The Book of Jhereg - Pronunciation Guide
Tina Hall
Just picked up the Book of Jhereg, and have a problem with the
Pronunciation Guide at the beginning. All the '-uh' sounds seem
kind of weird, to me they indicate 'oo', which seems completely
off for the letters 'a' and 'e' that are meant, for example.
Any ideas on how to pronounce the stuff?
(I've got a feeling that if I just ignore the Guide and read the
words as I think, I'll end up pretty close to what's meant.)
Tina
Steve Coltrin
> Any ideas on how to pronounce the stuff?
Exactly as if it were Hungarian?
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org WWVBF?
"Whoever wrote it has a brain disorder, and should write more." - Ay Eye
Mike Schilling
"Tina Hall" <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote in message
news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org...
>
> Just picked up the Book of Jhereg, and have a problem with the
> Pronunciation Guide at the beginning. All the '-uh' sounds seem
> kind of weird, to me they indicate 'oo', which seems completely
> off for the letters 'a' and 'e' that are meant, for example.
>
I don't have it in front of me (and should have the sense to wait until I
get home before posting, really), but is the "uh", for instance, the last
syllable of "Aliera"?
If so, I take it as representing a schwa, the vowel in unstressed syllables
like the first of "again" (or, I think, the last of "eine").
Michael S. Schiffer
news:87y8vjm...@hrothgar.omcl.org:
> begin T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
>> Any ideas on how to pronounce the stuff?
> Exactly as if it were Hungarian?
Except that sometimes it's not that simple (e.g., "Cawti", which, if
pronounced in a standard midwestern US fashion, equates to how
"Kathy" would be pronounced according to Hungarian rules-- or so I'm
told).
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Ken Vale
>begin T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
>
>
>
>>Any ideas on how to pronounce the stuff?
>>
>>
>
>Exactly as if it were Hungarian?
>
No the language, Fenarian, that is pronounced liked Hungarian is in
_Brokedown Palace_ which is a book sort of connected to the Taltos and
Paarfi serries, though some of the people in the Taltos serries have
Fenarian names, all of the -uh are from the Dragaeran language and I
have no idea what language that is based one.
Ken
Dorothy J Heydt
Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>
>Just picked up the Book of Jhereg, and have a problem with the
>Pronunciation Guide at the beginning. All the '-uh' sounds seem
>kind of weird, to me they indicate 'oo', which seems completely
>off for the letters 'a' and 'e' that are meant, for example.
The -uh refers to the schwa, sometimes referred to as the
Great Anglo-Saxon Grunt. But you have it in German too. Think
of the final -e at the end of thousands of German words stressed
on the previous syllable.
One of the characteristics of modern English is that almost any
unstressed vowel turns into a schwa. Whatever the sounds of
Dragaeran really sound like, we can assume Mr. Brust pronounces
it with an American accent.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
David Dyer-Bennet
> Just picked up the Book of Jhereg, and have a problem with the
> Pronunciation Guide at the beginning. All the '-uh' sounds seem
> kind of weird, to me they indicate 'oo', which seems completely
> off for the letters 'a' and 'e' that are meant, for example.
To an American, "uh" is kind of a grunt; intended I believe in that
pronunciation guide to represent the "schwa" sound, if you're familiar
with that (I note/remember you're from Germany, and no doubt learned
all this stuff differently from the way I did here).
(I just checked what the guide says on several names I'm *really sure*
I know how to pronounce -- particularly "Dragaera". He's definitely
using the "uh" for a schwa. More explanation of "schwa" at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa>.)
> Any ideas on how to pronounce the stuff?
>
> (I've got a feeling that if I just ignore the Guide and read the
> words as I think, I'll end up pretty close to what's meant.)
Probably close enough, sure.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <dd...@dd-b.net>, <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <noguns-nomoney.com> <www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Photos: <dd-b.lighthunters.net> Snapshots: <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <dragaera.info/>
Tina Hall
> "Tina Hall" <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote in message
> news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org...
> > Just picked up the Book of Jhereg, and have a problem with
> > the Pronunciation Guide at the beginning. All the '-uh'
> > sounds seem kind of weird, to me they indicate 'oo', which
> > seems completely off for the letters 'a' and 'e' that are
> > meant, for example.
>
> I don't have it in front of me (and should have the sense to
> wait until I get home before posting, really), but is the
> "uh", for instance, the last syllable of "Aliera"?
Yes. It says:
Aliera uh-LEER-uh
Which makes no sense to me, as that'd sound just like 'oo-LEER-
oo'.
> If so, I take it as representing a schwa,
No! <making cross sign> Go away!
(Sorry, just had a rather fruitless discussion on just that
mysterious thingy over on another ng, and decided it really is
just short for 'nonsense'. Child-hood traumatic experience has to
do with my lack of understanding in this. <g> Incompetent English
teachers can ruin your whole live...)
> the vowel in unstressed syllables like the first of "again"
To me, the second vowel sound is the same as the first in that
word, but my pronounciation is rather screwed anyway. :)
> (or, I think, the last of "eine").
That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match the
English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
Tina
Dorothy J Heydt
Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>
>
>To me, the second vowel sound is the same as the first in that
>word, but my pronounciation is rather screwed anyway. :)
>
>> (or, I think, the last of "eine").
>
>That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match the
>English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
That's how speakers of American English write a schwa. "Uh" is
the spelling of the indeterminate sound you make while trying to
think. "So I need to pack," Fred said, "some goggles, and, uh,
let's see, a pair of flippers...."
Have you, in your study of the English language, encountered the
words "rhotic" and "arhotic"? They are of course Greek for "with
an R" and "without an "R". Most British dialects of English are
arhotic. Most American dialects of English (excepting some on
the Eastern coast of the US) are rhotic. Arhotic dialects drop
the R sound after a vowel, or rather transmute it into a
lengthening of the vowe.l Speakers of rhotic dialects think
arhotic dialects sound very funny, and parody them as saying "I
pahked the cah." Speakers of arhotic dialects, Brits for
example, write that indeterminate sound that Yanks write "uh" as
"er." Phoneticians write it with a schwa. Brust is an American
(originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota) and writes it "uh", and
like most Americans he pronounces practically every unstressed
vowel that way.
But if the idea of a schwa really repels you (though you use it
too in German), pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as
"a-lier-a" instead of "schwa-lier-schwa" and it will sound okay.
David Dyer-Bennet
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > the vowel in unstressed syllables like the first of "again"
>
> To me, the second vowel sound is the same as the first in that
> word, but my pronounciation is rather screwed anyway. :)
Around here it's something like "uh-gin". The second vowel is very
different from the first.
> > (or, I think, the last of "eine").
>
> That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match the
> English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
Pretty well (though my German is 30 years out of date at this point).
I'd imagine regional accents vary that last vowel a lot, though?
Tina Hall
> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1d8a3bd2@fidonet.
> org>, Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
> >That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match the
> >English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
>
> "Uh" is the spelling of the indeterminate sound you make while
> trying to think.
"Mmm..."? ;)
> "So I need to pack," Fred said, "some goggles, and, uh, let's
> see, a pair of flippers...."
I always parse that as 'oo'. Like 'you' without the 'y' bit.
That's what the 'h' indicates; that it's not as taught in school
- where the English 'u' is pronounced like the German 'a' - but
just as the German 'u'. Works that way with 'a' (pronounced like
'ey' in German) and 'ah' (like the German 'a').
I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into an
'eh' sound.
> Have you, in your study of the English language,
What study? I just read books not to forget all of it. :) I'm
terrible with languages.
> encountered the words "rhotic" and "arhotic"?
No.
[snip good explanation of those words]
> Speakers of arhotic dialects, Brits for example, write that
> indeterminate sound that Yanks write "uh" as "er."
See, there is no logic in how anyone would write 'er' as 'uh',
when the letters have not even a remote resemblance to the sound,
not even in English.
> pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
So far, a it's a good story, btw.
Tina
Kate Nepveu
The way I read that, "ah-lee-ehr-ah", is very similar to the way I
would say it, only shortening the "ah"s.
It is probably futile to have this conversation in text.
--
Kate Nepveu
E-mail: kne...@steelypips.org
Home: http://www.steelypips.org/
Book log: http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/
Mike Schilling
"Tina Hall" <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote in message
news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org...
> > In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1d8a3bd2@fidonet.
> > org>, Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>
> > >That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match the
> > >English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
> >
> > "Uh" is the spelling of the indeterminate sound you make while
> > trying to think.
>
> "Mmm..."? ;)
>
> > "So I need to pack," Fred said, "some goggles, and, uh, let's
> > see, a pair of flippers...."
>
> I always parse that as 'oo'. Like 'you' without the 'y' bit.
> That's what the 'h' indicates; that it's not as taught in school
> - where the English 'u' is pronounced like the German 'a' - but
> just as the German 'u'. Works that way with 'a' (pronounced like
> 'ey' in German) and 'ah' (like the German 'a').
You're thinking "uh" as in "Uhlan", yes? English doesn't do that.
Think "u" as in (the English word) "bull", with the "h" to make the vowel
last longer.
Karl M Syring
>
> You're thinking "uh" as in "Uhlan", yes? English doesn't do that.
>
> Think "u" as in (the English word) "bull", with the "h" to make the vowel
> last longer.
Close to impossible for us. The thought alone causes an itching sensation.
Karl M. Syring
Nancy Thuleen
Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> > In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1d8a3bd2@fidonet.
