Non-English US Proper Name Pronunciation: 'Boisfeuillet'!
Halcombe
How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
If it were the name of a Frenchman, I'd have no difficulty in saying,
'bwa-foy-yay'.
Since he's American, I haven't a clue. 'Boys-fill-it'? 'Boze-fill-it'?
'Boze-fill-eh'?
No wonder he's got a nickname ('Bo')!
mb
Halcombe wrote:
> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>
> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
Even if the guy had as much religion as a US politician, his last names
are not Christian names.
> If it were the name of a Frenchman, I'd have no difficulty in saying,
> 'bwa-foy-yay'.
> Since he's American, I haven't a clue. 'Boys-fill-it'? 'Boze-fill-it'?
> 'Boze-fill-eh'?
Seems that the general rule in the US is to pronounce last names as in
their original language unless the bearer of the name explicitly
instructs you otherwise, by voice or some spelling pronunciation. Ask
him.
Also, he's been very charitable in providing an alternative name,
Jones. Chances are that one doesn't start with a French [Z].
mb
mb wrote:
some nonsense, assuming that it was a double-barrelled last name.
It is, as you already suggested, the guy's first name! Wow. Almost
worse than naming your daughter Kimberly or Mackenzie.
I'd say don't pronounce it. The subject doesn't expect it: He sensibly
provided the alternative, Bo.
CDB
> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>
> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
According to Google Emory University, where BJ Sr. was an alumnus,
says "BO-fill-lay". Of course, the NY Times says "bwah-fwee-YAY". I
would go with the first one, because the second one sounds silly.
Gene E. Bloch
And anyway, in French the middle syllable would sound more like fur
does in Boston, i.e., *without* the r; I'll notate it as fu(r). So we
get Bwah-fu(r)-YAY. (It would help if I had an IPA font here.)
Years ago, I went into a camera store and asked if they had a battery
for my Beaulieu camera; I said Boh-liU(R). "Never heard of it" was the
reply. Not being a complete dolt (I claim), I asked if they had a
battery for a Ba-LOO, and that they did have...
Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the Beaulieu
winery, which is not far from here, advertised their wine with lessons
on how to pronounce their name.
Gino
--
Gene E. Bloch (Gino)
letters617blochg3251
(replace the numbers by "at" and "dotcom")
CDB
> On 5/28/2006, CDB posted this:
>> Halcombe wrote:
>>> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>>>
>>> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
>> [...]
> Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the Beaulieu
> winery, which is not far from here, advertised their wine with
> lessons on how to pronounce their name.
Bewley?
Gene E. Bloch
Truly.
The vintner did not really say boh-liUH, but BOH-liuh, or even had
nearly equal stress on the two syllables, IIRC.
I like boofly. It's the most fun thing so far in this thread, IMO.
CDB
> On 5/29/2006, CDB posted this:
>> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>>> On 5/28/2006, CDB posted this:
>>>> Halcombe wrote:
>>>>> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>>>>>
>>>>> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
>>>> [...]
>> [boofly]
>>> Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the Beaulieu
>>> winery, which is not far from here, advertised their wine with
>>> lessons on how to pronounce their name.
>>
>> Bewley?
>
> Truly.
>
> The vintner did not really say boh-liUH, but BOH-liuh, or even had
> nearly equal stress on the two syllables, IIRC.
I come from Ottawa ON, on the Quebec border. French words are
pronounced by local anglos more or less correctly but with English
stress patterns, as in your second example. Stress in French is
almost equally distributed, but the tone changes on the last syllable
of an utterance: I think this gives English speakers the idea that
it's stressed more strongly than it really is.
>
> I like boofly. It's the most fun thing so far in this thread, IMO.
It's like shoofly, except you throw a scare into the miserable little
invetebrates.
Oleg Lego
>Years ago, I went into a camera store and asked if they had a battery
>for my Beaulieu camera; I said Boh-liU(R). "Never heard of it" was the
>reply. Not being a complete dolt (I claim), I asked if they had a
>battery for a Ba-LOO, and that they did have...
A few years ago, I went to an auction with a friend. He asked me if
I'd had a look at the "bel-air'-us", I was puzzled, and he finally
pointed it out to me. Turned out it was a tractor, brand name
"Belarus", which I had taken as having the same pronunciation as the
country ( bel-a-roos' ).
