5-vowel system like Spanish?
Sonja Elen Kisa
a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
more or less this exact system?
I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
well? Any other important ones?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
Most languages in India that are written with a Brahmic script have
not found a need to add more to their written vowel inventory than the
5 vowel qualities that could be written in Brahmi. That would seem to
make them close enough to the 5 vowel system.
john...@bigpond.com
On Jan 29, 3:10 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jan 28, 7:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> > more or less this exact system?
>
> > I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> > well? Any other important ones?
> Most languages in India that are written with a Brahmic script have
> not found a need to add more to their written vowel inventory than the
> 5 vowel qualities that could be written in Brahmi.
English has not found a need to have more than 6 symbols in its
written vowel inventory. Does this mean that English has only six
vowels?
> That would seem to
> make them close enough to the 5 vowel system.
Nevertheless, none of the modern Indo-Aryan languages (except Romany)
actually have five vowel phonemes. The minimum is six (/i,e,a,u,o, O/,
or /i,e,a,@,o,u/). Others have 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 13. Hindi and
Punjabi have ten, /i, I, e, &, a, @, u, U, o, O/.
The main Dravidian languages do have five, plus length. Though most
of the modern languages have one or two more (/&:/ and /V/ in modern
Tamil), which have come in through borrowings.
John.
john...@bigpond.com
Esperanto and Hebrew are hardly "most spoken languages"!!
Here's a list which probably includes the top ten, I think:
Spanish
Russian
Japanese
Telugu
Hausa
Swahili
Oromo
Tagolog
Serbo-Croatian
Shona
Czech
Greek
Telugu, Hausa, and Czech actually have ten vowels, five short and five
long. The "correct" vowel phonemicization in many languages can be
controversial -- in particular there are several others (e.g.,
Italian) which could be added, according to some analyses.
John.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
On Jan 28, 10:40 pm, johna...@bigpond.com wrote:
> On Jan 29, 3:10 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
>
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 28, 7:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> > > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> > > more or less this exact system?
>
> > > I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> > > well? Any other important ones?
> > Most languages in India that are written with a Brahmic script have
> > not found a need to add more to their written vowel inventory than the
> > 5 vowel qualities that could be written in Brahmi.English has not found a need to have more than 6 symbols in its
> written vowel inventory. Does this mean that English has only six
> vowels?
English does need more than 6 to be written phonemically; ASCII IPA
has more than 6.
> > That would seem to
> > make them close enough to the 5 vowel system.
> Nevertheless, none of the modern Indo-Aryan languages (except Romany)
> actually have five vowel phonemes. The minimum is six (/i,e,a,u,o, O/,
> or /i,e,a,@,o,u/). Others have 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 13. Hindi and
> Punjabi have ten, /i, I, e, &, a, @, u, U, o, O/.
That's close enough to /i/ /i:/ /e:/ /aI/ /a/ /a:/ /u/ /u:/ /o:/ /aU/
- 5 vowels + length + two diphthongs. If you want to count allophones,
you'd have to count {[E],[@],[V]} for /a/, {[E:],[&],[aI]} for /aI/
and so on.
> The main Dravidian languages do have five, plus length.
Malayalam has /@/ too, albeit phonemic only in a terminal context; in
other contexts, [@] is an allophone.
> Though most
> of the modern languages have one or two more (/&:/ and /V/ in modern
> Tamil), which have come in through borrowings.
[V] doesn't make a new phoneme since it's one realization of the first
vowel.
Paul J Kriha
> On Jan 29, 12:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> > more or less this exact system?
Your "more or less" could be taken as asking for
spoken languages with any number of vowels from
zero to infinity in which case the answer would be
just any list of most spoken languages.
> > I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> > well? Any other important ones?
>
> Esperanto and Hebrew are hardly "most spoken languages"!!
>
> Here's a list which probably includes the top ten, I think:
>
> Spanish
> Russian
> Japanese
> Telugu
> Hausa
> Swahili
> Oromo
> Tagolog
> Serbo-Croatian
> Shona
> Czech
> Greek
>
> Telugu, Hausa, and Czech actually have ten vowels, five short and five
> long.
Some Czech speakers maintain that the "y" and "i" are
in fact two different vowels as in some dialects they are
pronounced differently. Counted them as two separate
vowels would make that a total of twelve vowels, six
short and six long ones, not counting diphthongs.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
Modern Greek too. Interlingua. Bahasa Indonesia? No they have six
vowels, not five.