> > org>, Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>
> > "So I need to pack," Fred said, "some goggles, and, uh, let's
> > see, a pair of flippers...."
>
> I always parse that as 'oo'. Like 'you' without the 'y' bit.
> That's what the 'h' indicates; that it's not as taught in school
> - where the English 'u' is pronounced like the German 'a' - but
> just as the German 'u'. Works that way with 'a' (pronounced like
> 'ey' in German) and 'ah' (like the German 'a').
>
> I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into an
> 'eh' sound.
The -h in the English spelling "uh" is NOT a vowel lengthener like it
is in German. It just draws out the sound, but it does not make the
vowel long or pure or change the basic sound in any way. Think of the
'u' in English 'but' or the 'o' in 'mother'. That's pretty close to
the sound Americans make in pausing for thought, which we almost always
write as 'uh'. The 'h' merely indicates that the sound lasts for a
while ... "buuuut" or something like that.
Germans tend to interject either, as Tina said, "mmm" or -- more often,
I've observed -- ääh. The latter sound we don't have in English
(American or British) exactly, but it's similar to a short 'e' as in
'yes'. That won't work for Aliera's name, either.
But no one, either German or English speaking, interjects "oooh" as a
pause for thought! "Uh" or "er" or "ummm" -- it's a short vowel, no
rounding, no tightness. Just a schwa, pretty much.
It must indeed be a problem for German speakers, because as far as I
know, in really pure speech, they don't have schwas. Even the examples
cited before ('eine') -- if it's said with any stress at all, that last
-e is almost a short 'e', not a real schwa. But I've certainly heard
it as a schwa when people speak at a normal speed or quickly.
I was going to suggest the 'e' syllable in "beantworten", but again,
when it's said clearly, it's not a schwa either, it's a short 'e'.
Okay, here we go: maybe if you stutter "B-B-B-Banküberfall" like EAV,
then you get a schwa for the stuttering sounds. I think. :)
> > pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
>
> I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
Well, no. German "hier" is not "hee-ehr", it's just "hier", one
syllable. (We're talking German for 'here', not French for
'yesterday'!) I guess I don't know for sure, but I assume Steve
intended Aliera to be 3 syllables, not four (e.g. the 'ie' is a
diphthong, right?). I really think it's pretty much the same as a
German would say it if it were spelled "Aliere" or "Aliera." With an
English 'r', though. :)
But don't even get me started on Kiera -- in the pronunciation guide
it's supposedly "KI-ruh", which is so completely different from Aliera.
And in my head I always pronounced Kiera with three syllables,
Kee-err-a, but that must be wrong. I think it's really only two, but a
long I -- as if it were German "keira". And Kieron? No idea.
Kate's right, though -- this doesn't work in text at all. :)
- Nancy.
David Dyer-Bennet
> Well, no. German "hier" is not "hee-ehr", it's just "hier", one
> syllable. (We're talking German for 'here', not French for
> 'yesterday'!) I guess I don't know for sure, but I assume Steve
> intended Aliera to be 3 syllables, not four (e.g. the 'ie' is a
> diphthong, right?). I really think it's pretty much the same as a
> German would say it if it were spelled "Aliere" or "Aliera." With an
> English 'r', though. :)
Definitely 3 syllables. (I was involved in one of the generations of
Dragaeran gaming before Steven started writing stories in the
universe). My 30-year-stale German says those two spellings would
result in approximately the correct pronunciation. Probably the
second one. But as somebody who studied German in the US, and heard
it largely in Switzerland, I am totally useless on regional accent
variations, which I expect often matter on unstressed vowels.
> But don't even get me started on Kiera -- in the pronunciation guide
> it's supposedly "KI-ruh", which is so completely different from Aliera.
> And in my head I always pronounced Kiera with three syllables,
> Kee-err-a, but that must be wrong. I think it's really only two, but a
> long I -- as if it were German "keira". And Kieron? No idea.
In the pronunciation guide in _The Book of Jhereg_, it lists Kieron
right below to Kiera, and shows both pronounced with an uppercase "I"
with a bar over it for the main vowel. Which is just plain wrong.
Well, okay, it can be however Steven wants. But it's still just plain
wrong. I'm prejudiced by 4 years of German (or 6 if you include the
years I lived in Zurich), and you just can't pronounce "ie" as a long
"I" sound. (I don't believe either name came up while I was involved
in Dragaera gaming, and while I'm sure we've discussed them since, I
don't actually remember how Steven pronounces them.)
So the pronunciation guide wants the first syllable of "Kiera" to
rhyme with "die", "sky", "lie", and "eye"; what I call the "long I"
sound. And the unstressed trailing vowel, of course, becomes a
schwa.
It's still wrong. Bah, humbug.
> Kate's right, though -- this doesn't work in text at all. :)
Increases the challenge.
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote:
>>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>>> pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
>
>>I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
>
>The way I read that, "ah-lee-ehr-ah", is very similar to the way I
>would say it, only shortening the "ah"s.
>It is probably futile to have this conversation in text.
<http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> (sounds are in mp3
format).
"Uh" is a schwa.
"Ah" is "a".
The vowels in "Aliera" are "a", "i", "e-schwa", and "schwa".
--Craig
--
I start to wish Bob Melvin would walk out to the mound, ask Freddy if he
was injured, and then kick him in the balls so he can call in an
emergency replacement from the bullpen --Derek Zumsteg in BP, 5/13/2003
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into an
>'eh' sound.
"Uh" is the sound of the U in "but" or "tub."
That's all.
David Silberstein
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
>Definitely 3 syllables. (I was involved in one of the generations
>of Dragaeran gaming before Steven started writing stories in the
>universe).
> (I don't believe either name came up while I was involved
>in Dragaera gaming, and while I'm sure we've discussed them since, I
>don't actually remember how Steven pronounces them.)
Well, since you *are* running the website, perhaps you could put on
a *real* pronunciation guide, with IPA symbols & short sound files
from yourself, or even SKZB, assuming he's willing.
And perhaps you could also put on Steve's dad pronouncing "Bölcsesség",
"Csucskári", and like that. :-)
I note that Kieron & Kiera are Irish names, and perhaps Steve meant
for the Dragaeran pronunciation of those names to follow that
language's orthography rules, which are very different from the
English & German that has been under discussion.
KIERA f Irish
Anglicized form of CIARA
CIARA f Irish
Pronounced: KEE-a-ra, KEER-a
Feminine form of CIARAN. Saint Ciara was an Irish nun
who established a monastery at Kilkeary in the 7th century.
CIARAN m Irish
Derived from Irish ciar meaning "black" combined with a
diminutive suffix. This was the name of two Irish saints:
Saint Ciaran the Elder, the patron of the Kingdom of Munster,
and Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, the founder of a monastery
in the 6th century.
Konrad Gaertner
Why four syllables? If I remember my German correctly,
pronouncing it as spelled should be right (or close enough).
And anyway, the author is on record as not caring if people
mispronounce the names.
--KG
Craig Richardson
wrote:
Maybe where you come from... Here, "but" and "tub" get (IPA) 'A',
while "uh" gets an (IPA) schwa.
Can we translate to IPA if we're going to continue? See
<http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> for mp3s of the
relevant sounds.
Craig Richardson
<nthu...@students.wisc.NOSPAM.edu> wrote:
>In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>,
>Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>> I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into an
>> 'eh' sound.
>
>The -h in the English spelling "uh" is NOT a vowel lengthener like it
>is in German. It just draws out the sound, but it does not make the
>vowel long or pure or change the basic sound in any way. Think of the
>'u' in English 'but' or the 'o' in 'mother'. That's pretty close to
>the sound Americans make in pausing for thought, which we almost always
>write as 'uh'. The 'h' merely indicates that the sound lasts for a
>while ... "buuuut" or something like that.
One method of romanizing Japanese also uses 'h' in the same way.
Mike Schilling
"Lawrence Watt-Evans" <l...@sff.net> wrote in message
news:bmsjo8$p2j$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
Those are quite different sounds, to me. "Bush" and "tub" are the same.
Mike Schilling
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:nonkb.1417$by4...@newssvr25.news.prodigy.com...
OK, not even close to what I meant to say. Take two:
To me, the "uh" that's the last syllable of "Alieria" is an the vowel in
"bush", not the one in "but" or "tub".
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <m21xtab...@gw.dd-b.net>,
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> >
> >Definitely 3 syllables. (I was involved in one of the generations
> >of Dragaeran gaming before Steven started writing stories in the
> >universe).
>
> > (I don't believe either name came up while I was involved
> >in Dragaera gaming, and while I'm sure we've discussed them since, I
> >don't actually remember how Steven pronounces them.)
>
> Well, since you *are* running the website, perhaps you could put on
> a *real* pronunciation guide, with IPA symbols & short sound files
> from yourself, or even SKZB, assuming he's willing.
That's not at all a bad idea. Especially if somebody has an IPA font
handy and knows how to use it.
Hey, hang on; it says here
<http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm> that those
symbols are all in Unicode. Hmmm; this is sounding dangerous.
Then again, I suspect most readers wouldn't recognize the symbol for a
vd postalveolar affricate even if I *did* put it in, and if they did,
they wouldn't know what sound to make :-).
I've looked at IPA before, and I kinda came to the same conclusion
then -- it's a great idea for specialists, but completely useless for
communicating with most people. It's especially nasty because it
doesn't just extend standard dictionary pronunciation codes -- it
completely throws them away and uses the same symols for other things.