R H Draney
>
>Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>>
>> Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the Beaulieu
>> winery, which is not far from here, advertised their wine with
>> lessons on how to pronounce their name.
>
>Bewley?
I seem to recall that Elvis Presley's widow, whose maiden name this was,
pronounces it just that way....r
--
It's the crack on the wall and the stain on the cup that gets to you
in the very end...every cat has its fall when it runs out of luck,
so you can do with a touch of zen...cause when you're screwed,
you're screwed...and when it's blue, it's blue.
CDB
> CDB filted:
>>
>> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>>>
>>> Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the Beaulieu
>>> winery, which is not far from here, advertised their wine with
>>> lessons on how to pronounce their name.
>>
>> Bewley?
>
> I seem to recall that Elvis Presley's widow, whose maiden name this
> was, pronounces it just that way....r
So do they in the Mother Country, I believe.
Mike Lyle
They do indeed. I'd probably expect a British Boisfeuillet, were I ever
to hear of one, to pronounce it "Bofflet".
--
Mike.
HVS
Or perhaps even dropping the "l", and ending up with "Buffet".
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian and British English, indiscriminately mixed
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van
Mike Lyle
HVS wrote:
> On 30 May 2006, Mike Lyle wrote
>
> >
> > CDB wrote:
> >> R H Draney wrote:
> >>> CDB filted:
> >>>>
> >>>> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the
> >>>>> Beaulieu winery, which is not far from here, advertised
> >>>>> their wine with lessons on how to pronounce their name.
> >>>>
> >>>> Bewley?
> >>>
> >>> I seem to recall that Elvis Presley's widow, whose maiden
> >>> name this was, pronounces it just that way....r
> >>
> >> So do they in the Mother Country, I believe.
> >
> > They do indeed. I'd probably expect a British Boisfeuillet,
> > were I ever to hear of one, to pronounce it "Bofflet".
>
> Or perhaps even dropping the "l", and ending up with "Buffet".
>
trade, or something ghastly like that.
--
Mike.
HVS
That reminds me of the Earls of Cottenham, whose surname was
(is?) Pepys. It's specified in Burke's as being pronounced "pep-
pis" -- undoubtedly so that the senior branch of the family
wouldn't be overshadowed by the prevailing association with that
upstart grandson-of-a-5th-son of the line.
Gene E. Bloch
Oh, dear. I thought it was pronounced to rhyme with 'truly' or
'aloofly' ... My bad (but what the hell, it was fun).
I note you were careful to say "the last syllable of an *utterance*".
Yes.
In these parts (I'm not sure if I mean just California or the whole
US), most people accent any foreign word on the last syllable, often
with pretty strong stress, which grates enormously on my pedantic ear
(the left one).
So we have a classical disk jockey saying, for example, DohnanYI and
PachelBEL, and even a sportscaster whose name is shown on-screen as
Ibañez (sic - note the unaccented a) referring to a baseball player as
ChaVEZ.
OK, that's enough complaining for now :-)
Gene E. Bloch
Add to that the local newscaster (San Francisco area) who referred to
the county as Belaroo, accent on the roo...
Whatever.
Richard R. Hershberger
mb wrote:
> mb wrote:
>
> some nonsense, assuming that it was a double-barrelled last name.
>
> It is, as you already suggested, the guy's first name! Wow. Almost
> worse than naming your daughter Kimberly or Mackenzie.
Far worse. Yes, Kimberly and Mackenzie were not common girls' names a
hundred years ago. They are today. (Well, Kimberly is perfectly
standard. Mackenzie is unsurprising but a bit twee to my ear.)
Furthermore, for all that they are non-traditional, they fit within the
standard morphology of girls' names.
Richard R. Hershberger
Father Ignatius
news:mn.ecde7d65d...@nobody.invalid...
> On 5/29/2006, CDB posted this:
>> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>>> On 5/28/2006, CDB posted this:
>>>> Halcombe wrote:
>>>>> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>>>>>
>>>>> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
>>>> [...]
>> [boofly]
>>> Some years later it might have worked; for a while, the Beaulieu
>>> winery, which is not far from here, advertised their wine with
>>> lessons on how to pronounce their name.
>>
>> Bewley?
>
> Truly.
"Now Israel may say, and that treaulieu..."
