'th' pronounced like 't'
Damon Allen Davison
va...@ashtech.msk.ru wrote:
> Greetings All,
>
> Could someone explain to me why 'TH' is pronounced like 'T' in such
> words like
> Thomas,
> rathskeller,
> Lesotho?
>
> Are these and the like examples just a sort of "phonetic oddities" and
>
> as such cannot be formalized at all?
> Also, if anyone could add more examples to the list above...
>
> Thank you.
>
> Vladimir
Sure. These are all word of foreign origin. The /th/ sound is not
common in other European languages outside of Greek and Spanish.
"Thames" and "discotheque" are the only two examples I can think of at
the moment. I think that "Thames" (the river that runs through London
/temz/ ) was influenced by Norman French, although there might be others
who could better answer that.
Joseph C Fineman
va...@ashtech.msk.ru () writes:
>Could someone explain to me why 'TH' is pronounced like 'T' in such
>words like
> Thomas,
Well, this name comes from Greek, so the Th represents theta. The
pronunciation presumably reflects the fact that we got it thru Latin &
French.
> rathskeller,
Follows the German pronunciation (the modern German spelling, by the
way, is Ratskeller).
> Lesotho?
Never knew that. I dare say it follows the native language.
>Are these and the like examples just a sort of "phonetic oddities"
>and as such cannot be formalized at all?
"Spelling oddities", I think, is more like it.
>Also, if anyone could add more examples to the list above...
Thule (Greenland).
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: A man is only a woman's way of inseminating another woman. :||
Anandashankar Mazumdar
On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 va...@ashtech.msk.ru wrote:
> Could someone explain to me why 'TH' is pronounced like 'T' in such
> words like
> Thomas,
> rathskeller,
> Lesotho?
>
> Are these and the like examples just a sort of "phonetic oddities" and
> as such cannot be formalized at all?
> Also, if anyone could add more examples to the list above...
I don't know about "Thomas." My guess is that it's some kind of fluke. But
the other two words are foreign words (non-English, I guess I should say).
"Rathskeller" is German and Lesotho is, well, probably Sotho. By the way,
if I'm correct, it's not just the "th" that violates ordinary English
orthography in "Lesotho." The "o"s are given an unusual pronunciation:
/lEsutu/.
Ananda
va...@ashtech.msk.ru
Greetings All,
Could someone explain to me why 'TH' is pronounced like 'T' in such
words like
Thomas,
rathskeller,
Lesotho?
Are these and the like examples just a sort of "phonetic oddities" and
as such cannot be formalized at all?
Also, if anyone could add more examples to the list above...
Thank you.
Vladimir
Alan Walker
Damon Allen Davison <a268...@smail.rrz.uni-koeln.de> wrote:
>common in other European languages outside of Greek and Spanish.
>
>"Thames" and "discotheque" are the only two examples I can think of at
>the moment. I think that "Thames" (the river that runs through London
>/temz/ ) was influenced by Norman French, although there might be others
>who could better answer that.
I think the name of the river through London is pronounced "Tems" as a result of
sycophants in the court of the German king of England aping his pronunciation. There
is a village further upstream called "Thame", pronounced phonetically. Perhaps a pom
on a.u.e will add to this.
P.S. Does anyone else think that "phonetic" is the silliest word in the English language?
Pierre Jelenc
Damon Allen Davison <a268...@smail.rrz.uni-koeln.de> wrote in an article
that has not arrived here yet:
> >"Thames" and "discotheque" are the only two examples I can think of at
> >the moment.
"Discotheque" is a French word, and the "th" is pronounced as it is in
French.
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
New York City | Home Office
Beer Guide | Records
http://www.nycbeer.org/ | http://www.web-ho.com/
Tushar Samant
Simon R. Hughes <shughes@sn*spam-blok*.no> wrote:
>> is a village further upstream called "Thame", pronounced phonetically.
>
>pronounced the same way it is spelt? How would that be? /Ta:m@/,
>/Da:m@/, /Ta:m/, /Da:m/, /Teim@/, /Deim@/, etc., etc. (You get the
>picture)?
There is pretty much only one sound "th" can have in "thame", if
you went by the rules. "Them" or "thyme" are not good analogs.