Which makes it, I think, counterproductive for a "popular" rather than
scholarly web site.
However, doing a more rigorous job using a well-defined coding system
(preferably stolen rather than invented) and probably referencing IPA
to define the coding system seems like a good idea.
Sound files would be relatively easy, if not quick (Steven isn't in
Minneapolis these days).
> And perhaps you could also put on Steve's dad pronouncing "Bölcsesség",
> "Csucskári", and like that. :-)
I'm doubtful that those were ever recorded, and it's too late to make
new recordings, unfortunately.
> I note that Kieron & Kiera are Irish names, and perhaps Steve meant
> for the Dragaeran pronunciation of those names to follow that
> language's orthography rules, which are very different from the
> English & German that has been under discussion.
That is entirely possible.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Yes, but the subject under discussion was American pronunciation, in
which "bush" isn't much like "tub" at all.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
I can't quite imagine that.
David Silberstein
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>David Silberstein <davids_aat_k...@foilspam.invalid> writes:
>
>>
>> Well, since you *are* running the website, perhaps you could put on
>> a *real* pronunciation guide, with IPA symbols & short sound files
>> from yourself, or even SKZB, assuming he's willing.
[IPA]
> It's especially nasty because it
>doesn't just extend standard dictionary pronunciation codes -- it
>completely throws them away and uses the same symols for other things.
>Which makes it, I think, counterproductive for a "popular" rather than
>scholarly web site.
That's a good point. Perhaps standard dictionary pronunciation will
have to be sufficient; preferably using the same decoding lines that
dictionaries have (or pointing them at the page that decodes them,
e.g.: http://www.m-w.com/aschart.htm ).
>However, doing a more rigorous job using a well-defined coding system
>(preferably stolen rather than invented) and probably referencing IPA
>to define the coding system seems like a good idea.
>
>Sound files would be relatively easy, if not quick (Steven isn't in
>Minneapolis these days).
Well, there are various ways one could perhaps get sound files from
him over various communication lines. But it's waited this long,
there's no need to rush things, I suppose.
>> And perhaps you could also put on Steve's dad pronouncing
>> "Bölcsesség", "Csucskári", and like that.
>
>I'm doubtful that those were ever recorded, and it's too late
>to make new recordings, unfortunately.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Although perhaps it would be possible to get the cooperation of
a similarly fluent Hungarian speaker...
Tina Hall
> T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
> > Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > the vowel in unstressed syllables like the first of
> > > "again"
> >
> > To me, the second vowel sound is the same as the first in
> > that word, but my pronounciation is rather screwed anyway.
> > :)
>
> Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
> > > (or, I think, the last of "eine").
> >
> > That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match
> > the English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
>
> Pretty well (though my German is 30 years out of date at this
> point).
Pretty well for values of not at all? <g>
> I'd imagine regional accents vary that last vowel a lot,
> though?
In 'again' or in 'eine'?
Tina (confused, but happy with the actual book)
Tina Hall
> You're thinking "uh" as in "Uhlan", yes? English doesn't do
> that.
What's Uhlan?
> Think "u" as in (the English word) "bull", with the "h" to
> make the vowel last longer.
That's the same 'u' as the one above.
Tina
Tina Hall
> In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1d8a45c6@fidonet.
> org>, Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
[uh]
> > I always parse that as 'oo'. Like 'you' without the 'y' bit.
> > That's what the 'h' indicates; that it's not as taught in
> > school - where the English 'u' is pronounced like the German
> > 'a' - but just as the German 'u'. Works that way with 'a'
> > (pronounced like 'ey' in German) and 'ah' (like the German
> > 'a').
> >
> > I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into
> > an 'eh' sound.
>
> The -h in the English spelling "uh" is NOT a vowel lengthener
> like it is in German.
I didn't say that either. It changes how it's pronounced.
> Think of the 'u' in English 'but' or the 'o' in 'mother'.
That are two completely different sounds. Like a short bit of the
'o' in the Librarian's 'ook' (who might wonder what all this is
about anyway, if he was here, not having these problems) and the
'o' in top, respectively.
> The 'h' merely indicates that the sound lasts for a while ...
You pointed out that it isn't a vowel lenghtener...
> "buuuut" or something like that.
Like boot, then.
> Germans tend to interject either, as Tina said, "mmm" or --
> more often, I've observed -- ääh. The latter sound we don't
> have in English (American or British) exactly,
You do. One thing I know about American English is that you have
that sound in both "can" and "can't", as opposed to a German 'a'
in both words in some region of Britain, and in school here one
learns "can" with German 'ä' and "can't" with German 'a'.
> but it's similar to a short 'e' as in 'yes'. That won't work
> for Aliera's name, either.
That's what I got out of this conversation, though. Not that that
fits in any way, so I just think of it as a German 'a'.
> But no one, either German or English speaking, interjects
> "oooh" as a pause for thought!
That's what it reads like. Pretty normal for me, too, by now.
(And I might be an exception to your rule, if only in thought. I
don't tend to speak these pauses.)
> > > pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
> >
> > I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
>
> Well, no. German "hier" is not "hee-ehr", it's just "hier",
That's different, 'hier' is a German word.
> But don't even get me started on Kiera --
Isn't that the same as that Major Kira Neris of DS9? (A TV-
series, for those who just stick to books alone.)
> Kate's right, though -- this doesn't work in text at all. :)
We can agree on that.
It's interesting though, even if fruitless. Just think of all the
accents the different characters have in the minds of all the
different readers. Pronunciation (somehow that word seems to miss
an 'o', too, but I trust that is actually the correct spelling)
Guides seem like trying to hold an avalanche with a snowball, or
- for some reason - I get the image of Rumpelstielzchen stomping
his foot and being swallowed by the ground.
Tina
Dorothy J Heydt
Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>
>Pronunciation (somehow that word seems to miss
>an 'o', too, but I trust that is actually the correct spelling)
That is the correct spelling. A given speaker might pronounce
the first vowel with something like its European value, or with a
schwa because it is unstressed.
Karl M Syring
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You're thinking "uh" as in "Uhlan", yes? English doesn't do
>> that.
>
> What's Uhlan?
Heavy cavalry (lancers), although it written "Ulan" today.
Karl M. Syring
David Tate
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
> > > Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > the vowel in unstressed syllables like the first of
> > > > "again"
> > >
> > > To me, the second vowel sound is the same as the first in
> > > that word, but my pronounciation is rather screwed anyway.
> > > :)
> >
> > Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
>
> Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
Huge? Where did you get 'huge' from?
Say the word "accountant". Now, isolate just the first vowel, the
part that comes before the first /c/ sound. That's the sound that
'uh' is supposed to indicate here.
Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes? How do you
pronounce the part of your name that comes after the 'n'? That's a
schwa, and the sound that Brust tries to spell phonetically as 'uh'.
David Tate
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
> > > Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > the vowel in unstressed syllables like the first of
> > > > "again"
> > >
> > > To me, the second vowel sound is the same as the first in
> > > that word, but my pronounciation is rather screwed anyway.
> > > :)
> >
> > Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
>
> Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
The other way; I was trying to use the first "a" in "again" to show
what Americans mean by "uh".
> > > > (or, I think, the last of "eine").
> > >
> > > That matches the ones in 'again', but how does that match
> > > the English pronouncing description of '-uh'?
> >
> > Pretty well (though my German is 30 years out of date at this
> > point).
>
> Pretty well for values of not at all? <g>
Always possible.
I pronounce "eine" with the first vowel being a long I, as in "mine",
"die", "spy", "I", "rye", "cry", and so forth. And the last one
being...hmmm. Now that I concentrate on it and it's 30 years out of
date, it's sounding like half-way between a short "e" (as in "ed",
"red", "set", and so forth) and that dreaded schwa. And it's this
terminal vowel that I suspect of drifting a fair amount
geographically.
> > I'd imagine regional accents vary that last vowel a lot,
> > though?
>
> In 'again' or in 'eine'?
In "eine".
> Tina (confused, but happy with the actual book)
That was the important part, I guess.
Dorothy J Heydt
David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>
>Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes? How do you
>pronounce the part of your name that comes after the 'n'? That's a
>schwa, and the sound that Brust tries to spell phonetically as 'uh'.
No, she is German, and (so far as I can guess) pronounces the
last syllable of her name with an 'a' like 'father'.
And when she sees the letter 'u', with or without a following
'h', assumes it's pronounced as an English-speaker would
pronounce 'oo'.
The practice of turning most or all unstressed syllables into
schwa is a mostly English-language feature.
(or bug if you prefer.)
David Dyer-Bennet
> Nancy Thuleen <nthu...@students.wisc.NOSPAM.edu> wrote:
> > In article <MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet_1d8a45c6@fidonet.
> > org>, Tina Hall <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote:
>
> [uh]
> > > I always parse that as 'oo'. Like 'you' without the 'y' bit.
> > > That's what the 'h' indicates; that it's not as taught in
> > > school - where the English 'u' is pronounced like the German
> > > 'a' - but just as the German 'u'. Works that way with 'a'
> > > (pronounced like 'ey' in German) and 'ah' (like the German
> > > 'a').
> > >
> > > I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into
> > > an 'eh' sound.
> >
> > The -h in the English spelling "uh" is NOT a vowel lengthener
> > like it is in German.
>
> I didn't say that either. It changes how it's pronounced.
>
> > Think of the 'u' in English 'but' or the 'o' in 'mother'.