Persian? But not the same ones.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
http://rudhar.com/politics/devmrdzk.htm
Keith GOERINGER
there are more than 5 vowels...
Regards,
Keith
In article <1170046497....@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
John Atkinson
> 28 Jan 2007 17:46:36 -0800: "Sonja Elen Kisa" <son...@gmail.com>: in
> sci.lang:
>
>>I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
>>a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
>>more or less this exact system?
>>
>>I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
>>well? Any other important ones?
>
> Modern Greek too. Interlingua. Bahasa Indonesia? No they have six
> vowels, not five.
> Persian? But not the same ones.
I thought Persian had 6. The standard 5, plus /&/
John.
Paul D
<realema...@rudhar.com.invalid> said:
> 28 Jan 2007 17:46:36 -0800: "Sonja Elen Kisa" <son...@gmail.com>: in
> sci.lang:
>
>> I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
>> a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
>> more or less this exact system?
>>
>> I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
>> well? Any other important ones?
>
> Modern Greek too. Interlingua. Bahasa Indonesia? No they have six
> vowels, not five.
> Persian? But not the same ones.
The Japanese vowels aren't the same 5 as the Spanish — not the 'u', anyway.
Doesn't Persian have six vowels?
Paul D.
John Atkinson
"Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
> <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
Same with Russian -- except without the length. I was going on the
discussion in Comrie's "Slavonic Languages", which claims that in Czech
and Russian (and Polish and Belorussian, but not Ukrainian) "i" and "y"
are allophones. I realise that not everyone agrees with this, and it
probably varies with dialect, in all these languages. (Polish wouldn't
make the list anyway because of its extra nasal vowel.)
John Atkinson
> On Jan 28, 10:40 pm, johna...@bigpond.com wrote:
>> On Jan 29, 3:10 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
Yes, historically that's what they are (cf Sanskrit), but both my
references (Masica's "Indo-Aryan Languages" and Comrie's "Major
Languages") claim the phonemization is as I said -- though the "tense"
vowels /i,a,u/ are pronounced longer, length, apparently, isn't the
important distinction. And your two "diphthongs" are generally realised
as monophthongs. Seems rather similar to the situation in late Latin,
eh?
Do you agree with this? (I'm not a Hindi speaker myself, of course!)
> If you want to count allophones,
> you'd have to count {[E],[@],[V]} for /a/, {[E:],[&],[aI]} for /aI/
> and so on.
I do NOTwant to count allophones, nor diphthongs either! This would
disqualify every language in the list, from Spanish on.
>> The main Dravidian languages do have five, plus length.
>
> Malayalam has /@/ too, albeit phonemic only in a terminal context; in
> other contexts, [@] is an allophone.
My understanding is that it has /&/ too, though probably only in
borrowings from English.
>> Though most
>> of the modern languages have one or two more (/&:/ and /V/ in Modern
>> Tamil), which have come in through borrowings.
>
> [V] doesn't make a new phoneme since it's one realization of the first
> vowel.
Krishnamurti lists it as a regular phoneme, though I don't know the
details of his justification. It wasn't one in Old Tamil, of course.
Steever (in Comrie) calls it /@/ and claims it's "peripheral", comes
from borrowing, and is used only in "high" Tamil.
John.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
On Jan 29, 8:37 am, "John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
> >> Nevertheless, none of the modern Indo-Aryan languages (except Romany)
> >> actually have five vowel phonemes. The minimum is six (/i,e,a,u,o,
> >> O/,
> >> or /i,e,a,@,o,u/). Others have 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 13. Hindi and
> >> Punjabi have ten, /i, I, e, &, a, @, u, U, o, O/.
>
> > That's close enough to /i/ /i:/ /e:/ /aI/ /a/ /a:/ /u/ /u:/ /o:/ /aU/
> > - 5 vowels + length + two diphthongs.Yes, historically that's what they are (cf Sanskrit), but both my
> references (Masica's "Indo-Aryan Languages" and Comrie's "Major
> Languages") claim the phonemization is as I said -- though the "tense"
> vowels /i,a,u/ are pronounced longer, length, apparently, isn't the
> important distinction. And your two "diphthongs" are generally realised
> as monophthongs. Seems rather similar to the situation in late Latin,
> eh?