>> think that "phonetic" is the silliest word in the English language?
>
>It really should be spelt the way it sounds--just to set a good
>example.
It IS spelt the way it sounds. It's not the silliest word though,
"aficionado" is already about 10 times sillier.
Simon R. Hughes
On Sun, 29 Jun 97 13:27:35 GMT, wal...@mail.bendigo.net.au (Alan
Walker) scribbled:
> I think the name of the river through London is pronounced "Tems" as a result of
> sycophants in the court of the German king of England aping his pronunciation. There
> is a village further upstream called "Thame", pronounced phonetically. Perhaps a pom
> on a.u.e will add to this.
What do you mean by "pronounced phonetically"? Do you mean it is
pronounced the same way it is spelt? How would that be? /Ta:m@/,
/Da:m@/, /Ta:m/, /Da:m/, /Teim@/, /Deim@/, etc., etc. (You get the
picture)?
>
> P.S. Does anyone else think that "phonetic" is the silliest word in the English language?
It really should be spelt the way it sounds--just to set a good
example.
===
+ From the digits of Simon R. Hughes + mailto:shu...@sn.no +
+ Headers changed to prevent spamming. +
+ To reply, remove *spam-blok* from address line. +
Geoff Butler
"Simon R. Hughes" <shughes@sn*spam-blok*.no> wrote:
>Walker) scribbled:
>
>> I think the name of the river through London is pronounced "Tems" as a result
>of
>> sycophants in the court of the German king of England aping his
>pronunciation. There
>> is a village further upstream called "Thame", pronounced phonetically.
>Perhaps a pom
>> on a.u.e will add to this.
>
>What do you mean by "pronounced phonetically"?
I checked The Dictionary, and it's quite clear: it means "pronounced
according to pronunciation".
-ler
M. Murray
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting (will...@ahecas.ahec.edu) wrote:
:
: When English takes in a word from another language, it often preserves the
: source language's spelling; so if the source language spells the English `t'
: sound as `th', English may do likewise. `Rathskellar' is borrowed from German,
: as is, I imagine, `Lesotho'.
How you could imagine Lesotho comes from the German is beyond me. Maybe
I'm just not very clever at spotting trolls.
--
Martin Murray :: School of Chemistry, Bristol University, BS8 1TS, England
Lee Rudolph
co...@zeus.bris.ac.uk (M. Murray) writes:
>Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting (will...@ahecas.ahec.edu) wrote:
>:
>: When English takes in a word from another language, it often preserves the
>: source language's spelling; so if the source language spells the English `t'
>: sound as `th', English may do likewise. `Rathskellar' is borrowed from German,
>: as is, I imagine, `Lesotho'.
>
>How you could imagine Lesotho comes from the German is beyond me. Maybe
>I'm just not very clever at spotting trolls.
When the Family Linguist went off to graduate school, she roomed in a
dorm for a semester with a black African woman named Lioba. It was
years before the FL (and we) realized that Lioba was (almost surely)
named after St. Lioba, the "beautiful and learned" cousin of "Boniface,
Apostle of Germany" (quoting Butler's _Lives of the Saints_ as edited
by Thurston).
Perhaps Gary Williams's imagination has been informed by a similar
experience.
Lee Rudolph
Keith C. Ivey
wal...@mail.bendigo.net.au (Alan Walker) wrote:
>P.S. Does anyone else think that "phonetic" is the silliest
>word in the English language?
I've never understood why people think "phonetic" should be
spelled phonetically (whatever that means).
Is the word "red" silly when it's not written in red?
Is the word "big" silly because it has only three letters?
Is the word "mammalian" silly because it doesn't have hair?
Keith C. Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org> Washington, DC
Contributing Editor/Webmaster
The Editorial Eye <http://www.eeicom.com/eye/>
Anno Siegel
<de.tro...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com> wrote in alt.usage.english:
>Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
>
>(snip)
>> When English takes in a word from another language, it often preserves the
>> source language's spelling; so if the source language spells the English `t'
>> sound as `th', English may do likewise. `Rathskellar' is borrowed from German,
>> as is, I imagine,
>
>
>Anybody knows how come?
Many German words used to be spelled with "th" where modern German has
only "t". The "h" didn't influence the pronunciation and was thus
functionless. It gradually fell into disuse early this century.