>
> That are two completely different sounds. Like a short bit of the
> 'o' in the Librarian's 'ook' (who might wonder what all this is
> about anyway, if he was here, not having these problems) and the
> 'o' in top, respectively.
At this point I think it's time to say...that's not how any major
group of native English speakers pronounces "but".
> > The 'h' merely indicates that the sound lasts for a while ...
>
> You pointed out that it isn't a vowel lenghtener...
>
> > "buuuut" or something like that.
>
> Like boot, then.
No, definitely not. To make the "oo" sound (as in "boot", "shoot",
"vacuum", "yule", and so forth), the lips are extended outwards and
rounded. To make the sound in "but" (and "strut", "what", "cut", and
so forth) they are held much wider apart.
I haven't yet found an IPA chart that gives both the official names of
the sounds, and the instructions for how to make them. When I was
taking Russian, we learned how to make all the sounds the first week,
and it was really easy with instructions on what to do with the lips,
tongue, and so forth. Referring these back to the IPA definitions
would be a fair amount of trouble, but would I think get the point
across eventually -- at least we'd know if we were agreeing or not
:-).
> > Germans tend to interject either, as Tina said, "mmm" or --
> > more often, I've observed -- ääh. The latter sound we don't
> > have in English (American or British) exactly,
>
> You do. One thing I know about American English is that you have
> that sound in both "can" and "can't", as opposed to a German 'a'
> in both words in some region of Britain, and in school here one
> learns "can" with German 'ä' and "can't" with German 'a'.
You're right about those -- at least to the degree of precision that
*I* have available for identifying vowel sounds; this isn't my area of
expertise.
> > but it's similar to a short 'e' as in 'yes'. That won't work
> > for Aliera's name, either.
>
> That's what I got out of this conversation, though. Not that that
> fits in any way, so I just think of it as a German 'a'.
That's fairly accurate.
[snip]
> It's interesting though, even if fruitless. Just think of all the
> accents the different characters have in the minds of all the
> different readers. Pronunciation (somehow that word seems to miss
> an 'o', too, but I trust that is actually the correct spelling)
> Guides seem like trying to hold an avalanche with a snowball, or
> - for some reason - I get the image of Rumpelstielzchen stomping
> his foot and being swallowed by the ground.
Pronunciation guides often come about *at the request of the
readers*. We're often not happy just trying to guess how to say the
new words.
David T. Bilek
>> accents the different characters have in the minds of all the
>> different readers. Pronunciation (somehow that word seems to miss
>> an 'o', too, but I trust that is actually the correct spelling)
>> Guides seem like trying to hold an avalanche with a snowball, or
>> - for some reason - I get the image of Rumpelstielzchen stomping
>> his foot and being swallowed by the ground.
>
>Pronunciation guides often come about *at the request of the
>readers*. We're often not happy just trying to guess how to say the
>new words.
I always skip the pronunciation guides; when I'm reading a novel, I
pronounce names how I damn well please.
This, unfortunately, results in things like my not being able to
follow Jo Walton's books because every place name ends up in my mind
as "Care blahblahblah". So I can never tell what is going on.
(Yes, I know "Caer" is supposed to be like "ky-er", but in my brain it
still comes out "care".)
-David
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <9d67e55e.03101...@posting.google.com>,
> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
> >
> >Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes? How do you
> >pronounce the part of your name that comes after the 'n'? That's a
> >schwa, and the sound that Brust tries to spell phonetically as 'uh'.
>
> No, she is German, and (so far as I can guess) pronounces the
> last syllable of her name with an 'a' like 'father'.
Which is the same schwa as in "Aliera" and as in "uh", for me.
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> >T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
> >
> >> It's interesting though, even if fruitless. Just think of all the
> >> accents the different characters have in the minds of all the
> >> different readers. Pronunciation (somehow that word seems to miss
> >> an 'o', too, but I trust that is actually the correct spelling)
> >> Guides seem like trying to hold an avalanche with a snowball, or
> >> - for some reason - I get the image of Rumpelstielzchen stomping
> >> his foot and being swallowed by the ground.
> >
> >Pronunciation guides often come about *at the request of the
> >readers*. We're often not happy just trying to guess how to say the
> >new words.
>
> I always skip the pronunciation guides; when I'm reading a novel, I
> pronounce names how I damn well please.
I've seen pronunciation guides that explicitly say "Pronounce 'em
however you want, but since some people asked, this is how *I*
pronounce them."
> This, unfortunately, results in things like my not being able to
> follow Jo Walton's books because every place name ends up in my mind
> as "Care blahblahblah". So I can never tell what is going on.
>
> (Yes, I know "Caer" is supposed to be like "ky-er", but in my brain it
> still comes out "care".)
Of course it does; how else could that spelling possibly be
prounounced? :-). (And my experience dealing with German without a
German typewriter has only made the "ae" sound more solidly an
a-umlaut.)
David T. Bilek
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>> In article <9d67e55e.03101...@posting.google.com>,
>> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes? How do you
>> >pronounce the part of your name that comes after the 'n'? That's a
>> >schwa, and the sound that Brust tries to spell phonetically as 'uh'.
>>
>> No, she is German, and (so far as I can guess) pronounces the
>> last syllable of her name with an 'a' like 'father'.
>
>Which is the same schwa as in "Aliera" and as in "uh", for me.
You pronounce the inital vowels in "father", "bother", "caw", "but",
"mutt", and "cut" the same way? To me, "father", "bother", and "caw"
are the same while "tub", "but", and mutt" are schwas.
-David
Mike Schilling
"Karl M Syring" <syr...@email.com> wrote in message
news:bmufp8$ra6f8$1...@ID-7529.news.uni-berlin.de...
Of course. Don't you people learn German phrases from novels and history
books like everyone else? :-)
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Nancy Thuleen <nthu...@students.wisc.NOSPAM.edu> wrote:
>
>> Think of the 'u' in English 'but' or the 'o' in 'mother'.
>
>That are two completely different sounds.
No, in American English they're identical. We're discussing American
English.
If you aren't pronouncing them the same, then (a) you aren't speaking
American English, which is hardly surprising, and (b) no wonder you're
confused.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
Oh, dear. "Tub," "but", and "mutt" are schwas, yes, but "father,"
bother," and "caw" are all slightly different shades in my dialect --
and not schwas, we agree on that.
Karl M Syring
>
> "Karl M Syring" <syr...@email.com> wrote in message
>>
>
> Of course. Don't you people learn German phrases from novels and history
> books like everyone else? :-)
I think not many people would know what an Ulan is. I first
heard it from an older brother of my grandfather:
Russians cavalry is attacking you, and you have the machine gun.
Karl M. Syring
Tina Hall
> Nancy Thuleen <nthu...@students.wisc.NOSPAM.edu> writes:
> I'm prejudiced by 4 years of German (or 6 if you include the
> years I lived in Zurich), and you just can't pronounce "ie" as
> a long "I" sound.
But that's exactly what it is, in German (where 'i' equals
English 'ee').
> So the pronunciation guide wants the first syllable of "Kiera"
> to rhyme with "die", "sky", "lie", and "eye";
If the pronunciation guide is as off in this as in what '-uh'
indicates, I'd not be surprised to find that 'I' doesn't mean
'eye' but 'ee'. <shrug>
> It's still wrong. Bah, humbug.
<g> Now how do you pronounce humbug? ;)
No, don't answer, you people are keeping me from reading the
book, already. Stop that. ;)
> > Kate's right, though -- this doesn't work in text at all.
> > :)
>
> Increases the challenge.
Is fun, too, to see all the different, quite odd explanations
that don't fit, but must in the posters' accents.
Tina
Tina Hall
> From: Konrad Gaertner <kgae...@worldnet.att.net>
> Tina Hall wrote:
> > Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> > > pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
> >
> > I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
>
> Why four syllables?
Because I'm weird. ;)
It just isn't a German word, and I come up with the weirdest
pronounciations for unfamiliar words. When I watch BBC world on
occasion, I sometimes hear words spoken completely different than
what I'd imagined, too.
> And anyway, the author is on record as not caring if people
> mispronounce the names.
Nice guy. :)
Tina
Tina Hall
> >I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into
> >an 'eh' sound.
>
> "Uh" is the sound of the U in "but" or "tub."
Which amounts to boot and toob (except with a shorter vowel
sound). Still no 'eh' in sight.
Tina
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 20:19:00, T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina
>> Hall) wrote:
>
>> >I still don't get how an 'uh' is supposed to be turned into
>> >an 'eh' sound.
>>
>> "Uh" is the sound of the U in "but" or "tub."
>
>Which amounts to boot and toob (except with a shorter vowel
>sound). Still no 'eh' in sight.
No, in American English it just isn't the same sound. You're using
British vowels.
Dorothy J Heydt
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>> In article <9d67e55e.03101...@posting.google.com>,
>> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes? How do you
>> >pronounce the part of your name that comes after the 'n'? That's a
>> >schwa, and the sound that Brust tries to spell phonetically as 'uh'.
>>
>> No, she is German, and (so far as I can guess) pronounces the
>> last syllable of her name with an 'a' like 'father'.
>
>Which is the same schwa as in "Aliera" and as in "uh", for me.
But you don't, I assume, use schwa as the first vowel in
'father'.
Dorothy J Heydt
No. The shorter version of the long vowel written 'oo' or 'u_e"
(e.g., 'boot', 'tube') is the vowel in 'put' or 'foot.'