Gene E. Bloch
Looks like you're using my spell-checker.
No, I'm just trying to foulieu.
J. J. Lodder
Peter Moylan
> On 30 May 2006, Mike Lyle wrote
>
>> were I ever to hear of one, to pronounce it "Bofflet".
>
> Or perhaps even dropping the "l", and ending up with "Buffet".
>
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain
eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer
reliably receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses.
The optusnet address still has about 2 months of life left.
CDB
Only when he behaved radly.
ray o'hara
"Gene E. Bloch" <spam...@nobody.invalid> wrote in message
> On 5/28/2006, CDB posted this:
> > Halcombe wrote:
> >> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
> >>
> >> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
> > [...]
> >
> > According to Google Emory University, where BJ Sr. was an alumnus, says
> > "BO-fill-lay". Of course, the NY Times says "bwah-fwee-YAY". I would
go
> > with the first one, because the second one sounds silly.
>
> And anyway, in French the middle syllable would sound more like fur
> does in Boston, i.e., *without* the r; I'll notate it as fu(r). So we
> get Bwah-fu(r)-YAY. (It would help if I had an IPA font here.)
Actually in Boston the R would be said in fur. It's after A that the R is
dropped. The A is broadened and the R dropped.
Roland Hutchinson
> HVS wrote:
>> On 30 May 2006, Mike Lyle wrote
>>
>>> They do indeed. I'd probably expect a British Boisfeuillet,
>>> were I ever to hear of one, to pronounce it "Bofflet".
>>
>> Or perhaps even dropping the "l", and ending up with "Buffet".
>>
> Within a few generations it might even turn into "Bucket".
It's "Bouquet".
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Gene E. Bloch
OK, then the way Bostonians would say it if they *did* drop the r in
fur :-)
I should have just made up the right IPA symbol in ASCII art, I guess.
Here are three symbols from the Windows character map that might have
the right meaning, but unfortunately might appear incorrectly on many
screens:
Ö Ø Œ [1]
I think those are all close to what I wanted to convey.
[1] If they didn't print right for you, they are o-umlaut (German or
Hungarian), o with a slash through it (Scandinavian), and the o-e
ligature (French).
Further corrections are welcome.
I was not originally from Boston, and I left there in '66 or '67, so I
evidently have managed to forget some details about the accent - sorry.
OTOH, I remember that my ex-wife, a non-Bostonian, had taught math in a
suburban high school (I forget which one - it was before I met her),
and learned that if she pronounced 'four' and 'for' both as one
syllable, the students had trouble understanding her. If she pronounced
the number as /foh-er/ and the preposition as /fawr/, they *could*
understand her, even though she (unlike her pupils) did pronounce the
/r/ in both cases.
To me, the word 'modern' always sounded like /morden/ in the Boston
area.
CDB
> On 5/29/2006, CDB posted this:
>> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>>> I like boofly. It's the most fun thing so far in this thread, IMO.
>>
>> It's like shoofly, except you throw a scare into the miserable
>> little invetebrates.
>
> Oh, dear. I thought it was pronounced to rhyme with 'truly' or
> 'aloofly' ... My bad (but what the hell, it was fun).
The bad was all mine. Pronunciation of imaginary words is optional,
but I would be willing to compromise on ['bU fli]: Man, what a geek.
Toadally boofly. (If you haven't looked at Evan Kirshenbaum's
adaptation of the IPA to usenet use, you'll find it on the website;
it's required for the decipherment of some posts.)
If you heard someone say "mi malo", would you think it was Spanish for
"my bad", Spanish with a slight speech impediment for "real bad", or
Latin for "it is for a bad thing to me"?
Salvatore Volatile
> To me, the word 'modern' always sounded like /morden/ in the Boston
> area.
Not quite. It's "mwahden".
--
Salvatore Volatile
Gene E. Bloch
> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>> On 5/29/2006, CDB posted this:
>>> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
> [...]
>>>> I like boofly. It's the most fun thing so far in this thread, IMO.
>>>
>>> It's like shoofly, except you throw a scare into the miserable
>>> little invetebrates.
>>
>> Oh, dear. I thought it was pronounced to rhyme with 'truly' or
>> 'aloofly' ... My bad (but what the hell, it was fun).