So presumably the word was borrowed into English at a time when
"Rathskeller" was the accepted spelling, and stayed that way, while
in German the "h" disappeared as it did from many similar words.
Anno
Helmut Richter
de.tro...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com writes:
>Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
>> sound as `th', English may do likewise. `Rathskellar' is borrowed from German,
>> as is, I imagine,
>Is says 'rathskeller' in my English dictionary, but 'Ratskeller' in my German one.
>Anybody knows how come?
The word was propably borrowed prior to the German spelling reform of
1901 (+-2; I'm not quite sure about the year) where virtually all
"th"s were dropped from words with non-Greek origin.
Helmut Richter
Wil Baden
Pronouncing `th' as `t' was quite common in English. Check Shakespeare's
Marc Anthony. I was brought up to pronouce `Anthony', `McCarthy', `Macarthur`
without the "h". Look how `Don Juan', `Don Quixote', `quixotic', `Maria' have
changed.
--
Wil Baden Costa Mesa, California
"The dog does not thank the master for the bone."
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <5p94tr$8...@panix.com>, lrud...@panix.com (Lee Rudolph) writes:
> co...@zeus.bris.ac.uk (M. Murray) writes:
>>How you could imagine Lesotho comes from the German is beyond me. Maybe
>>I'm just not very clever at spotting trolls.
> It was years before the FL (and we) realized that Lioba was (almost surely)
> named after St. Lioba, the "beautiful and learned" cousin of "Boniface,
> Apostle of Germany" (quoting Butler's _Lives of the Saints_ as edited
> by Thurston).
>
> Perhaps Gary Williams's imagination has been informed by a similar
> experience.
Or perhaps by too little sleep.
I don't know which is going to prove worse, here: my history or my geography.
I just thought that perhaps Lesotho had once been part of German East Africa.
I suppose a simpler explanation would have been that Lesothoese (or whatever
the language is, there), lacks an unvoiced dental fricative.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
N.Mitchum
de.tro...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com wrote:
-----
> Anybody knows how come?
For this one I don't believe dictionaries are needed. At a guess,
I'd say that no American establishment selling food and drink
would want patrons to identify their premises in any way
whatsoever with rats. In American English (and probably in other
Englishes), "rat" is a fairly powerful word that calls up none but
unpleasant images: disease, poverty, filth, forbidden corners,
death. "Ratskeller" looks far too much like "rat cellar" -- not
the sort of place you'd take a hot date to.
But that string of four consonants (-thsk-) must have the effect
of isolating the word from the common run of rodentia: reason
enough to prefer a transforming H. Furthermore, I cannot recall
ever having seen "Rathskeller" except in fancy German Gothic
script, the better to emphasize its foreignness.
The lab raths outgrabe!
Calooh callay.
--
--- NM
[Replies copied to my e-mail are appreciated]
ige...@aol.com
>
>Is says 'rathskeller' in my English dictionary, but 'Ratskeller' in my German one.
>Anybody knows how come?
>
>
It's an older spelling of the word. The English borrowed the word
before the "th" in German words was abolished.
Holger Hermannsen
(ige...@aol.com)
Anandashankar Mazumdar
In article <5pahg8$d3m$1...@brachio.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>,
anno...@lublin.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (Anno Siegel) wrote:
> <de.tro...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com> wrote in alt.usage.english:
> >Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
> >Is says 'rathskeller' in my English dictionary, but 'Ratskeller' in my German
one.
> >Anybody knows how come?
> Many German words used to be spelled with "th" where modern German has
> only "t". The "h" didn't influence the pronunciation and was thus
> functionless. It gradually fell into disuse early this century.
>
> So presumably the word was borrowed into English at a time when
> "Rathskeller" was the accepted spelling, and stayed that way, while
> in German the "h" disappeared as it did from many similar words.
Same with "Neanderthal" and "Siebenthaler" (the name of a road in
Dayton, Ohio).
Ananda
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Kay Hayen
Hallo Leute,
Helmut....@lrz-muenchen.de (Helmut Richter) meinte am 01.07.97
zum Thema "Re: 'th' pronounced like 't'":
> de.tro...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com writes:
>
> >Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote:
>
> >> sound as `th', English may do likewise. `Rathskellar' is borrowed from
> >> German, as is, I imagine,
>
> >Is says 'rathskeller' in my English dictionary, but 'Ratskeller' in my
> >German one. Anybody knows how come?