Summarizing: In American English (which is what Brust speaks,
and which he was using to explain his Dragaeran pronunciation)
'boot' and 'tube' have a long U,
'put' and 'foot' have a short U,
'but' and 'tub' have schwa. Honest to Verra.
David T. Bilek
On further consideration, "caw" is also a distinct sound in my
dialect. I don't know proper linguistic terminology, but the vowel in
"caw" is voiced farther back in my throat than "father" and "bother".
"Father" and "bother" seem like they should be pronounced differently,
but I still can't find any difference when I actually say them.
-David
David T. Bilek
You keep missing (or ignoring) a key point. Brust is American, and
uses American pronunciation of vowels.
-David
Peter H. Granzeau
<crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>>> pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
>>
>>>I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
>>
>>The way I read that, "ah-lee-ehr-ah", is very similar to the way I
>>would say it, only shortening the "ah"s.
>
>>It is probably futile to have this conversation in text.
>
><http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> (sounds are in mp3
>format).
>
>"Uh" is a schwa.
>"Ah" is "a".
>The vowels in "Aliera" are "a", "i", "e-schwa", and "schwa".
In my head, I hear "Aliera" as "ahl yare ah". I are not a linguist.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>
>>Oh, dear. "Tub," "but", and "mutt" are schwas, yes, but "father,"
>>bother," and "caw" are all slightly different shades in my dialect --
>>and not schwas, we agree on that.
>
>On further consideration, "caw" is also a distinct sound in my
>dialect. I don't know proper linguistic terminology, but the vowel in
>"caw" is voiced farther back in my throat than "father" and "bother".
>
>"Father" and "bother" seem like they should be pronounced differently,
>but I still can't find any difference when I actually say them.
Listening to myself as best I can, the difference seems to be that I
say "bother" with a slightly lower _pitch_ than "father." Which isn't
a valid distinction in English, though it would be in many Asian
languages, so I think I'll yield on that one.
Kate Nepveu
>I always skip the pronunciation guides; when I'm reading a novel, I
>pronounce names how I damn well please.
>This, unfortunately, results in things like my not being able to
>follow Jo Walton's books because every place name ends up in my mind
>as "Care blahblahblah". So I can never tell what is going on.
>(Yes, I know "Caer" is supposed to be like "ky-er", but in my brain it
>still comes out "care".)
Hah. Yes. I bet you belong to the word-recognition school of
pronunciation, like me.
I've made more of an effort to learn how things are pronounced since I
found myself among actual live fans and didn't want to embarrass
myself.
--
Kate Nepveu
E-mail: kne...@steelypips.org
Home: http://www.steelypips.org/
Book log: http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/
David Dyer-Bennet
To me, the *first* three are schwas, while the *last* three are a
distinctive short "u" sound.
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <m2y8vhp...@gw.dd-b.net>,
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> >
> >> In article <9d67e55e.03101...@posting.google.com>,
> >> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes? How do you
> >> >pronounce the part of your name that comes after the 'n'? That's a
> >> >schwa, and the sound that Brust tries to spell phonetically as 'uh'.
> >>
> >> No, she is German, and (so far as I can guess) pronounces the
> >> last syllable of her name with an 'a' like 'father'.
> >
> >Which is the same schwa as in "Aliera" and as in "uh", for me.
>
> But you don't, I assume, use schwa as the first vowel in
> 'father'.
It's a stressed syllable, so not really. Um, it's a short "o", as in
"not", I think. "father", "bother". "Mother" is different, though.
Andrew Plotkin
>
> I always skip the pronunciation guides; when I'm reading a novel, I
> pronounce names how I damn well please.
I do sometimes.
> This, unfortunately, results in things like my not being able to
> follow Jo Walton's books because every place name ends up in my mind
> as "Care blahblahblah". So I can never tell what is going on.
>
> (Yes, I know "Caer" is supposed to be like "ky-er", but in my brain it
> still comes out "care".)
I've always pronounced it "care", e'en back to _The Lion, the Witch,
and the Wardrobe_. However, I *did* eventually learn the mental twist
to regard it as an ignorable place-prefix, like "Fort" or "Mount". (Or
"San". :)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > Nancy Thuleen <nthu...@students.wisc.NOSPAM.edu> writes:
>
> > I'm prejudiced by 4 years of German (or 6 if you include the
> > years I lived in Zurich), and you just can't pronounce "ie" as
> > a long "I" sound.
>
> But that's exactly what it is, in German (where 'i' equals
> English 'ee').
Which is a long "e" sound. Not a long "i" sound. A long "i" sounds
like the name of the letter (in American English), and a long "e"
also sounds like the name of that letter (in American English).
> > So the pronunciation guide wants the first syllable of "Kiera"
> > to rhyme with "die", "sky", "lie", and "eye";
>
> If the pronunciation guide is as off in this as in what '-uh'
> indicates, I'd not be surprised to find that 'I' doesn't mean
> 'eye' but 'ee'. <shrug>
"Off"? No, the pronunciation guide, while using somewhat unusual
orthography, is using very normal standard American English vowel
sounds.
> > It's still wrong. Bah, humbug.
>
> <g> Now how do you pronounce humbug? ;)
No "oo" sounds. :-)
> No, don't answer, you people are keeping me from reading the
> book, already. Stop that. ;)
Oops.
David Dyer-Bennet
> On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 21:22:59 GMT, Kate Nepveu <kne...@steelypips.org>
> wrote:
>
> >T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote:
> >>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
> >
> >>I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
> >
> >The way I read that, "ah-lee-ehr-ah", is very similar to the way I
> >would say it, only shortening the "ah"s.
>
> >It is probably futile to have this conversation in text.
>
> <http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> (sounds are in mp3
> format).
>
> "Uh" is a schwa.
> "Ah" is "a".
> The vowels in "Aliera" are "a", "i", "e-schwa", and "schwa".
There are only three vowel sounds in "Aliera". The first and last are
identical. The middle one is a long "e", as in "see", "free", "me",
etc.
Mike Schilling
"Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
news:bmvkj4$f23$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Here, David T. Bilek <dtb...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > (Yes, I know "Caer" is supposed to be like "ky-er", but in my brain it
> > still comes out "care".)
>
> I've always pronounced it "care", e'en back to _The Lion, the Witch,
> and the Wardrobe_.
Further back, for me, to the Prydain books.
James Angove
>> You pronounce the inital vowels in "father", "bother", "caw", "but",
>> "mutt", and "cut" the same way? To me, "father", "bother", and "caw"
>> are the same while "tub", "but", and mutt" are schwas.
>
> To me, the *first* three are schwas, while the *last* three are a
> distinctive short "u" sound.
>
Oh. Good. Either we no longer have agreement on what sound a shwa is, or
David Dyer-Bennet, I offically pronounce you More Wierd Than You Were
Before[1].
When Bart Simpson says Duh, is that vowel sound a shwa?
What we really need is a website with short sound files of every willing
rasfwian saying (ideally three or four times) all the words on some list
that we've hammered out as close enough to complete. Then list every place
they've ever lived, and how long there. Then we'd be able to make some
real progress on this. More work than anyone's likely able to put into it
(I'd be willing to do leg work, but I don't have any place I could host
anything).
[1] I have no idea how wierd that was. But you're more now.
--
James Angove
This is a usenet post. It is likely you will be eaten by a grue.
Dorothy J Heydt
James Angove <ja...@ospf.net> wrote:
>David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in news:m2y8vgm...@gw.dd-b.net:
>
>>> You pronounce the inital vowels in "father", "bother", "caw", "but",
>>> "mutt", and "cut" the same way? To me, "father", "bother", and "caw"
>>> are the same while "tub", "but", and mutt" are schwas.
>>
>> To me, the *first* three are schwas, while the *last* three are a
>> distinctive short "u" sound.
>>
>
>Oh. Good. Either we no longer have agreement on what sound a shwa is, or
>David Dyer-Bennet, I offically pronounce you More Wierd Than You Were
>Before[1].
>
>When Bart Simpson says Duh, is that vowel sound a shwa?
When *I* say Duh, it's a schwa, but I'm about fifty years older
than Bart. Doesn't his generation usually spell it "Doh" or
"D'oh"? I'm not at all sure how you'd pronounce that. I don't
watch Bart or any of the other Simpsons either.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:Hn1HH...@kithrup.com:
> In article <Xns9419ECC1624...@130.133.1.4>,
> James Angove <ja...@ospf.net> wrote:
>...
>>When Bart Simpson says Duh, is that vowel sound a shwa?
> When *I* say Duh, it's a schwa, but I'm about fifty years older
> than Bart. Doesn't his generation usually spell it "Doh" or
> "D'oh"? I'm not at all sure how you'd pronounce that.
"D'oh" is different from "Duh", the age-old suggestion of another's
imbecility. "D'oh" is an annoyed grunt, pronounced like "dough"
only more abruptly, as if cut off halfway through a breath. (It's
also mostly Homer's signature utterance rather than Bart's, FWIW.)
As far as I know, "Duh" is pronounced pretty much as it always was
(though in my own tween years, there was a tendency to
elongate/distort it into something like "Doyyy"; I think that was a
passing fad, though).
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Heydt) wrote:
>When *I* say Duh, it's a schwa, but I'm about fifty years older
>than Bart. Doesn't his generation usually spell it "Doh" or
>"D'oh"? I'm not at all sure how you'd pronounce that. I don't
>watch Bart or any of the other Simpsons either.
