sci.lang Google Group

Re: subtle vowel differences?

2008-08-07T23:24:13Z

"time" rhyming with "tamp"? I doubt that any Indians would say it
that way.
But here is a fascinating rendering of "time", "my" and "side"
[link]

Re: pistasch

2008-08-07T22:59:47Z

Probably semantic difficulty. Moreover, Doric <skâpt(r)on> (cited by
L&S) points to an original /a:/, presumably from *eH2; the PIE root
could be either *skeH2p- or *skeH2bh-. If the latter, Attic/Ionic
must have extracted a new root *ske:p- from <skêptron>, itself regular
from *ska:bh-tro- 'means of support', to form <ske:pánion> and

Re: Spanish and Arabic for 'duck'

2008-08-07T21:00:37Z

Nobody would need to know the etymology. With salable items like
shoes, merchants might have used a derivative of the Persian word,
*papucha or whatever, leading to a doublet in Spanish. I can find no
such doublet in the DRAE, so if there ever was a direct Persian loan
of this word, it was swamped by the Arabic loan.

Re: Hyper-divergence amongst IE languages early on...

2008-08-07T20:20:58Z

Whether you religiously like it or not, Sanskrit is an ordinary human
language just like any other, and can be compared with its relatives
just like any other language.

Re: subtle vowel differences?

2008-08-07T20:12:13Z

Maybe my dementia has progressed further than I was aware, but I have
understood a phoneme to be a hypothetical construct of a set of phones
that can be correlated by rules in a specific language.
How could two different dialects have the same phoneme?
Bart Mathias

Re: Redefining [a] and [æ]? or using a better vowel quadrilateral?

2008-08-07T20:08:02Z

On Thu, 7 Aug 2008 20:55:13 +0100, Richard Wordingham
<jrw0...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
<news:nqImk.70226$8w4.53592@newsfe30.ams2> in sci.lang:
I don't know of anyone who recognizes turned-a as an English
phoneme. The English view is that <hiccup> is /'hIkVp/.
[...]
Brian

Re: Redefining [a] and [æ]? or using a better vowel quadrilateral?

2008-08-07T19:55:13Z

That's the American view. The British view is that there is a difference.
I don't know of a minimal pair; the best I know of is 'gallop' /ə/ v.
'hiccough' /ɐ/. Confusingly, allophones of /ə/ bracket those of /ɐ/.
Can anyone who makes the distinction comment on the pronunciation of 'I've
got *a* dog' when the indefinite article is stressed but not greatly

Re: etc

2008-08-07T19:38:44Z

im not saying that the future / habitual present being the same is pre-
celtic.
i wish i could have taken more time and explained this more clearly.
those who have welsh and some irish will perhaps have a clearer notion
about what i'm on about.
this "misuse" of "wedi" in welsh is a pet peeve of mine.

Re: etc

2008-08-07T19:27:04Z

I also meant to say that the brythonic spoken in strathclyde may not
have had this construction before gaelic arrived, but then again, it
might have. the pictish language at one time may have been pre-celtic,
and then later it may have been british [brythonic]. but did pictish
have the "after" construction? i think it's safe to say it was in

Re: subtle vowel differences?

2008-08-07T19:24:02Z

I've heard many, many Indian people speak English over the years and I
don't believe I've ever heard this.

Re: etc

2008-08-07T19:17:52Z

Fair enough.
<spiel about pre-celtic syntax>
[the below is offered only as ideas to be pondered and perhaps
rejected. i'm not presenting them as facts.]
I forgot to mention Cornish. I believe Cornish also doesn't use the
construction "to be after doing sth". As the Anglo-Saxons pushed west,
it may have died out, but I doubt it was because of that. i think it

Re: subtle vowel differences?

2008-08-07T19:14:32Z

Though the difference is far from subtle in most dialects, my wife, who is
Thai, indignantly reported that she was being taught in her ESOL class to
pronounce the vowel of 'time' as a longer version of the vowel - roughly
/tæ:m/. (Her L1-induced problem was pronouncing CVCC - */tʰa:jm/ in her

Re: [sv] pistasch

2008-08-07T18:20:01Z

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:56:09 +0200, Trond Engen
<trond...@engen.priv.no> wrote in
<news:k9idnSyPqrvrEwfV4p2dnAA@telenor.com> in sci.lang:
That's not from Watkins, who has nothing on <sceptre>; it's
from the OED. It appears that the editors chose the most
directly relevant form: in the passive and middle the verb

Re: Aramaic in the Indian Subcontinent

2008-08-07T17:54:39Z

eve=
n
=
=A0
h=
e
speak=
ers
arrivia=
l
"hahaha You are an uneducated Muslim shit. Better stop blabbering! I think
you have no idea about Romans or England or Orthodox Church!"
Oh please pope of hindus, please inform our unworthy ears as to this
history and so many things of which we are unaware.

Re: Aramaic in the Indian Subcontinent

2008-08-07T16:50:57Z

hahaha
You are an uneducated Muslim shit. Better stop blabbering!
I think you have no idea about Romans or England or Orthodox Church!