>
> The bad was all mine. Pronunciation of imaginary words is optional, but I
> would be willing to compromise on ['bU fli]: Man, what a geek. Toadally
> boofly. (If you haven't looked at Evan Kirshenbaum's adaptation of the IPA
> to usenet use, you'll find it on the website; it's required for the
> decipherment of some posts.)
Thanks for the hint. It'll be bookmarked in a minute...
> If you heard someone say "mi malo", would you think it was Spanish for "my
> bad", Spanish with a slight speech impediment for "real bad", or Latin for
> "it is for a bad thing to me"?
The last would be "mihi malo", I think.
Correction: I *used* to think. A convenient book I have just checked in
informs me that the dative of ego is "mihi or mi" (long i).
CDB 1, Gino 0.
Gino
Gene E. Bloch
> Gene E Bloch wrote:
>> To me, the word 'modern' always sounded like /morden/ in the Boston
>> area.
>
> Not quite. It's "mwahden".
Thanks for bringing me up-to-date :-)
OTOH, although I'm not from NYC, I try hard (just for fun) to refer to
my daily stimulant as cawfee. I have no idea how to notate exactly what
sound I mean, beyond having mentioned NYC :-)
I was also wondering if my thought above in the thread that Bostonians
say "fu(r)" without the r comes from my seven years or so in
Providence, where I think I recall that they drop or weaken the r in
that context.
I'll just have to go back and see (well, hear) - memory can fade. Of
course, accents change, as well.
Salvatore Volatile
> I was also wondering if my thought above in the thread that Bostonians
> say "fu(r)" without the r comes from my seven years or so in
> Providence, where I think I recall that they drop or weaken the r in
> that context.
I think that ray o'hara speaks for some Bwahstonians but not all. Some of
them indeed have non-rhotic "fur", and I suspect that that was what was
traditional.
--
Salvatore Volatile
Gene E. Bloch
Thanks - I'll be able to sleep better tonight. Nah, I really accepted
that I could have been wrong, but it's a bit nicer to be right, or at
least less (Fewer? Oh - wrong thread.) wrong.
Also thanks for the word 'non-rhotic'. I think I've seen it before (or
rhotic), but if so, it was lost in the mists. Now I'll have to find an
occasion to use it in conversation :-)
mb
Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> mb wrote:
> > It is, as you already suggested, the guy's first name! Wow. Almost
> > worse than naming your daughter Kimberly or Mackenzie.
>
> Far worse. Yes, Kimberly and Mackenzie were not common girls' names a
> hundred years ago. They are today. (Well, Kimberly is perfectly
> standard. Mackenzie is unsurprising but a bit twee to my ear.)
> Furthermore, for all that they are non-traditional, they fit within the
> standard morphology of girls' names.
Nah. Knowing that the mental retardation of our species is the major
driving force of language change is one count, taking it lying down and
with a smile is another.
The only thing that, personally speaking, could grate worse with
Boisfeuillet is that the wood that once named a family (not the
Joneses) is in France, while the King's Lea was in England and the Mac
Kenzie clan ended up speaking Angliche. As for fitting within the
traditional morphology of girls' names, "Latrina", already reported by
Mencken, sounds a thousand times better.
kev0...@gmail.com
> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>
> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
>
> 'bwa-foy-yay'.
>
> Since he's American, I haven't a clue. 'Boys-fill-it'? 'Boze-fill-it'?
> 'Boze-fill-eh'?
>
> No wonder he's got a nickname ('Bo')!
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boisfeuillet_Jones%2C_Jr.
Here in Atlanta, we often referred to him as Unpronounceable Jones.
Don Phillipson
> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>
> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
is that person's prerogative. The historical precedent is all those
British names with non-literal pronunciation (Mingis for Menzies,
Beecham for Beauchamp etc.) So Mr. Jones can say his name
sounds like Boflet and no one may say him nay.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
ANMC...@alum.wpi.edu
ANMcC
snide...@gmail.com
>
> > One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
> >
> > How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
>
> Our convention is that the pronunciation of anyone's proper name
> is that person's prerogative. The historical precedent is all those
> British names with non-literal pronunciation (Mingis for Menzies,
> Beecham for Beauchamp etc.) So Mr. Jones can say his name
> sounds like Boflet and no one may say him nay.