Okay, you don't really want to know this, but -- Bart Simpson says
"Duh." Homer Simpson says "D'oh!"
"Duh" is just the same as your term, I'm sure; it's usually heard in
the phrase, "Well, duh!"
"D'oh!" is pronounced like the first syllable of "donut," maybe with a
dentalization of the D and a very slight hesitation or break between
the consonant and the vowel, and is an exclamation Homer uses to mean
more or less, "I messed up again!"
Tina Hall
Do you mean that 'Uhlan' or 'Ulan' is a German word?
Tina
Tina Hall
> T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote in message
> news:<MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>..
> > . David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
['again']
> > > Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
> >
> > Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
>
> Huge? Where did you get 'huge' from?
From 'uh-g'. If you stretch 'huge' to 'hu-g(e)' it's the same
sound (if you don't pronounce the 'h').
> Say the word "accountant". Now, isolate just the first vowel,
> the part that comes before the first /c/ sound. That's the
> sound that 'uh' is supposed to indicate here.
We've been that far in some other post. How do you get an 'eh'
from 'uh'?
> Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes?
So I'm told.
> How do you pronounce the part of your name that comes after the
> 'n'?
With an 'a', 'Teenah'. <g>
How am I supposed to tell you this, when the very problem is not
agreeing on how to pronounce certain letters? It's a sound that,
as far as I can guess, doesn't appear in your name.
Tina
Tina Hall
> On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 16:04:00, T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina
> Hall) wrote:
> >Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
> >> "Uh" is the sound of the U in "but" or "tub."
> >
> >Which amounts to boot and toob (except with a shorter vowel
> >sound). Still no 'eh' in sight.
>
> No, in American English it just isn't the same sound. You're
> using British vowels.
Yes, naturally. I'm speaking (well, thinking) British English,
Lancashire accent, with an awful German one thrown in for good
measure, and sometimes vague memories from school English that go
against either, added for spice. ;P (Which has the word 'backup'
- by now a German term in computer usage, too - end up pronounced
three different ways, with one definitely being wrong either
way.)
I know that in some versions of English the '-up' is pronounced
with what I'd spell 'ah' in English. Some here seem to indicate
that '-uh' is the same, which is rather strange because of the
'h' (the 'u' itself is just that bit remembered school English,
so acceptable) [1], and it gets stranger still when people seem
to indicate an '-eh' (like the second 'e' in 'even', as far as I
can describe it), which makes no sense at all.
[1] If whoever wrote the pronunciation guide had left out the
'h', I'd probably not have asked in the first place.
Tina
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
>
> > If so, I take it as representing a schwa,
>
> No! <making cross sign> Go away!
>
> (Sorry, just had a rather fruitless discussion on just that
> mysterious thingy over on another ng, and decided it really is
> just short for 'nonsense'. Child-hood traumatic experience has to
> do with my lack of understanding in this. <g> Incompetent English
> teachers can ruin your whole live...)
The schwa is written as an upside-down lower-case e. My 4th-grade
teacher had a great mnemonic for remembering what sound it makes: imagine
if that poor e were punched in the stomach and doubled over upside down: a
grunting sort of guttural noise. That's what a schwa sounds like.
--
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
elo...@fishdragon.com - website: http://www.fishdragon.com/
"Here's to the Tenth Great Success! Or is it the Eleventh? And we've
survived all of them. ... Survived them, and the Six Great Errors,
and the Three Incredible Fuckups, and the Nine Greatest Incidents of
Bad Luck. A miracle! There must be hungry ghosts holding big umbrellas
over us, brothers." -- A Chinese military officer in Kim Stanley
Robinson's alternate history, _Years of Rice and Salt_
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
>
> But if the idea of a schwa really repels you (though you use it
> too in German), pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as
> "a-lier-a" instead of "schwa-lier-schwa" and it will sound okay.
Of course, I pronounce it 'schwa-lee-air-schwa' myself, but that's
'cause I get Ideas stuck in my head about how things are meant to be
pronounced, and since effectively when I read to myself I hear a voice
reading it aloud in my head, I'm stuck.
(Muh-NAHL-lee, indeed, Ms. McCaffrey! MEN-uh-lee she always shall
be to me, for the love of little apples.)
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
>
> It just isn't a German word, and I come up with the weirdest
> pronounciations for unfamiliar words. When I watch BBC world on
> occasion, I sometimes hear words spoken completely different than
> what I'd imagined, too.
It was really, really funny listening to BBC World News talk about
Illinois' current governor. They pronounced his name as if he were from
Eastern Europe. It's spelt 'Blagojevich.' They pronounced it (as best I
can approximate in Cronkite-esque Midwest phonetics) 'BLAH-go-YEH-vitch',
with the strongest stress on the first syllable and a lesser strong stress
on the third, instead of how Mr. Blagojevich says it himself, which is
more like 'bl[schwa]-GOY-ah-vitch,' with the only stress in the entire
thing on the 2nd syllable.
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
Nope, the English word pronounced toob is spelt 'tube,' and means
something very different than 'tub' (which is what one takes a bath in, or
other larger-than-a-bucket thing for holding liquid). Actually, 'bucket'
is another good example, in its first vowel. How do you say bucket? I'm
certain you don't say 'boook-et', because nobody would know what you
meant. :-> Of course, if you DON'T say bucket regularly, I'm lost.
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
>
> I know that in some versions of English the '-up' is pronounced
> with what I'd spell 'ah' in English. Some here seem to indicate
> that '-uh' is the same, which is rather strange because of the
> 'h' (the 'u' itself is just that bit remembered school English,
> so acceptable) [1], and it gets stranger still when people seem
> to indicate an '-eh' (like the second 'e' in 'even', as far as I
> can describe it), which makes no sense at all.
>
> [1] If whoever wrote the pronunciation guide had left out the
> 'h', I'd probably not have asked in the first place.
Ah, but when trying to write phonetically to Americans, 'u' is
equivocal, because it can be either 'you' or 'uh'. If people are literate
in long/short bars on top, the former is long u and the latter is short u,
but most Americans just spell it 'uh' so people know what they mean. It is
the first sound in 'up', mostly. Also the o in 'love,' but that's probably
muddying the waters again.
Mike Schilling
"Tina Hall" <T.H...@railroad.robin.de> wrote in message
news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org...
Yes. See. http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/uhlan:
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 16:04:00, T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina
>> Hall) wrote:
>> >Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>> >> "Uh" is the sound of the U in "but" or "tub."
>> >
>> >Which amounts to boot and toob (except with a shorter vowel
>> >sound). Still no 'eh' in sight.
>>
>> No, in American English it just isn't the same sound. You're
>> using British vowels.
>
>Yes, naturally. I'm speaking (well, thinking) British English,
>Lancashire accent, with an awful German one thrown in for good
>measure, and sometimes vague memories from school English that go
>against either, added for spice. ;P
But the pronunciation guide is in Minnesota English, which has
completely different vowels.
>I know that in some versions of English the '-up' is pronounced
>with what I'd spell 'ah' in English. Some here seem to indicate
>that '-uh' is the same, which is rather strange because of the
>'h' (the 'u' itself is just that bit remembered school English,
>so acceptable) [1], and it gets stranger still when people seem
>to indicate an '-eh' (like the second 'e' in 'even', as far as I
>can describe it), which makes no sense at all.
>
>[1] If whoever wrote the pronunciation guide had left out the
>'h', I'd probably not have asked in the first place.
In American usage, -h indicates a _short_ vowel. The vowel by itself
is long, because the long vowels are what we use as the names of the
letters. To indicate that you should pronounce it as a short vowel,
rather than as the name of the letter, we add -h. Thus "I" is long,
as in "bite," and "ih" is short, as in "bit."
Tina Hall
> T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) writes:
> > David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > > I'm prejudiced by 4 years of German (or 6 if you include
> > > the years I lived in Zurich), and you just can't pronounce
> > > "ie" as a long "I" sound.
> >
> > But that's exactly what it is, in German (where 'i' equals
> > English 'ee').
>
> Which is a long "e" sound. Not a long "i" sound.
Sorry, got distracted there. What's missing is that an 'e' behind
an 'i' in German turns it onto a long 'i' sound (long English 'e'
sound).
> A long "i" sounds like the name of the letter (in American
> English),
Above you were refering to German, though...
> and a long "e" also sounds like the name of that
> letter (in American English).
In any English I know, too. :)
Tina
Nancy Thuleen
<l...@sff.net> wrote:
Yes, exactly. I think Tina's having the h-issues based on something
faulty, either in (I suspect) her school English or later (plus
transference from German, of course, where -h is always a lengthener).
She said that in her English class in school, teachers said that an 'h'
lengthened the vowel, but that's just not right. An "ih" is short
(bit) not long (bite), an "ah" is short (father) not long (fate), an
"uh" is short (cut) not long (cute). I'm not sure about "oh", since
that one is long (tote, not tot), and "eh" is marginal (probably short,
like 'met' not 'meet', but I don't think there's necessarily consensus
on that spelling). But for a, i, and u it's very consistently SHORT,
not long.
Tina, I think you're just going to have to accept everyone's word on
this: the -h in 'uh' (and 'ih' for that matter) makes it a SHORT vowel
or a schwa with a time/duration extension, but never, never a long
vowel.
Also, I can't think of or find ANY English words that are actually
spelled with 'uh' other than various sounds like "uh-huh", "uh-oh",
"huh?", "uhmmm" and such. But they're all short! If we want a long u,
we spell it "oo" or add a silent '-e' (cute, tube).
