that they discredit the notion of its having started
initially as a prestigious feature or in such speakers, but certainly
the later, wider spread in both F and D did follow the prestige
speakers (as also recognised by the discussants. Very good discussion
of both grasseyement and ceceo; many thanks for the link.
Peter T. Daniels
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote in messagenews:ej4x64pn23o4$.ba5k2ygb2p4j$.dlg@40tude.net...
>
> > On Sat, 17 May 2008 03:00:08 +0100, Richard Wordingham
> > <news:U_qXj.15453$U61....@newsfe12.ams2> in sci.lang:
> >> A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce
> >> "won" - they pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was
> >> going to write '/wA.n/ or equivalent', but that is
> >> probably less clear a statement.)
> > Where? I don't think that I've ever heard a native speaker
> > do this.
>
> Certainly in England. I don't know whether the distribution parallels the
> pronunciation of _one_ as /wA.n/ - that pronunciation is supposed to be
> commoner in Northern England.
Then "do not know how to pronounce" was an extremely poor choice of
words.
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:c301247a-8879-43fd...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
Well, pardon me for assuming that when Ruud asked how it came about,
he was asking how it came about (an unanswerable question, of course),
and not how it spread.
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:ceec54da-6938-4c74...@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Of course. Why would a phonetic transcription affect the way I speak a
> > language?
>
> Are not deficiencies in an apparently regular spelling system even more
> likely to result in spelling pronunciations?
Is it your habit to mask your presuppositions in negative
interrogatives?
What is your evidence for the claim?
"even more likely"??? than what???
What proportion of the population was literate at the time; what time
are you referring to; and when do you imagine the spelling you think
inflluenced usage was standardized?
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:440d05fb-b18a-46a2...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
Bullshit.
Native language acquisition is virtually complete before a child's
formal education begins.
What is your evidence that the Marathi distinction in question affects
only vocabulary that is acquired "by reading"?
(And by "some of them," I was indicating that far from all of them
ever do become literate.)
mb
...
> But thinking of it: The change from alveolar to uvular r is a prime
> example of a sound change with no intermediate stages. Does it suggest
> that a phoneme can jump into an unoccupied place of articulation from
> almost anywhere?
But the phoneme isn't jumping; what is happening to the phoneme is
that a new sound (emitted from a new poa) is being added to the
inventory of phones allowed in the phoneme (the former flap and trill
are not cancelled in either French or German). I am curious about that
question about "intermediate stages". Were you suggesting a need for
anatomical contiguity of a phoneme's possible sounds?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Yes, it occurred to me it might have been the state government. But of
course Marathi is listed among the (15?) "official languages" of
India, so I thought there might be some authority at national level to
determine such things.
In any case the Wikipedia article on Marathi says that it has been
written in Devanagari "since 1950", which in the present context
suggests that somebody passed a law or something at that time.
>
> I think that Hindi ( powered specially by the creative impulse of the
> Bombay movie industry and with the vast power of the Union Government
> behind it) is slowly and relentlessly engulfing other "Indo Aryan"
> languages and this script changeover might have been caused by this
> phenomenon.
>
> The recent unpleasantness towards "North Indians" (= Hindi speakers)
> by militant Maharashtrians is, in my opinion, an attempt by Marathi
> speakers to defend their language from a more or less uncoerced
> extinction.
So these would be people who would have opposed the script change?
Ross Clark
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> Can you point me to some not-too-expensive books I could order, that
>> explain how the various uvular r's came about? That would interest me
>> a lot.
>
>No.
>
>Nor do I understand the question.
>
>"Came about" from what?
From France (yes/no)
From an imitation of a king's French (yes/no)
"Came about" in the sense "wasn't there before, then was".
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Ruud ---- I don't really see how Peter can fail to understand your question,
>but here's an article which addresses the issue and includes some references
>as well: http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-2186.html
Very interesting, thanks.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>Well, pardon me for assuming that when Ruud asked how it came about,
>he was asking how it came about (an unanswerable question, of course),
>and not how it spread.