CDB cited the alma mater of the subject as giving "BO-fill-ay"
/dps
Peter T. Daniels
was one of the army of lurkers who offer their support in the email. Well,
back then probably e-mail.
Jack Campin
Woodleaf.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin
Dingbat
Peter T. Daniels
/œː/ 'fleur' and /øː/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I don't think that's so in German.
Dingbat
Jerry Friedman
>> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Christian name?
>
> Woodleaf
> .
--
Jerry Friedman
"No Trump" bridge-themed political shirts: cafepress.com/jerrysdesigns
Bumper stickers ditto: cafepress/jerrysstickers
snide...@gmail.com
> On 5/23/16 2:31 PM, Jack Campin wrote:
> >> One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
> >> How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Christian name?
> >
> > Woodleaf
>
> let
And on beyond that, maybe?
/dps
Peter T. Daniels
> it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œː/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
in the big Harrap dictionary shows the situation as you describe: free vowel
higher, checked vowel lower.
bill van
has several regular inserted sections in tabloid format, and it has
started up tabloid editions in several other cities.
Also, I don't think there is anything beyond tabloid, except perhaps the
fiery pit at the back of the stage in productions of Don Giovanni.
--
bill
Robert Bannister
ø peu, deux
œ peur, meuble
which also agrees.
--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972
Peter T. Daniels
appear there. How recent is your table? Or better, what does it give as the
pronunciations of fleur vs. meule?
Dingbat
> On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 10:09:38 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> > On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:39:46 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 2:17:51 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> > > > On Monday, May 23, 2016 at 7:09:13 PM UTC+5:30, kev0...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > > On Sunday, May 28, 2006 at 12:49:12 PM UTC-4, Halcombe wrote:
> > > > > > One Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr. is CEO of the Washington Post.
>
> > > > > > How in Jesu's name do you pronounce that Chrisian name?
> > > > > > If it were the name of a Frenchman, I'd have no difficulty in saying,
> > > > > > 'bwa-foy-yay'.
> > > > > > Since he's American, I haven't a clue. 'Boys-fill-it'? 'Boze-fill-it'?
> > > > > > 'Boze-fill-eh'?
> > > > > > No wonder he's got a nickname ('Bo')!
> > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boisfeuillet_Jones%2C_Jr.
> > > > > Here in Atlanta, we often referred to him as Unpronounceable Jones.
> > > > The German equivalent of french <eu> is close as a free vowel and open as a checked vowel. It seems the same in French: deux has a close vowel whereas neuf has an open one. Is that correct as a phonological rule?
> > > In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two vowels
> > > /œː/ 'fleur' and /øː/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I don't think that's so in German.
> >
> > If 'fleur' is non-rhotic,
>
> Why would you even imagine such a thing?
>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw9S_t--Jv8
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cn2zs_fleur-flower-pronunciation-in-french_school
> > it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œː/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
>
> For the _short_ rounded mid front vowels, the 50+-year-old pronunciation key
> in the big Harrap dictionary shows the situation as you describe: free vowel
> higher, checked vowel lower.
Ah! Thanks.
Peter Moylan
disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing
as a non-rhotic French dialect.
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Snidely
/dps
--
Killing a mouse was hardly a Nobel Prize-worthy exercise, and Lawrence
went apopleptic when he learned a lousy rodent had peed away all his
precious heavy water.
_The Disappearing Spoon_, Sam Kean
Lanarcam
> On 2016-May-25 00:09, Dingbat wrote:
>> On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:39:46 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>>> In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two vowels
>>> /œː/ 'fleur' and /øː/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I don't think that's so in German.
>>
>> If 'fleur' is non-rhotic, it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œː/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
>
> The French 'r' is a lot softer than an English 'r', but it doesn't
> disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing
> as a non-rhotic French dialect.
>
Peter T. Daniels
We have a lot of Haitians in New York and Chicago, and the name of the language
they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from babyhood that they
speak "bad French." That is of course not true (unless one holds to the EricW
attitude).
Lanarcam
> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 5:26:16 AM UTC-4, Lanarcam wrote:
>> Le 25/05/2016 à 07:46, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>> On 2016-May-25 00:09, Dingbat wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:39:46 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>>>>> In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two vowels
>>>>> /œː/ 'fleur' and /øː/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I don't think that's so in German.