- Nancy.
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>Craig Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
>> On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 21:22:59 GMT, Kate Nepveu <kne...@steelypips.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote:
>> >>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>> pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
>> >
>> >>I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
>> >
>> >The way I read that, "ah-lee-ehr-ah", is very similar to the way I
>> >would say it, only shortening the "ah"s.
>>
>> >It is probably futile to have this conversation in text.
>>
>> <http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> (sounds are in mp3
>> format).
>>
>> "Uh" is a schwa.
>> "Ah" is "a".
>> The vowels in "Aliera" are "a", "i", "e-schwa", and "schwa".
>
>There are only three vowel sounds in "Aliera". The first and last are
>identical. The middle one is a long "e", as in "see", "free", "me",
>etc.
That's how Brust would have it said. He's only the author, and
doesn't necessarily know best. AFAIC, he's just wrong - those letters
don't translate to that set of sounds.
--Craig
--
I start to wish Bob Melvin would walk out to the mound, ask Freddy if he
was injured, and then kick him in the balls so he can call in an
emergency replacement from the bullpen --Derek Zumsteg in BP, 5/13/2003
Michael S. Schiffer
news:l2n8pvsclmkt28e4e...@4ax.com:
> On 19 Oct 2003 22:30:08 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> wrote:
>...
>>There are only three vowel sounds in "Aliera". The first and
>>last are identical. The middle one is a long "e", as in "see",
>>"free", "me", etc.
> That's how Brust would have it said. He's only the author, and
> doesn't necessarily know best. AFAIC, he's just wrong - those
> letters don't translate to that set of sounds.
Hmm... how do you pronounce "cavalier"?
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in news:m2y8vgm...@gw.dd-b.net:
>
> >> You pronounce the inital vowels in "father", "bother", "caw", "but",
> >> "mutt", and "cut" the same way? To me, "father", "bother", and "caw"
> >> are the same while "tub", "but", and mutt" are schwas.
> >
> > To me, the *first* three are schwas, while the *last* three are a
> > distinctive short "u" sound.
> >
>
> Oh. Good. Either we no longer have agreement on what sound a shwa is, or
> David Dyer-Bennet, I offically pronounce you More Wierd Than You Were
> Before[1].
Hmmm. Something wrong with the central processor here. Just a minute,
let me run diagnostics. Yes, definitely a brain-fart. I'll be with
you in a week or so when I get a replacement installed.
(No, "father" and company are not schwas).
David Dyer-Bennet
> On 19 Oct 2003 22:30:08 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Craig Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> >
> >> On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 21:22:59 GMT, Kate Nepveu <kne...@steelypips.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote:
> >> >>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>> pronounce the vowels in European fashion, as "a-lier-a"
> >> >
> >> >>I will. :) (Except that'd then be ah-lee-ehr-ah. <sigh>)
> >> >
> >> >The way I read that, "ah-lee-ehr-ah", is very similar to the way I
> >> >would say it, only shortening the "ah"s.
> >>
> >> >It is probably futile to have this conversation in text.
> >>
> >> <http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> (sounds are in mp3
> >> format).
> >>
> >> "Uh" is a schwa.
> >> "Ah" is "a".
> >> The vowels in "Aliera" are "a", "i", "e-schwa", and "schwa".
> >
> >There are only three vowel sounds in "Aliera". The first and last are
> >identical. The middle one is a long "e", as in "see", "free", "me",
> >etc.
>
> That's how Brust would have it said. He's only the author, and
> doesn't necessarily know best. AFAIC, he's just wrong - those letters
> don't translate to that set of sounds.
They do for me; it's a perfectly straightforward pronunciation of that
spelling.
Besides, I believe Aliera herself, and her mother who played the
character in the early gaming worlds, are perfectly happy with the
spelling too; which probably trumps a mere author.
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>> T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote in message
>> news:<MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>..
>> > . David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
>['again']
>> > > Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
>> >
>> > Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
>>
>> Huge? Where did you get 'huge' from?
>
>From 'uh-g'. If you stretch 'huge' to 'hu-g(e)' it's the same
>sound (if you don't pronounce the 'h').
The sound in "blue" or "food", no?
He's aiming at "away" or "cinema".
Again, for comparison,
<http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm> (as David
mentioned in another post, this page is only useful for comparison, as
there's no easy reference for how to /form/ any of the "standard"
sounds).
>> Say the word "accountant". Now, isolate just the first vowel,
>> the part that comes before the first /c/ sound. That's the
>> sound that 'uh' is supposed to indicate here.
>
>We've been that far in some other post. How do you get an 'eh'
>from 'uh'?
Trust us? The reason for the schwa in the first place is that any
vowel can be pronounced as the semi-grunt the schwa represents.
Conventionally, an actual grunt - as when one gets punched in the
stomach - is spelled "uh". Therefore "uh" for the schwa.
>> Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes?
>
>So I'm told.
>
>> How do you pronounce the part of your name that comes after the
>> 'n'?
>
>With an 'a', 'Teenah'. <g>
Heh. I could have told him that. Your pronunciation is much more
correct (in some sense). Many strict teachers of English will say
that there is no such sound as a "schwa" - that when it appears it's
always a sign of improper pronunciation through laziness. At the
other end, English is (somewhat) recognizable with (practically) no
distinguished vowel sounds at all (e.g. Inspector Kent in "Young
Frankenstein"). You naturally tend to the former, while many lazy
native speakers (such as myself) tend toward the latter.
>How am I supposed to tell you this, when the very problem is not
>agreeing on how to pronounce certain letters? It's a sound that,
>as far as I can guess, doesn't appear in your name.
There's at least one schwa in his name, though. As many as three, in
fact. It appears in my last name, but in practice, that comes out
chopped down to a schwa or is elided entirely.
Craig Richardson
<msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>Craig Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
>news:l2n8pvsclmkt28e4e...@4ax.com:
>
>> On 19 Oct 2003 22:30:08 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>> wrote:
>>...
>>>There are only three vowel sounds in "Aliera". The first and
>>>last are identical. The middle one is a long "e", as in "see",
>>>"free", "me", etc.
>
>> That's how Brust would have it said. He's only the author, and
>> doesn't necessarily know best. AFAIC, he's just wrong - those
>> letters don't translate to that set of sounds.
>
>Hmm... how do you pronounce "cavalier"?
Different from how I pronounce "chevalier" <grin>. The former is
"kaa-vuh-LEER" (k ae v schwa l i+schwa r) [cat-bull-EAR], the latter
"sheh-vahl-ee-AY" (integral e v a l i+schwa e+schwa)
[chev(ron)-all-EA(the letters)]. "Aliera", for whatever reason, just
seems to only map properly onto the latter.
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>James Angove <ja...@ospf.net> writes:
>
>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in news:m2y8vgm...@gw.dd-b.net:
>>
>> >> You pronounce the inital vowels in "father", "bother", "caw", "but",
>> >> "mutt", and "cut" the same way? To me, "father", "bother", and "caw"
>> >> are the same while "tub", "but", and mutt" are schwas.
>> >
>> > To me, the *first* three are schwas, while the *last* three are a
>> > distinctive short "u" sound.
>> >
>>
>> Oh. Good. Either we no longer have agreement on what sound a shwa is, or
>> David Dyer-Bennet, I offically pronounce you More Wierd Than You Were
>> Before[1].
>
>Hmmm. Something wrong with the central processor here. Just a minute,
>let me run diagnostics. Yes, definitely a brain-fart. I'll be with
>you in a week or so when I get a replacement installed.
>
>(No, "father" and company are not schwas).
I was confused, too. I mean, I can see the possibility of dialects
where they /are/ schwas, I just can't see you posessing one of them.
David Dyer-Bennet
> On 20 Oct 2003 18:17:54 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> wrote:
>
> >James Angove <ja...@ospf.net> writes:
> >
> >> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in news:m2y8vgm...@gw.dd-b.net:
> >>
> >> >> You pronounce the inital vowels in "father", "bother", "caw", "but",
> >> >> "mutt", and "cut" the same way? To me, "father", "bother", and "caw"
> >> >> are the same while "tub", "but", and mutt" are schwas.
> >> >
> >> > To me, the *first* three are schwas, while the *last* three are a
> >> > distinctive short "u" sound.
> >> >
> >>
> >> Oh. Good. Either we no longer have agreement on what sound a shwa is, or
> >> David Dyer-Bennet, I offically pronounce you More Wierd Than You Were
> >> Before[1].
> >
> >Hmmm. Something wrong with the central processor here. Just a minute,
> >let me run diagnostics. Yes, definitely a brain-fart. I'll be with
> >you in a week or so when I get a replacement installed.
> >
> >(No, "father" and company are not schwas).
>
> I was confused, too. I mean, I can see the possibility of dialects
> where they /are/ schwas, I just can't see you posessing one of them.
I *think* I got sidetracked by the "a" in father being so strongly NOT
any sort of standard "a" sound, and forgot to come back to reality
before I started typing. Or something.
how...@brazee.net
On 20-Oct-2003, Craig Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >There are only three vowel sounds in "Aliera". The first and last are
> >identical. The middle one is a long "e", as in "see", "free", "me",
> >etc.
>
> That's how Brust would have it said. He's only the author, and
> doesn't necessarily know best. AFAIC, he's just wrong - those letters
> don't translate to that set of sounds.
The pronunciation of names doesn't always make sense. Heck, the
pronunciation of WORDS doesn't always make sense.