"Came about" in other countries than FR, if there was any influence at
all, also involves spread.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>[...] the
>distribution of the uvular r in Northern Europe would rather fit the
>main sphere of influence of Low German, or perhaps Western dialects of
>Low German, in the age of the Hanseatic league.
Some Low German (Low Saxon) dialects in the Netherlands (which are not
prestigious) have the uvular r, others have not.
>But thinking of it: The change from alveolar to uvular r is a prime
>example of a sound change with no intermediate stages. Does it suggest
>that a phoneme can jump into an unoccupied place of articulation from
>almost anywhere?
They can be phonetically similar, and so be (or start as) an allophone
of the same phoneme, even if the articulatory distance is great.
Cf. allophones [h], ich-laut and bilabial f in Japanese. Fujitsu,
Hitachi etc. start with the same Japanese honeme (typo intended).
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>On May 18, 12:02 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
>wrote:
>> Sun, 18 May 2008 08:36:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>> >> There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
>> >> language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
>>
>> >Absolutely. These things are _not_ at any conscious level.
>>
>> >Labov showed that community members do in fact imitate eccentricities
>> >of respected leaders' speech -- and are completely unaware that they
>> >are doing so. The imitated features are very rarely at the level of
>> >consciousness.
>>
>> OK. But even then, it can change (part of) a language, can't it?
>
>What is "it"?
Changes by unconscious imitation.
Ruud Harmsen
<jrw...@yahoo.co.uk>: in sci.lang:
>Certainly in England. I don't know whether the distribution parallels the
>pronunciation of _one_ as /wA.n/ - that pronunciation is supposed to be
>commoner in Northern England.
Note that the vowel of "thus" and "put" is pronounced as an unrounded
[o] in large parts of Northern England. This may be confusing to
listeners from other areas. I for one wrongly associated it with my
Dutch [O] before reading about what i really was.
Ruud Harmsen
<jrw...@yahoo.co.uk>: in sci.lang:
>> Toddlers turn into adults. They have mastered their language before
>some of them learn to read.
>
>Balderdash! Native language acquisition takes many years.
Full educated vocabulary: yes.
Grammar and pronunciation: no. Already fully there at age 4 or
earlier.
>What they have
>when learning to read is useful level of competence in the language. And if
>they're trying to acquire the standard version of the language, writing will
>have an effect - especially on vocabulary that is acquired by reading rather
>than by talking.
Both.
Trond Engen
> On May 18, 4:09 pm, Trond Engen
>
> ...
>> But thinking of it: The change from alveolar to uvular r is a prime
>> example of a sound change with no intermediate stages. Does it
>> suggest that a phoneme can jump into an unoccupied place of
>> articulation from almost anywhere?
>
> But the phoneme isn't jumping; what is happening to the phoneme is
> that a new sound (emitted from a new poa) is being added to the
> inventory of phones allowed in the phoneme (the former flap and trill
> are not cancelled in either French or German).
No. I was vague on purpose, obviously, but I'll try to clarify. It seems
to me that (except from in a narrow strip across Sweden) a single
speaker has either uvular or alveolar (broad sense of both terms)
realizations of the phoneme. There's no trace of a complimentary
distribution (except from in that narrow strip across Sweden). The /r/
takes on a point of articulation and a sound that's clearly different
from its predecessors, without leaving a trace of double articulation or
any other "internediate stage" ...
> I am curious about that question about "intermediate stages". Were
> you suggesting a need for anatomical contiguity of a phoneme's
> possible sounds?
We do occasionally encounter suggestions or calls for intermediate
realizations of phonemes that have changed. Such can be a slow movement
of an allophone through the mouth (as I've seen for Japanese f > h, and
for l <> r), or a stage of double articulation (as I've seen for changes
between p, t and k). The example of r > R seems to show that such a
change can be abrupt -- at least when the new point of articulation is
unoccupied and it becomes immediately clear what phoneme the new sound
is supposed to represent.