>>>> If 'fleur' is non-rhotic, it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œː/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
>>> The French 'r' is a lot softer than an English 'r', but it doesn't
>>> disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing
>>> as a non-rhotic French dialect.
>>
>> Have a look at Martinique or Guadeloupe accents.
>
> Do they speak French, or do they speak Patwa?
tend to drop the "r"s.
Peter Moylan
Jack Campin
> they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from babyhood that they
> speak "bad French." That is of course not true (unless one holds to the EricW
> attitude).
describe their language the same way. (It sounds vaguely like French
when I'm lying there in the chair but I can hardly identify a word). And
they're highly educated people you'd expect to be immune to that sort
of patronizing labelling. A Scots dentist certainly wouldn't say they were
speaking "bad English".
CDB
> Lanarcam wrote:
>> Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>> In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two
>>>>> vowels /œː/ 'fleur' and /øː/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I
>>>>> don't think that's so in German.
>>>> If 'fleur' is non-rhotic, it could be analyzed as <eur> being a
>>>> free vowel /œː/, making the distinction no longer phonemic,
>>>> what?
>>> The French 'r' is a lot softer than an English 'r', but it
>>> doesn't disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's
>>> no such thing as a non-rhotic French dialect.
>> Have a look at Martinique or Guadeloupe accents.
> Do they speak French, or do they speak Patwa?
who speak Patwa ("Calypso, calypso, nous dançons le calypso/ C'est un
rhythme magnifique qui vient de la Jamaïque ...").
> We have a lot of Haitians in New York and Chicago, and the name of
> the language they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from
> babyhood that they speak "bad French." That is of course not true
> (unless one holds to the EricW attitude).
non-rhotic. "Père, faire, valeur, garçon, dormir" are [pE fE valE gaso~
dOmi] (I'm not sure how to represent the effect of the unspoken [r] on
the [O] of "dormir" -- it makes it more open than [o] -- and I couldn't
find anything similar in the AUE FAQ version of IPA).
Mark Brader
> speaking "bad English".
"The Fifth Element". The title character speaks several sentences
to him in her alien language, and he replies: "Look, lady, I only
speak two languages. English and bad English."
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Oh what a tangled web we weave,
m...@vex.net | a literate geekiness to achieve." --Steve Summit
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Dingbat
The cognoscenti generally claim that Indian English speakers speak English. Written Indian English is much less incomprehensible to Anglophones than is spoken Indian English.
Robert Bannister
If so, the contrast might still
> appear there. How recent is your table?
Or better, what does it give as the
> pronunciations of fleur vs. meule?
>
I can't say I have ever actually spoken the word "meule".
I notice it gives "brun" as [bʀœ᷈] rather than the more commonly heard
[bʀɛ̏] so it's not very up to date.
Not sure how those nasal sounds will come out on everyone's computer
(assuming they have IPA to start with): that's ligature oe with a
squiggle on top and the E that's like a backwards 3 with a squiggle on top.
Robert Bannister
pirates in Asterix always dropped his Rs.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 6:22:37 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 5:26:16 AM UTC-4, Lanarcam wrote:
> > > Have a look at Martinique or Guadeloupe accents.
> > Do they speak French, or do they speak Patwa?
> > We have a lot of Haitians in New York and Chicago, and the name of the
> > language they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from babyhood
> > that they speak "bad French." That is of course not true (unless one holds
> > to the EricW attitude).
>
> What do the Hatitians write? French or Creole?
> The cognoscenti generally claim that Indian English speakers speak English. Written Indian English is much less incomprehensible to Anglophones than is spoken Indian English.
Peter T. Daniels
Jerry Friedman
> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 6:22:37 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 5:26:16 AM UTC-4, Lanarcam wrote:
>>> Le 25/05/2016 à 07:46, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>>> On 2016-May-25 00:09, Dingbat wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:39:46 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>>>>> In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two vowels
>>>>>> /œː/ 'fleur' and /øː/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I don't think that's so in German.
>>>>> If 'fleur' is non-rhotic, it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œː/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
>>>> The French 'r' is a lot softer than an English 'r', but it doesn't
>>>> disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing
>>>> as a non-rhotic French dialect.
>>>
>>> Have a look at Martinique or Guadeloupe accents.
>>
>> Do they speak French, or do they speak Patwa?