Aliera may pronounce her name the way Brust said - or maybe the way you read
it. Maybe the name is pronounced differently in different countries - that
happens.
how...@brazee.net
On 20-Oct-2003, "Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)" <elo...@ripco.com> wrote:
> Nope, the English word pronounced toob is spelt 'tube,' and means
> something very different than 'tub' (which is what one takes a bath in, or
> other larger-than-a-bucket thing for holding liquid). Actually, 'bucket'
> is another good example, in its first vowel. How do you say bucket? I'm
> certain you don't say 'boook-et', because nobody would know what you
> meant. :-> Of course, if you DON'T say bucket regularly, I'm lost.
In the US there are two common pronunciations for "coupon". I don't know
what the first "o" does in that word.
how...@brazee.net
two syllables that don't fit its spelling.
The letter "r" messes up pronunciation rules for many vowels.
Danny Sichel
> In the US there are two common pronunciations for "coupon".
There are?
"KOO-pohn" and....?
COW-pond?
Michael S. Schiffer
164330.news.uni-berlin.de:
> "KOO-pohn" and....?
KYOO-pahn
David Tate
> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
> > T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote in message
> > news:<MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>..
> > > . David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
> ['again']
> > > > Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
> > >
> > > Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
> >
> > Huge? Where did you get 'huge' from?
>
> From 'uh-g'. If you stretch 'huge' to 'hu-g(e)' it's the same
> sound (if you don't pronounce the 'h').
Unfortunately, where I come from 'huge' is pronounced as if spelt
/hyewj/. I can't even think of any words it rhymes with, offhand. If
you speak French, it's pronounced with a vowel much like the French
word 'du' has -- or the French non-word 'hiou' would have if you say
it fast -- but very much not the vowel that the *German* word 'du'
has.
> > Say the word "accountant". Now, isolate just the first vowel,
> > the part that comes before the first /c/ sound. That's the
> > sound that 'uh' is supposed to indicate here.
>
> We've been that far in some other post. How do you get an 'eh'
> from 'uh'?
I don't care what you call it, if we can agree on what it sounds like.
When I say 'accountant', I don't use an /e/ sound any more than I use
a /u/ sound -- I use a schwa, which is neither. (Phonologists define
the schwa by what you see on the oscilloscope when someone says one,
rather than by what vowel people think they're saying.)
> > Or, if I may be so bold: your name is Tina, yes?
>
> So I'm told.
>
> > How do you pronounce the part of your name that comes after the
> > 'n'?
>
> With an 'a', 'Teenah'. <g>
As someone else pointed out to me, I had incorrectly assumed that you
were American or British. American girls named 'Tina' don't use an
/a/ sound as the last syllable of that name; they use a schwa.
> How am I supposed to tell you this, when the very problem is not
> agreeing on how to pronounce certain letters? It's a sound that,
> as far as I can guess, doesn't appear in your name.
Actually, the /i/ in "David" usually collapses to schwa, unless I'm
speaking slowly or particularly carefully. This is true of most
unstressed vowels in American English. (It's also not 'sloppy' or an
'error', as someone else posted -- it's just the way American English
is pronounced. To give 'purer' vowel qualities to those vowels would,
indeed, be incorrect.) One of the last vestiges of a "foreign accent"
to vanish, among non-native speakers of American English, is a
tendency to try to use 'real' vowels in places where natives would use
schwas.
Among other things, this means that (American) English is pronounced
differently when sung, as opposed to when spoken. Since the tones are
held on vowels, singers tend to use pretty pure latinate vowels,
rather than ugly grunts. English-speaking songwriters tend to avoid
held notes on vowels where a schwa is required, because it forces the
singer to either sing a long ugly sound, or sing a vowel that sounds
'wrong' to the listener.
There are some languages that simply don't use the schwa sound.
Japanese is one; Spanish might be another, though I'm not certain of
that.
David Tate
Dreamer
"David Tate" <dt...@ida.org> wrote in message
news:9d67e55e.03102...@posting.google.com...
> T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote in message
news:<MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>...
> > David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
> > > T.H...@railroad.robin.de (Tina Hall) wrote in message
> > > news:<MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>..
> > > > . David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> >
> > ['again']
> > > > > Around here it's something like "uh-gin".
> > > >
> > > > Like 'huge-in'!? This gets ever weirder.
> > >
> > > Huge? Where did you get 'huge' from?
> >
> > From 'uh-g'. If you stretch 'huge' to 'hu-g(e)' it's the same
> > sound (if you don't pronounce the 'h').
>
> Unfortunately, where I come from 'huge' is pronounced as if spelt
> /hyewj/. I can't even think of any words it rhymes with, offhand.
Luge (at least the way I know how to say it)
Scrooge
Flooge (okay, I made that one up.)
That's the way we flatbillies from Iowa say it, too.
D
David Eppstein
dt...@ida.org (David Tate) wrote:
> Unfortunately, where I come from 'huge' is pronounced as if spelt
> /hyewj/. I can't even think of any words it rhymes with, offhand.
deluge.
--
David Eppstein http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Univ. of California, Irvine, School of Information & Computer Science
David Dyer-Bennet
other sort of relatively common sound files? I'm looking at setting
up the online Dragaeran pronunciation guide, to include sound samples
of many of the words, and wondering what formats to provide.
My own tests show that WAV files are handled directly in the browsers
more often, whereas MP3s are handled externally (and at least in some
setups, result in a query before invoking the external program). MP3s
are of course smaller, but a single word is relatively small to begin
with -- the WAV files for 5 words I recorded are from 37 to 68k, the
MP3s are from 8k to 14k.
I'm planning to put up a test site shortly (in fact I've got one, but
it's in the private development section, not publicly available yet).
But if you know off the top of your head what sorts of small sound
clips work best for you, please let me know.
David Dyer-Bennet
> I'm planning to put up a test site shortly (in fact I've got one, but
> it's in the private development section, not publicly available yet).
> But if you know off the top of your head what sorts of small sound
> clips work best for you, please let me know.
And if you don't know what works best, you can now play a few sound
files from my test pronunciation guide site -- including me
pronouncing "Aliera" and "Tina" :-).
<http://dragaera.info/encyclopedia/data/pg-test/>
I'm particlularly interested in people who have technical troubles, or
whose browsers/os don't support either of the formats (in which case
I'm interested in knowing what formats you *do* support). And do
either of these formats go to another page, bring up a query box, or
anything? Or do they just play when you click them? For this use I
want a setup that just plays the files immediately. (And if anybody
knows a lot about serving small sound files and can give me useful
advice, please do, via email or here if people want to follow the
conversation).
People who don't have sound capability on their browsing system I know
exist, but there's nothing I can do with the sound files to help you
:-). The actual pronunciation site will use visual display mostly,
with the sound files also available to help make things clear to
people with sound who want to actually hear the words.
And does anybody know of a decent International Phonetic Alphabet or
more general "speech sounds" site that's centered around English? The
examples I've found so far start out with the exotics, which makes
them hard to wade through when my purpose is to represent sounds in
English. No doubt it's useful for a general professional
introduction, but that's not what I'm after.
Andrew Plotkin
> So, what browsers and systems can't play WAV files but can play some
> other sort of relatively common sound files? I'm looking at setting
> up the online Dragaeran pronunciation guide, to include sound samples
> of many of the words, and wondering what formats to provide.
The only other vaguely common sound format is AIFF, but that's even
bulkier than WAV.
My understanding is that WAV is only de-facto standardized. Still good
enough for the web, unless Microsoft decides to make an issue of it.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Gene Ward Smith
>Here, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> So, what browsers and systems can't play WAV files but can play some
>> other sort of relatively common sound files? I'm looking at setting
>> up the online Dragaeran pronunciation guide, to include sound samples
>> of many of the words, and wondering what formats to provide.
>
>The only other vaguely common sound format is AIFF, but that's even
>bulkier than WAV.
Among compressed formats, both wma and (even more) ogg are technically better
than mp3, but they are less well supported so they won't help David.
Konrad Gaertner
>
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:
>
> > I'm planning to put up a test site shortly (in fact I've got one, but
> > it's in the private development section, not publicly available yet).
> > But if you know off the top of your head what sorts of small sound
> > clips work best for you, please let me know.
>
> And if you don't know what works best, you can now play a few sound
> files from my test pronunciation guide site -- including me
> pronouncing "Aliera" and "Tina" :-).
>
> <http://dragaera.info/encyclopedia/data/pg-test/>
Are all the examples from you? You're pronouncing Loiosh as LOYish,
instead of LOI-osh (the pronunciation guide says it should rhyme with
Taltos).
> I'm particlularly interested in people who have technical troubles, or
> whose browsers/os don't support either of the formats (in which case
> I'm interested in knowing what formats you *do* support). And do
> either of these formats go to another page, bring up a query box, or
> anything? Or do they just play when you click them?
The WAVs open a tiny window that loads Java, then loads the sound
(takes a couple seconds) then plays (really quietly; I had to move
the volume control to 75% to hear clearly).
The MP3s open a dialog box asking me if I want to use Windows Media
Player or save the file.
This is using Netscape 4.61, which is probably the most obsolete
browser you'll have to deal with.
--KG
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>I'm planning to put up a test site shortly (in fact I've got one, but
>it's in the private development section, not publicly available yet).
>But if you know off the top of your head what sorts of small sound
>clips work best for you, please let me know.
One link for .WAV, and another link beside it for .MP3?