--
Trond Engen
- immediately unclear
Trond Engen
> Mon, 19 May 2008 01:09:57 +0200: Trond Engen <tron...@engen.priv.no>:
> in sci.lang:
>
>> [...] the
>> distribution of the uvular r in Northern Europe would rather fit the
>> main sphere of influence of Low German, or perhaps Western dialects
>> of Low German, in the age of the Hanseatic league.
>
> Some Low German (Low Saxon) dialects in the Netherlands (which are
> not prestigious) have the uvular r, others have not.
I think I should have qualified that suggestion a little more. "...
Western city dialects of Low German, in the age of the Hanseatic
league." I don't necessarily mean the age of the HL, either. The
influence from Low German lasted for centuries, and was possibly
increased after the Hanseatics were replaced by Dutch and Holsteinish(?)
immigrant merchants that married locally and engaged in local politics.
I think I mean to suggest that the uvular r spread across Northern
Europe as a feature of the speech of the international merchants' class,
without really being noticed by anyone, and suddenly became
prestigious when that class came to political power.
>> But thinking of it: The change from alveolar to uvular r is a prime
>> example of a sound change with no intermediate stages. Does it
>> suggest that a phoneme can jump into an unoccupied place of
>> articulation from almost anywhere?
>
> They can be phonetically similar, and so be (or start as) an
> allophone of the same phoneme, even if the articulatory distance is
> great.
>
> Cf. allophones [h], ich-laut and bilabial f in Japanese. Fujitsu,
> Hitachi etc. start with the same Japanese honeme (typo intended).
I agree that phonetic similarity is a factor, but AFAIK there's hardly a
trace of an allophonic distribution of [r] and [R]. I'd be happy to
learn otherwise, though.
See also my attempted answer to mb.
--
Trond Engen
- has to do his day job now
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>It seems
>to me that (except from in a narrow strip across Sweden) a single
>speaker has either uvular or alveolar (broad sense of both terms)
>realizations of the phoneme.
Several people exist, native speakers of Dutch, who sometimes
alternate both. One of them, I suspect, is my own son.
mb
> No. I was vague on purpose, obviously, but I'll try to clarify. It seems
> to me that ...
> a single
> speaker has either uvular or alveolar (broad sense of both terms)
> realizations of the phoneme. There's no trace of a complimentary
> distribution
There is no need for all possible sounds of the same phoneme to be in
the same speaker: On the contrary, a phoneme being the abstract
concept that allows us to recognize the sounds produced by millions of
different speakers thanks to a definition of the allowed allophony, it
should include them all by definition.
...
> > you suggesting a need for anatomical contiguity of a phoneme's
> > possible sounds?
>
> We do occasionally encounter suggestions or calls for intermediate
> realizations of phonemes that have changed. Such can be a slow movement
> of an allophone through the mouth (as I've seen for Japanese f > h, and
> for l <> r), or a stage of double articulation (as I've seen for changes
> between p, t and k). The example of r > R seems to show that such a
> change can be abrupt -- at least when the new point of articulation is
> unoccupied and it becomes immediately clear what phoneme the new sound
> is supposed to represent.
If the new sound were already taken (say by a F or D "ghain") you'd
expect some little confusion. Not if it is, as you say, unoccupied.
Trond Engen
> Mon, 19 May 2008 09:19:05 +0200: Trond Engen <tron...@engen.priv.no>:
> in sci.lang:
>
>> It seems
>> to me that (except from in a narrow strip across Sweden) a single
>> speaker has either uvular or alveolar (broad sense of both terms)
>> realizations of the phoneme.
>
> Several people exist, native speakers of Dutch, who sometimes
> alternate both. One of them, I suspect, is my own son.
Huh. I'm notoriously misrepresenting my own view, apparently.
Of course I know speakers who alternate freely, typically children of
parents that have moved out of their native region. And of course some
speakers can alternate (though few actually do it) when switching
between registers or dialects. My notion was that in whatever dia- or
sociolect the change occurs it seems to be a systematic replacement of
all realizations of the phoneme. (Could I use 'idiosociolect' to denote
a single speaker's version of the idiom of a social group, when that
sociolect is a register within his idiolect?)