>
> The word was propably borrowed prior to the German spelling reform of
> 1901 (+-2; I'm not quite sure about the year) where virtually all
> "th"s were dropped from words with non-Greek origin.
Hm. How about "Thron"?
> Helmut Richter
Mls, Kay
--
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>>See http://binpatch.home.ml.org my patching system.
>It's free for non-commercial usage and highly effecient
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Helmut Richter
k...@edition.bonbit.org (Kay Hayen) writes:
>Helmut....@lrz-muenchen.de (Helmut Richter) meinte am 01.07.97
>zum Thema "Re: 'th' pronounced like 't'":
>> The word was propably borrowed prior to the German spelling reform of
>> 1901 (+-2; I'm not quite sure about the year) where virtually all
>> "th"s were dropped from words with non-Greek origin.
>Hm. How about "Thron"?
Of Greek origin, according to Webster's.
If Webster's is wrong, it is one of the cases because of which I
included "virtually".
Helmut Richter
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <33B958...@mail.lafn.org>,
"N.Mitchum" <aj...@mail.lafn.org> writes:
> "Ratskeller" looks far too much like "rat cellar" -- not
> the sort of place you'd take a hot date to.
I naturally thought the rodents had won everywhere--not just in Hamelin--upon
observing that one of the most elegant buildings in many Austrian cities was
designated for their abode, i.e., the Rathauses.
Of course, now that Disney has arrived in Europe, I'm sure there will no longer
be any need for these provincial rodent dwellings.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Adrian Tan
Wil Baden wrote:
>
> Pronouncing `th' as `t' was quite common in English. Check Shakespeare's
> Marc Anthony. I was brought up to pronouce `Anthony', `McCarthy', `Macarthur`
> without the "h". Look how `Don Juan', `Don Quixote', `quixotic', `Maria' have
> changed.
Would anyone agree that whenever "th" isn't a fricative it's an
aspirated stop?
Larry Krakauer
Wil Baden wrote:
> Pronouncing `th' as `t' was quite common in English. Check Shakespeare's
> Marc Anthony. I was brought up to pronouce `Anthony', `McCarthy', `Macarthur`
> without the "h". Look how `Don Juan', `Don Quixote', `quixotic', `Maria' have
> changed.
The state of Massachusetts (USA) is crawling with towns whose names
end in "ham". However, the pronunciation of these varies, and you
just have to know how to do it.
For example, "Chatham" is /tS&t@m/ ("chat-um"), while I am
currently typing this in "Waltham" (/wOlT&m/, "wall-tham").
Actually, I ran into one of my confusions with the IPA/ASCII
notation in typing the above. The summary at
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/english.html
describes /&/ as being the sound in 'm<a>t', 'm<a>p', 'g<a>g',
'sn<a>p', and 'p<a>tch'. Those vowels sound roughly the same
to me, except for the vowel in 'g<a>g', which to me is the
same as the sound of 'h<a>m' and 'h<a>g', and is completely different.
To me, these sounds are:
ham /he@m/
gag /ge@g/
... and I also hear /wOlTe@m/ the same way. Maybe it's just
my New York accent.
The Summary also says of /a/: 'f<a>ther' as pronounced by
speakers who do not rhyme it with bother.
Unfortunately, I can't imagine a way of pronouncing 'father"
so that it wouldn't rhyme with bother. Do any other words use
this sound?
As you can see, I've never quite gotten this straight.
--
Larry Krakauer (lar...@kronos.com)
Kay Hayen
Hallo Leute,
Helmut....@lrz-muenchen.de (Helmut Richter) meinte am 04.07.97
zum Thema "Re: 'th' pronounced like 't'":
> k...@edition.bonbit.org (Kay Hayen) writes:
>
> >Helmut....@lrz-muenchen.de (Helmut Richter) meinte am 01.07.97
> >zum Thema "Re: 'th' pronounced like 't'":
>
> >> The word was propably borrowed prior to the German spelling reform of
> >> 1901 (+-2; I'm not quite sure about the year) where virtually all
> >> "th"s were dropped from words with non-Greek origin.