>
> Do you agree with this? (I'm not a Hindi speaker myself, of course!)
I responded to this but my response has mysteriously not appeared. I
don't have time to redo it right now.
> >> The main Dravidian languages do have five, plus length.
>
> > Malayalam has /@/ too, albeit phonemic only in a terminal context; in
> > other contexts, [@] is an allophone of /a/.
> My understanding is that it has /&/ too, though probably only in
> borrowings from English.
If described using the term code-switching:
When code-switching to the phonology for loan words from English, the
phoneme /A/ has an allophone [&:] and there's no phoneme /&/. Thus, /
bAnk/ and /bAg/ are pronounced as [b&Nk] and [b&g]. As per a recent
thread, English "mass" becomes Malayalam /mAs/ pronounced [mAs] and is
one word that doesn't retain its [&] pronunciation as a consequence of
there not being a phoneme /&/ in Malayalam.
Paul J Kriha
news:R0nvh.278$sd2...@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
When it can lead to ambiguity, the Czech speakers may
spent extra effort to pronounce "i" and "y" (and "í" and "ı")
differently from each other. For example, "mít" (to have) can
be pronounced with more frontal high pitched "í" and "mıt"
(to wash) with a dark "ı".
In the so called "conversational Czech" the "ı" becomes
distinctly different /eI/ while "í" is /i:/.
pjk
Jim Heckman
On 28-Jan-2007, john...@bigpond.com
wrote in message <1170046497....@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>:
> On Jan 29, 12:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> > more or less this exact system?
> >
> > I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> > well? Any other important ones?
>
> Esperanto and Hebrew are hardly "most spoken languages"!!
>
> Here's a list which probably includes the top ten, I think:
>
> Spanish
> Russian
> Japanese
> Telugu
> Hausa
> Swahili
> Oromo
> Tag[a]log
> Serbo-Croatian
> Shona
> Czech
> Greek
>
> Telugu, Hausa, and Czech actually have ten vowels, five short and five
> long.
Also Japanese, Tagalog and Serbo-Croatian (at least; I don't know
about Oromo or Shona). Hausa, Tagalog and Serbo-Croatian don't
normally indicate vowel length orthographically.
> The "correct" vowel phonemicization in many languages can be
> controversial -- in particular there are several others (e.g.,
> Italian) which could be added, according to some analyses.
--
Jim Heckman
Yusuf B Gursey
On Jan 29, 3:48 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
wrote:
> 28 Jan 2007 17:46:36 -0800: "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com>: insci.lang:
>
> >I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> >a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> >more or less this exact system?
>
> >I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> >well? Any other important ones?Modern Greek too. Interlingua. Bahasa Indonesia? No they have six
> vowels, not five.Persian? But not the same ones.
persian (modern farsi) has a six vowel system, the vowelsincreasingly
being diffenretiated by quality ratehr than lenth. dari and classical
persian have an 8 vowel system.
> --
> Ruud Harmsen -http://rudhar.comhttp://rudhar.com/politics/devmrdzk.htm
Yusuf B Gursey
On Jan 29, 8:41 am, Paul D <p...@hiddenfortress.ten> wrote:
> On 2007-01-29 17:48:19 +0900, Ruud Harmsen
> <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid> said:
>
> > 28 Jan 2007 17:46:36 -0800: "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com>: in
> >sci.lang:
>
> >> I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> >> a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> >> more or less this exact system?
>
> >> I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> >> well? Any other important ones?
>
> > Modern Greek too. Interlingua. Bahasa Indonesia? No they have six
> > vowels, not five.
> >Persian? But not the same ones.The Japanese vowels aren't the same 5 as the Spanish - not the 'u', anyway.
>
> Doesn'tPersianhave six vowels?
yes. classical persian and dari have 8.
>
> Paul D.
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
On Jan 30, 4:06 am, "Jim Heckman" <rot13(reply-to)@none.invalid>
wrote:
> On 28-Jan-2007, johna...@bigpond.com
> wrote in message <1170046497.327030.84...@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jan 29, 12:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> > > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> > > more or less this exact system?
>
> > > I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> > > well? Any other important ones?
>
> > Esperanto and Hebrew are hardly "most spoken languages"!!