At least this is how I know it from Scandinavian (except from the
borderline belt through southern Sweden) and how I understand it from
German and French. But rereading the Linguist List post I see that this
is not the case in Portuguese, so it's not universal. I'd better stop
displaying my ignorance now.
--
Trond Engen
- but now I really have to ...
mb
...
> in whatever dia- or
> sociolect the change occurs it seems to be a systematic replacement of
> all realizations of the phoneme.
Phone.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On May 19, 1:01 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > I strongly doubt that the Indian government has the power to tell
> > either the government of Maharashtra or Maharashtrians what script
> > their language should be written in.
>
> Yes, it occurred to me it might have been the state government. But of
> course Marathi is listed among the (15?) "official languages" of
> India,
They used to be called national languages (languages of the nations
that India is constituted from); the language might have now been
changed to say regional languages. The Government of India has only 2
official languages - English and Hindi.
> so I thought there might be some authority at national level to
> determine such things.
People at the Central and State levels cooperate (or don't cooperate,
as the case may be). The addition of features (which are now in
Unicode) to support writing Tamil in Devanagari were done at the
Central level. Such features wouldn't have been developed without an
intention to persuade the States to use Devanagari as an alternate
script, if not the only script, for their official langauges. As per
the Constitution, only the speakers of a language have authority to
change its script, so the impetus for change has to be made to appear
to come from people within the State rather than from the Centre.
> > The recent unpleasantness towards "North Indians" (= Hindi speakers)
> > by militant Maharashtrians is, in my opinion, an attempt by Marathi
> > speakers to defend their language from a more or less uncoerced
> > extinction.
>
> So these would be people who would have opposed the script change?
They might not have initially. It wasn't clear at the outset that
every language (other than Hindi) written in Devanagari would be
treated as a patois rather than a langauge in its own right.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Sun, 18 May 2008 20:17:33 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >Well, pardon me for assuming that when Ruud asked how it came about,
> >he was asking how it came about (an unanswerable question, of course),
> >and not how it spread.
>
> "Came about" in other countries than FR, if there was any influence at
> all, also involves spread.
"Come about" means 'originate'.
Peter T. Daniels
What's needed is _acoustic_ contiguity.
Peter T. Daniels
No, phoneme. A phone _is_ a realization of a phoneme.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Sun, 18 May 2008 11:50:41 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
>
>
>
>
> >On May 18, 12:02 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> >wrote:
> >> Sun, 18 May 2008 08:36:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >> There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
> >> >> language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?
>
> >> >Absolutely. These things are _not_ at any conscious level.
>
> >> >Labov showed that community members do in fact imitate eccentricities
> >> >of respected leaders' speech -- and are completely unaware that they
> >> >are doing so. The imitated features are very rarely at the level of
> >> >consciousness.
>
> >> OK. But even then, it can change (part of) a language, can't it?
>
> >What is "it"?
>
> Changes by unconscious imitation.
Obvioulsy. That's all there is. Language change doesn't occur
consciously; language changes; therefore, language changes
unconsciously.
Peter T. Daniels
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 18, 9:18 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > On May 19, 1:01 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > > I strongly doubt that the Indian government has the power to tell
> > > either the government of Maharashtra or Maharashtrians what script
> > > their language should be written in.
>
> > Yes, it occurred to me it might have been the state government. But of
> > course Marathi is listed among the (15?) "official languages" of
> > India,
>
> They used to be called national languages (languages of the nations
> that India is constituted from); the language might have now been
> changed to say regional languages. The Government of India has only 2
> official languages - English and Hindi.
"Marathi ... is one of the eighteen official languages in
India" (Routledge IA volume, corrected pbk., 2007, p. 699)
The last time I looked, they were known as "scheduled" languages, as
opposed to the 300 or so "tribal" languages.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On May 19, 5:57 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> > > Yes, it occurred to me it might have been the state government. But of
> > > course Marathi is listed among the (15?) "official languages" of
> > > India,
>
> > They used to be called national languages (languages of the nations
> > that India is constituted from); the language might have now been
> > changed to say regional languages. The Government of India has only 2
> > official languages - English and Hindi.