>
> >Hm. How about "Thron"?
>
> Of Greek origin, according to Webster's.
> If Webster's is wrong, it is one of the cases because of which I
> included "virtually".
Yes, quite possible. It's just because I remembered that "majesty" words
were untouchable. But greek origin sounds quite possible.
Donna Richoux
Larry Krakauer <lar...@kronos.com> wrote:
> The Summary also says of /a/: 'f<a>ther' as pronounced by
> speakers who do not rhyme it with bother.
>
> Unfortunately, I can't imagine a way of pronouncing 'father"
> so that it wouldn't rhyme with bother.
I am sure that if you send a request to Markus Laker <la...@tcp.co.uk>,
he will send you a sound file of him saying "Bother! Father caught hot
coffee in the car park" in British Received Pronunciation. Quite an
impressive variety of vowels.
Markus has been taking a bit of a break from the computer to recuperate
from an illness, so it may take a while. Specify if you have a Mac; it
took him and me several tries to realize that mine needed the MIME
format.
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Larry Krakauer
Bob and Donna, thanks for the reply.
Bob Cunningham wrote:
> Larry Krakauer <lar...@kronos.com> said:
> >The Summary also says of /a/: 'f<a>ther' as pronounced by
> >speakers who do not rhyme it with bother.
> >Unfortunately, I can't imagine a way of pronouncing 'father"
> >so that it wouldn't rhyme with bother. Do any other words use
> >this sound?
> Another problem is that the person who wrote that Summary may not say
> either "father" or "bother" the way you say them. Without a basis in
> sound files, and a system of symbols that represent various sounds that
> you have listened to and associated with those symbols, it's next to
> impossible to tell someone in writing how you pronounce something.
> >As you can see, I've never quite gotten this straight.
> You are not alone. I don't think anyone will ever get it straight --
> except professional linguists -- until we have sound files that
> associate symbols with sounds we can listen to. The professional
> linguists have the advantage over us that they have had training that
> included listening to audio demonstrations and associating sounds with
> symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet; at least, that is what
> we were told in a.u.e some time ago by one of the experts.
Actually, I *do* know a place to hear the I.P.A. symbols
pronounced. However, I still haven't completely matched the IPA/ASCII
version to the I.P.A. symbols. I'm particularly confused about
the vowels. I'm interested in doing this not only for the
English sounds, but also for French, Spanish, Italian, and German.
The site I'm referring to is entitled "Bienvenue dans le cours de
phonétique de la section de linguistique de l'Université de Lausanne"
and is in French, but I suspect even non-speakers of French can
follow it. It's at:
<http://www.unil.ch/ling/phonetique/api.html>
It says "Le but de ce document est de servir de support à
l'apprentissage de la phonétique et à la maîtrise de l'Alphabet
Phonétique International (A.P.I.)"; that is, "The objective of
this document is to support the learning of phonetics, and the
mastery of the International Phonetic Alphabet ("A.P.I.")."
You'l find gif files of all the A.P.I. symbols, and if you click
on them, a sound file will be played.
--
Larry Krakauer (lar...@kronos.com)
John
In article <1997Jul1.135945.1@ahecas>, will...@ahecas.ahec.edu (Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting) wrote:
> In article <33B924...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com>,
> de.tro...@botkyrka.mail.telia.com writes:
>
> > Is says 'rathskeller' in my English dictionary, but 'Ratskeller' in my German
> > one. Anybody knows how come?
>
> I've already made enough of a fool of myself in this thread that I might as
> well keep on.
>
> English spelling is remarkably conservative. Could it be that the word was
> spelled with -th- at the time it was imported to English, but the Germans have
> updated their spelling since?
Exactly.
>
> Does the hypothesized change in German spelling reflect an actual change in
> German pronunciation?
>
Nope. Same thing happened with "Neanderthal-->Neandertal" in German, while retaining the "th" in English, at least until recently. BTW Neandertal is a composite Greek-German word meaning Neander Valley (Tal=valley), Neander being a translation of someone's name which in German was Neumann (Newman).