>
> > Here's a list which probably includes the top ten, I think:
>
> > Spanish
> > Russian
> > Japanese
> > Telugu
> > Hausa
> > Swahili
> > Oromo
> > Tag[a]log
> > Serbo-Croatian
> > Shona
> > Czech
> > Greek
>
> > Telugu, Hausa, and Czech actually have ten vowels, five short and five
> > long.Also Japanese, Tagalog and Serbo-Croatian (at least; I don't know
> about Oromo or Shona). Hausa, Tagalog and Serbo-Croatian don't
> normally indicate vowel length orthographically.
I don't recall seeing an analysis of Tagalog with phonemic length.
The official spelling includes accents (acute, grave, and circumflex)
which are rarely used. However, none of these indicate length. The
acute indicates stress in a similar fashion to Spanish. The grave
indicates a following glottal stop. The circumflex indicates both of
these.
It often seems that Tagalog only has three vowel phonemes. a, e / i,
and o / u. It can be often be hard to know which to use when spelling
an unfamiliar word. For a long time I thought that suso was spelt
susu since I knew its cognate in Malay which is spelt susu.
Minimal pairs distinguishing e and i or o and u are rare and, in most
cases, one or both is a borrowing from Spanish or English. A common
example is misa / mesa where both are from Spanish. I would not
expect these to be reliably distinguished by most speakers unless the
context made it clear. It is hard to test since it would be a
challenge to devise a natural sentence in which misa (mass as in
church) and mesa (table) could be confused. Most of the other minimal
pairs would not be much better.
> > The "correct" vowel phonemicization in many languages can be
> > controversial -- in particular there are several others (e.g.,
> > Italian) which could be added, according to some analyses.--
> Jim Heckman- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
John Atkinson
"Jim Heckman" <rot13(reply-to)@none.invalid> wrote...
>
> On 28-Jan-2007, john...@bigpond.com wrote:
>
>> On Jan 29, 12:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is
>> > there
>> > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that
>> > use
>> > more or less this exact system?
>> >
>> > I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
>> > well? Any other important ones?
>>
>> Esperanto and Hebrew are hardly "most spoken languages"!!
>>
>> Here's a list which probably includes the top ten, I think:
>>
>> Spanish
>> Russian
>> Japanese
>> Telugu
>> Hausa
>> Swahili
>> Oromo
>> Serbo-Croatian
>> Shona
>> Czech
>> Greek
>>
>> Telugu, Hausa, and Czech actually have ten vowels, five short and
>> five
>> long.
>
> Also Japanese,
Though, as Shibitani puts it ("The Languages of Japan, pp 161-2):
"The phonemic interpretation of long vowels has been one of the
controversial issues of Japanese phonology. Long vowels contrast with
short vowels [but] a long vowel cannot simply be considered a single
segment, for it is counted as two moras, and, furthermore, because pitch
drop occurs in the middle of a long vowel [...]. These facts suggest
that the long vowel should be analysed as a sequence of two identical
vowels, and many have adopted this analysis. [...] However, the problem
is not that simple, because there also exist genuine geminate vowels
which result from suffixation or compounding. For example, when the
verb suw- 'to suck' is suffixed by the present tense morpheme -ru, the
result will be suu via the phonological processes of suw-ru > suw-u >
su-u. If suu 'number' is to be analysed as /suu/, then suu 'sucks'
cannot be differentiated from it. [He continues with more examples.]"
> Tagalog
No long vowels that I know of. Of course, as Sean points out, /e/ and
/o/ occur only in borrowings. But there seem to be a hell of a lot of
these, and the Spanish ones at least have been well integrated for
hundreds of years.
> and Serbo-Croatian
Yes, right.
> (at least; I don't know about Oromo or Shona).
Oromo has 5 short and 5 long vowels, as is typical for Southern Cushitic
languages. The long vowels are written double.
Since it's a pretty typical Bantu language, I'd be surprised if ChiShona
has long vowels. OTOH, most Bantu languages thereabouts have 7 vowel
phonemes, so I was a bit surprised when I looked up Wikipedia and it
said ChiShona "has five vowels a, e, i, o, u". It occurs to me now that
its orthography may underdistinguish, and that <e> may denote both /e/
and /E/; likewise <o> may denote both /o/ and /O/.
> Hausa [...] and Serbo-Croatian don't
> normally indicate vowel length orthographically.