>
> "Marathi ... is one of the eighteen official languages in
> India" (Routledge IA volume, corrected pbk., 2007, p. 699)
Sure, but they are official languages of State governments, not
official languages of the Government of India.
> The last time I looked, they were known as "scheduled" languages, as
> opposed to the 300 or so "tribal" languages.
Languages not in the 8th schedule (and spoken by a reasonably large
number of people) are called non-scheduled languages but for whatever
reason, the languages on the schedule are not commonly called
scheduled languages by Indians.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
Yes, that's how I meant it. And, assuming the theory that the German
uvular r came from French were right (although I later read it
probably isn't) "came about" for German could be connected to, or the
same as, "spread" seen from the perspective of French.
Not too difficult to understand, I'd think.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> Changes by unconscious imitation.
>
>Obvioulsy. That's all there is. Language change doesn't occur
>consciously; language changes; therefore, language changes
>unconsciously.
Language change occurs bot unconsciously and consciously. E.g. groups
(say students, young women, etc.) adopt some unusual feature. Others
take offence, find it ridiculous, irritating, or find it charming and
imitate it too. Letters are written to newspapers, internet forums
buzz, cabaret artist satirize it, etc. etc. and as a result of that,
the original group may find the new feature less cool than when first
adopted, so they may consciously unadopt it.
Happens quite often. Happened to the Dutch "Gooise r". (An
American-like retroflex r, but only in final position, often combined
with a very un-American uvular r in other positions. It is conscious
enough to have obtained a name.
It's now declining, although not completely gone yet. Expected total
shelf life: about 10 years.
Peter T. Daniels
Unless they work for the Census of India. I reviewed the volume on
languages from the 1991 Census for the journal *Language*.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Mon, 19 May 2008 04:24:29 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >On May 19, 2:03 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> >wrote:
> >> Sun, 18 May 2008 20:17:33 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >Well, pardon me for assuming that when Ruud asked how it came about,
> >> >he was asking how it came about (an unanswerable question, of course),
> >> >and not how it spread.
>
> >> "Came about" in other countries than FR, if there was any influence at
> >> all, also involves spread.
>
> >"Come about" means 'originate'.
>
> Yes, that's how I meant it. And, assuming the theory that the German
> uvular r came from French were right (although I later read it
> probably isn't) "came about" for German could be connected to, or the
> same as, "spread" seen from the perspective of French.
>
> Not too difficult to understand, I'd think.
"Came about" is not the same as "came from." "Came about" means
'originated'. If you ask how something came about, you are asking
about its origin, its creation, its manufacture, ...
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Mon, 19 May 2008 04:29:50 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> Changes by unconscious imitation.
>
> >Obvioulsy. That's all there is. Language change doesn't occur
> >consciously; language changes; therefore, language changes
> >unconsciously.
>
> Language change occurs bot unconsciously and consciously. E.g. groups
> (say students, young women, etc.) adopt some unusual feature.
Not intentionally.
> Others
> take offence, find it ridiculous, irritating, or find it charming and
> imitate it too. Letters are written to newspapers, internet forums
> buzz, cabaret artist satirize it, etc. etc. and as a result of that,
> the original group may find the new feature less cool than when first
> adopted, so they may consciously unadopt it.
They may try to. They may fail, or they may succeed. But they did not
consciously adopt it.
> Happens quite often. Happened to the Dutch "Gooise r". (An
> American-like retroflex r, but only in final position, often combined
> with a very un-American uvular r in other positions. It is conscious
> enough to have obtained a name.
>
> It's now declining, although not completely gone yet. Expected total
> shelf life: about 10 years.
And it did not come into use because someone one day decided they were
going to try to sound American.