Albert Marshall
John <jfe...@NOSPAMucdavis.edu> wrote
>>
>Nope. Same thing happened with "Neanderthal-->Neandertal" in German, while
>retaining the "th" in English, at least until recently. BTW Neandertal is a
>composite Greek-German word meaning Neander Valley (Tal=valley), Neander being a
>translation of someone's name which in German was Neumann (Newman).
>
--
Albert Marshall
Executive French
Language Training for Businesses in Kent
01634 400902
Bob Cunningham
adi...@commschool.org (Aaron J. Dinkin) said:
>In article <33c9d7d1...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, ad...@lafn.org (Bob
>Cunningham) wrote:
[...]
>>Another problem is that the person who wrote that Summary may not say
>>either "father" or "bother" the way you say them. Without a basis in
>>sound files, and a system of symbols that represent various sounds that
>>you have listened to and associated with those symbols, it's next to
>>impossible to tell someone in writing how you pronounce something.
>
>That's not true.
It is true, although "next to impossible" is a relative term. My
opinion is based on both expert opinion that I've read and on my own
frustrating efforts to know with sufficient precision where my tongue is
when I pronounce various vowels.
>You've said this before. It's entirely possible to achieve
>at least an approximation based on the objective descriptions of where your
>tongue must be in your mouth and so on. In fact, that's how they're
>defined.
"At least an approximation" is another relative term. I would accept
your statement as being true only with the qualification that the
approximation will often be so gross as to be useless. My opinion is
that for the purpose of explaining to someone in England how I pronounce
the "a" in "father", for example, the approximation would not be nearly
close enough.
I'd like to quote some things that David Crystal says about articulatory
phonetics in his book _The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_.
On page 140:
| It is easy enough to see the tongue in a mirror, but it is one of the most
| difficult organs to monitor during speech. Many techniques have been
| tried, with varying levels of success.
One of the more bizarre things scientists have tried is "direct
photography":
| Direct photography. This has been possible in a few cases where a
| subject has had an operation involving the partial removal of the cheek.
| The movements of the tongue can be clearly seen, but the data are of
| limited value, because a subject's speech is never normal in such
| circumstances.
David Crystal goes on to discuss "intraoral devices", "plaster casts",
"plastographic techniques", "X-rays", "palatography",
"electropalatography", and "ultrasonics". The entire discussion mostly
makes it clear to me that an ordinary speaker like me has little hope of
learning to know, to control, or to describe in a useful way where his
tongue is when a given vowel sound is made.
On page 152:
| In a *phonetic* definition, vowels are distinguished from consonants in terms
| of how they are articulated in the vocal tract, and the associated patterns of
| acoustic energy. In this approach, consonants are defined as sounds made by a
| closure in the vocal tract, or by a narrowing which is so marked that air cannot
| escape without producing audible friction. Vowels are sounds that have no such
| stricture: air escapes in a relatively unimpeded way through the mouth or nose.
| It is therefore relatively easy to 'feel' the articulation of consonants; whereas
| vowels, involving only slight movements of the tongue and lips, are difficult to
| locate in this way, and are easier to distinguish on auditory grounds
The key words here with reference to my point of view are "difficult to
locate", "only slight movements", and "easier to distinguish on auditory
grounds".
On page 153:
| It is difficult to be precise about the exact articulatory positions of the
| tongue and palate because very slight movements are involved, which
| give us very little internal sensation. Absolute values are not possible
| (such as saying that the tongue has moved *n* millimetres in a certain
| direction), because the mouth dimensions are not the same between
| speakers. Vowel judgments therefore tend to be made on the basis of
| auditory criteria, in association with a limited amount of visual and
| tactile information.
Here the words I would emphasize are "very little sensation". And again
he makes the point that "very slight movements" are involved.
On page 154:
| Several other proposals have been made about ways of dividing up the vowel
| area that reflect articulatory movements (as established from a study of X-ray
| photographs) more accurately; but Jones's diagram continues to be widely
| used, especially in Europe. It should be emphasized that the cardinal vowels
| are not real vowels: they are invariable reference points (available on record)
| that have to be learned by rote. Once phoneticians have learned them, they
| can be used to locate the position of the vowels in any speaker.
Here the key words are "available on record" and "have to be learned by
rote".
_The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_, by David Crystal, is copyright
1987 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42443-7 paperback.