Yep. There are standard diacritics which denote length (and tone), but
they're mostly only used in grammars and dictionaries.
John.
Paul D
<rot13(reply-to)@none.invalid> said:
You could argue whether Japanese has long vowels, or simply words with
two of the same vowel in a row. I favour the latter view, since the
language is mora-timed and you might even have the same vowel held for
3 or 4 syllables in a word.
Paul D.
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
On Jan 30, 1:08 pm, "John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> "Jim Heckman" <rot13(reply-to)@none.invalid> wrote...
>
> > On 28-Jan-2007, johna...@bigpond.com wrote:
>
> >> On Jan 29, 12:46 pm, "Sonja Elen Kisa" <sonj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is
> >> > there
> >> > a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that
> >> > use
> >> > more or less this exact system?
<snip>
> > Tagalog
> No long vowels that I know of. Of course, as Sean points out, /e/ and
> /o/ occur only in borrowings. But there seem to be a hell of a lot of
> these, and the Spanish ones at least have been well integrated for
> hundreds of years.
A hell of a lot of Spanish borrowings indeed. They are mostly very
well integrated into the language and many native speakers are unaware
of which words are of Spanish origin. One Filipino friend was quite
surprised when she went to Spain and found so many familiar words. Not
all Spanish borrowings are so well integrated, some words are still
perceived as Spanish and it is common to use the Spanish spelling
rather than the official Tagalog one.
However, despite this huge influx of borrowings, there still does not
seem to be a large number of minimal pairs for e and i or o and u. I
would have to go to a book to find some more examples. No others
spring to mind. I would like to find a pair that could be used in the
same context so that we could determine how reliably natives would
distinguish them.
<snip>
> John
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Peter T. Daniels
On Jan 30, 6:21 am, "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlaw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It often seems that Tagalog only has three vowel phonemes. a, e / i,
> and o / u. It can be often be hard to know which to use when spelling
> an unfamiliar word. For a long time I thought that suso was spelt
> susu since I knew its cognate in Malay which is spelt susu.
>
> Minimal pairs distinguishing e and i or o and u are rare and, in most
> cases, one or both is a borrowing from Spanish or English. A common
> example is misa / mesa where both are from Spanish. I would not
> expect these to be reliably distinguished by most speakers unless the
> context made it clear. It is hard to test since it would be a
> challenge to devise a natural sentence in which misa (mass as in
> church) and mesa (table) could be confused. Most of the other minimal
> pairs would not be much better.
The priest says Mass at the altar, the table of the Lord.
Celebration of the Mass commemorates the gathering of the apostles at
the Lord's table for the Passover feast.
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
That gets the words into the same sentence but it would still be clear
from the context which was which. I was hoping for a natural sentence
in which either of misa and mesa could appear at the same point. Then
I could get some native speakers to say it while others listen and see
if they could reliably pick the correct meaning. Of course, if I ask
them to do this they may use an artificially precise pronunciation and
ruin the experiment. I would need to trick them into saying the
sentence. All the Tagalog speakers I know are bilingual (or more) and
can easily distinguish e and i if they want to. I want to know
whether they do when speaking Tagalog naturally.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Peter T. Daniels
On Jan 30, 9:56 am, "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlaw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jan 30, 2:41 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jan 30, 6:21 am, "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlaw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > It often seems that Tagalog only has three vowel phonemes. a, e / i,
> > > and o / u. It can be often be hard to know which to use when spelling
> > > an unfamiliar word. For a long time I thought that suso was spelt
> > > susu since I knew its cognate in Malay which is spelt susu.
>
> > > Minimal pairs distinguishing e and i or o and u are rare and, in most
> > > cases, one or both is a borrowing from Spanish or English. A common
> > > example is misa / mesa where both are from Spanish. I would not
> > > expect these to be reliably distinguished by most speakers unless the
> > > context made it clear. It is hard to test since it would be a
> > > challenge to devise a natural sentence in which misa (mass as in
> > > church) and mesa (table) could be confused. Most of the other minimal
> > > pairs would not be much better.
> > The priest says Mass at the altar, the table of the Lord.
>
> > Celebration of the Mass commemorates the gathering of the apostles at
> > the Lord's table for the Passover feast.