Harlan Messinger
> Mon, 19 May 2008 04:29:50 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
>>> Changes by unconscious imitation.
>> Obvioulsy. That's all there is. Language change doesn't occur
>> consciously; language changes; therefore, language changes
>> unconsciously.
>
> Language change occurs bot unconsciously and consciously. E.g. groups
> (say students, young women, etc.) adopt some unusual feature. Others
> take offence, find it ridiculous, irritating, or find it charming and
> imitate it too. Letters are written to newspapers, internet forums
> buzz, cabaret artist satirize it, etc. etc. and as a result of that,
> the original group may find the new feature less cool than when first
> adopted, so they may consciously unadopt it.
>
> Happens quite often. Happened to the Dutch "Gooise r". (An
> American-like retroflex r, but only in final position, often combined
> with a very un-American uvular r in other positions. It is conscious
> enough to have obtained a name.
Non sequitur. Awareness after the fact doesn't imply conscious
intention. Moreover, the original awareness may have been by people who
*didn't* pick up this pronunciation who noticed its use by others.
>
> It's now declining, although not completely gone yet. Expected total
> shelf life: about 10 years.
And after all the time I spent cultivating it.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> >> "Came about" in other countries than FR, if there was any influence at
>> >> all, also involves spread.
>>
>> >"Come about" means 'originate'.
>>
>> Yes, that's how I meant it. And, assuming the theory that the German
>> uvular r came from French were right (although I later read it
>> probably isn't) "came about" for German could be connected to, or the
>> same as, "spread" seen from the perspective of French.
>>
>> Not too difficult to understand, I'd think.
>
>"Came about" is not the same as "came from."
I know, and I didn't suggest otherwise.
>"Came about" means
>'originated'. If you ask how something came about, you are asking
>about its origin, its creation, its manufacture, ...
Yes, and in the theory then under discussion (which is very probably
incorrect), the German uvular r came _about_ as a result of coming
_from_ France.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> It's now declining, although not completely gone yet. Expected total
>> shelf life: about 10 years.
>
>And it did not come into use because someone one day decided they were
>going to try to sound American.
Especially because the phomenon doesn't sound American, because it is
surrounding by so many un-American features.
mb
Just one of the [very many] individual realizations > and just one of
the [generally several] admitted types.
In this case, there are several.
There would have been no need for even the concept of phoneme if each
separate realization of a given sound was to be confused with it.
mb
> On May 19, 8:37 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> > Language change occurs bot unconsciously and consciously. E.g. groups
> > (say students, young women, etc.) adopt some unusual feature.
>
> Not intentionally.
>
>
> They may try to. They may fail, or they may succeed. But they did not
> consciously adopt it.
It does apply to the few cases that were extensively researched, so
you can say that. But that is hardly enough data to issue a carved-in-
stone "law" about it.
Brian M. Scott
<azyt...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:df4522ce-a0ae-414a...@q1g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
>>> Phone.
You're still confused: a phoneme isn't a sound.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Mon, 19 May 2008 07:34:10 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> >> "Came about" in other countries than FR, if there was any influence at
> >> >> all, also involves spread.
>
> >> >"Come about" means 'originate'.
>
> >> Yes, that's how I meant it. And, assuming the theory that the German
> >> uvular r came from French were right (although I later read it
> >> probably isn't) "came about" for German could be connected to, or the
> >> same as, "spread" seen from the perspective of French.
>
> >> Not too difficult to understand, I'd think.
>
> >"Came about" is not the same as "came from."
>
> I know, and I didn't suggest otherwise.
>
> >"Came about" means
> >'originated'. If you ask how something came about, you are asking
> >about its origin, its creation, its manufacture, ...
>
> Yes, and in the theory then under discussion (which is very probably
> incorrect), the German uvular r came _about_ as a result of coming
> _from_ France.
That's ridiculous.
How was a German even supposed to know that that prestigious(?) French
sound was made by gargling?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Mon, 19 May 2008 07:36:03 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> It's now declining, although not completely gone yet. Expected total
> >> shelf life: about 10 years.