>>
>> We have a lot of Haitians in New York and Chicago, and the name of the
>> language they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from babyhood
>> that they speak "bad French." That is of course not true (unless one holds
>> to the EricW attitude).
>
> What do the Hatitians write? French or Creole?
Just yesterday I took a look at the Facebook pages of two
Haitian-American friends of a friend. They and their friends wrote in
Creole mixed with English.
![Peter Duncanson [BrE]'s profile photo](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/ALV-UjU1GGYFBCZgBCNB-pRgkosMu-ej0qpnECw3jc8uGYOTiF8a=s40-c)
Peter Duncanson [BrE]
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 6:22:37 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 5:26:16 AM UTC-4, Lanarcam wrote:
>> > Le 25/05/2016 à 07:46, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>> > > On 2016-May-25 00:09, Dingbat wrote:
>> > >> On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:39:46 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>> > >>> In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two vowels
>> > >> If 'fleur' is non-rhotic, it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œ?/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
>> > > disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing
>> > > as a non-rhotic French dialect.
>> >
>> > Have a look at Martinique or Guadeloupe accents.
>>
>> Do they speak French, or do they speak Patwa?
>>
>> We have a lot of Haitians in New York and Chicago, and the name of the
>> language they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from babyhood
>> that they speak "bad French." That is of course not true (unless one holds
>> to the EricW attitude).
>
>What do the Hatitians write? French or Creole?
>
Hatitians? Are they related to the Tahitians and the Haitians?
>The cognoscenti generally claim that Indian English speakers speak English. Written Indian English is much less incomprehensible to Anglophones than is spoken Indian English.
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Robert Bannister
less randomly "c'est, ces, sept, cette, ses..." event though these do
not necessarily all sound the same. Most of these were able to speak
pretty good French, though, and didn't confuse it with the creole they
also spoke, but their spelling...!
Robert Bannister
> On Wed, 25 May 2016 19:07:09 -0700 (PDT), Dingbat
> <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 6:22:37 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 5:26:16 AM UTC-4, Lanarcam wrote:
>>>> Le 25/05/2016 à 07:46, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>>>> On 2016-May-25 00:09, Dingbat wrote:
>>>>>> On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:39:46 PM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>> In French the distinction is or used to be phonemic; the two vowels
>>>>>>> /œ?/ 'fleur' and /ø?/ 'meule' could contrast -- but I don't think that's so in German.
>>>>>> If 'fleur' is non-rhotic, it could be analyzed as <eur> being a free vowel /œ?/, making the distinction no longer phonemic, what?
>>>>> The French 'r' is a lot softer than an English 'r', but it doesn't
>>>>> disappear entirely. To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing
>>>>> as a non-rhotic French dialect.
>>>>
>>>> Have a look at Martinique or Guadeloupe accents.
>>>
>>> Do they speak French, or do they speak Patwa?
>>>
>>> We have a lot of Haitians in New York and Chicago, and the name of the
>>> language they speak is a very touchy topic. They were taught from babyhood
>>> that they speak "bad French." That is of course not true (unless one holds
>>> to the EricW attitude).
>>
>> What do the Hatitians write? French or Creole?
>>
> Amusing typo.
>
> Hatitians? Are they related to the Tahitians and the Haitians?
Will Parsons
regarded as having an underlying form /mø:lə/, so that at some level
the [ø] occurs in an open syllable.
>> I can't say I have ever actually spoken the word "meule".
>> I notice it gives "brun" as [bʀœ᷈] rather than the more commonly heard
>> [bʀɛ̏] so it's not very up to date.
conservative in matters where distinctions are in the process of
disappearing. It's easier to eliminate distinctions in one's speech
than to reintroduce them.
--
Will
Peter Moylan
of "l'apéro". I had never heard of the word, so I assumed that it was
about a wine called "La Perrault".
In the same class, the lecturer once said "impeccable", and a student
who had been in France replied "deux peccables". The rest of us were
whooshed. We hadn't yet learnt the Parisian pronunciation of "un"; we'd
learnt it the way it's pronounced in the rest of France.
(When I later spent three months in Paris, I found it difficult to force
myself to say "laindi" instead of "lundi".)
Robert Bannister
"in" sound. I thought it was only the "un" sound that had merged.