>
> >And it did not come into use because someone one day decided they were
> >going to try to sound American.
>
> Especially because the phomenon doesn't sound American, because it is
> surrounding by so many un-American features.
Then perhaps you shouldn't have described it as "American-sounding" or
"American-style" or whatever the phraseology may have been that you
snipped from the discussion.
Peter T. Daniels
You seem now to have befuddled even yourself. There is no such thing
as "realization of a phone."
Peter T. Daniels
Your "it" has no antecedent.
Two centuries of linguistics has never turned up an example of a
deliberate language change. (Not vocabulary change, of course.) Do you
have one?
Richard Wordingham
news:ad033d3c-7fc7-4e21...@k13g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On May 18, 7:26 pm, "Richard Wordingham" <jrw0...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> messagenews:ceec54da-6938-4c74...@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>> > Of course. Why would a phonetic transcription affect the way I speak a
>> > language?
>> Are not deficiencies in an apparently regular spelling system even more
>> likely to result in spelling pronunciations?
> Is it your habit to mask your presuppositions in negative
> interrogatives?
When I lack evidence to back up what seem obvious but challenged statements,
yes.
> What is your evidence for the claim?
See above.
> "even more likely"??? than what???
Misleading spellings in an irregular spelling system.
> What proportion of the population was literate at the time; what time
are you referring to; and when do you imagine the spelling you think
inflluenced usage was standardized?
You raised a hypothetical question.
Richard.
mb
> On May 19, 12:30 pm, mb <azyth...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 19, 7:36 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > On May 19, 8:37 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
> > ...
> > > > Language change occurs bot unconsciously and consciously. E.g. groups
> > > > (say students, young women, etc.) adopt some unusual feature.
>
> > > Not intentionally.
>
> > > > adopted, so they may consciously unadopt it.
>
> > > They may try to. They may fail, or they may succeed. But they did not
> > > consciously adopt it.
>
> > It does apply to the few cases that were extensively researched, so
> > you can say that. But that is hardly enough data to issue a carved-in-
> > stone "law" about it.
>
> Your "it" has no antecedent.
Pronoun replacing the whole tedious story of the initiation of sound
change.
> Two centuries of linguistics has never turned up an example of a
> deliberate language change. (Not vocabulary change, of course.) Do you
> have one?
Certainly not (as I already say above).
On the other hand, there are allegations that cannot all be (or
haven't been) thoroughly investigated.
In science, the absence of proof or even inquiry concerning something
is not the same as a regular law of its absence. They are 2 very
different animals. In particular, the absence of proof (especially
where a very rare occurrence is being postulated) cannot be the object
of some absolute and absolutist statement (even coming from a bigshot
Herr Professor).
mb
> On Mon, 19 May 2008 09:24:28 -0700 (PDT), mb
Of course not, and you still can't be bothered to read. It is a
concept allowing recognition of diffent sounds.
Richard Wordingham
news:vm623455jh9cqq703...@4ax.com...
> Mon, 19 May 2008 00:33:43 +0100: "Richard Wordingham"
> <jrw...@yahoo.co.uk>: in sci.lang:
>>> Toddlers turn into adults. They have mastered their language before
>>some of them learn to read.
>>Balderdash! Native language acquisition takes many years.
> Full educated vocabulary: yes.
> Grammar and pronunciation: no. Already fully there at age 4 or
> earlier.
Syntax definitely matures.
There may be a nearly stable grammar and a nearly stable pronunciation, but
it is not necessarily to a shared standard. Rhotics are notoriously
difficult to acquire - the easier (approximant) rhotic is reportedly
acquired by less than 90% of bilingual Welsh-English children at the age of
four and a half -
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/king/ijbg/2001/00000005/00000001/art00004 .
Should I be deeply concerned if an apparently normal English child of school
age believes that every preterite ends in '-ed', even to the extent that the
past of 'see' is 'sawed'? (The child in question has grasped the
morphonemics of the suffix.) It does not appear to be a local grammatical
convention.
Richard.