> That gets the words into the same sentence
(and with the alleged OSV word order, you can wiggle them around to be
adjacent)
> but it would still be clear
> from the context which was which. I was hoping for a natural sentence
> in which either of misa and mesa could appear at the same point. Then
> I could get some native speakers to say it while others listen and see
> if they could reliably pick the correct meaning. Of course, if I ask
> them to do this they may use an artificially precise pronunciation and
> ruin the experiment. I would need to trick them into saying the
> sentence. All the Tagalog speakers I know are bilingual (or more) and
> can easily distinguish e and i if they want to. I want to know
> whether they do when speaking Tagalog naturally.
"Time to go to Mass!"
"Time to go to dinner!"
The priest can tell the altarboy:
"Time to prepare for Mass!"
"Time to set the table!"
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
On Jan 30, 3:11 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jan 30, 9:56 am, "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlaw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jan 30, 2:41 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 30, 6:21 am, "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlaw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > > It often seems that Tagalog only has three vowel phonemes. a, e / i,
> > > > and o / u. It can be often be hard to know which to use when spelling
> > > > an unfamiliar word. For a long time I thought that suso was spelt
> > > > susu since I knew its cognate in Malay which is spelt susu.
>
> > > > Minimal pairs distinguishing e and i or o and u are rare and, in most
> > > > cases, one or both is a borrowing from Spanish or English. A common
> > > > example is misa / mesa where both are from Spanish. I would not
> > > > expect these to be reliably distinguished by most speakers unless the
> > > > context made it clear. It is hard to test since it would be a
> > > > challenge to devise a natural sentence in which misa (mass as in
> > > > church) and mesa (table) could be confused. Most of the other minimal
> > > > pairs would not be much better.
> > > The priest says Mass at the altar, the table of the Lord.
>
> > > Celebration of the Mass commemorates the gathering of the apostles at
> > > the Lord's table for the Passover feast.
> > That gets the words into the same sentence(and with the alleged OSV word order, you can wiggle them around to be
> adjacent)
>
> > but it would still be clear
> > from the context which was which. I was hoping for a natural sentence
> > in which either of misa and mesa could appear at the same point. Then
> > I could get some native speakers to say it while others listen and see
> > if they could reliably pick the correct meaning. Of course, if I ask
> > them to do this they may use an artificially precise pronunciation and
> > ruin the experiment. I would need to trick them into saying the
> > sentence. All the Tagalog speakers I know are bilingual (or more) and
> > can easily distinguish e and i if they want to. I want to know
> > whether they do when speaking Tagalog naturally.
> "Time to go to Mass!"
>
> "Time to go to dinner!"
>
> The priest can tell the altarboy:
>
> "Time to prepare for Mass!"
>
> "Time to set the table!"
I don't know any Tagalog speaking priests or altar boys well enough to
involve them in such as an experiment but the first two have some
potential. I will see if I can get them translated into natural
sounding Tagalog. I would not trust my own translations to sound very
natural. A further problem is that "mesa" is no longer commonly used
at all, "table" seems to have taken over. Many Spanish nouns seem to
be on the retreat. I was talking to some Filipino kids at a meal a
while ago, they did not know "asukal", "keso" or "mantikilya" only
"sugar", "cheese" and "butter". I did not check "mesa" but I would
guess that they would not know that either. This was in Manila, if I
was further out into the provinces, things may have been different.
It is a pity that the Spanish words seem to be dying out since,
despite the difference we are discussing, they fit into Tagalog
phonology much more naturally than English words. More so with the
morphology, this can be very strange when applied to English words.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> >> of the modern languages have one or two more (/&:/ and /V/ in Modern
> >> Tamil), which have come in through borrowings.
Like in Malayalam, Tamil too uses /A/ for English [&]. Non-code
switchers pronounce it [A] or [A.:]. For example, "Jack of clubs" is
[kl.Awar. j^Ak:Y] or [kl.Awar. j^A.:k:Y]. Code switchers pronounce it
[j^&:kkY].
> > [V] doesn't make a new phoneme since it's one realization of the first
> > vowel.
> Krishnamurti lists it as a regular phoneme, though I don't know the
> details of his justification. It wasn't one in Old Tamil, of course.
> Steever (in Comrie) calls it /@/ and claims it's "peripheral", comes
> from borrowing, and is used only in "high" Tamil.
I have no reason to suspect that it wasn't a phoneme. Tamilians use
the same vowel in both Tamil words and loanwords from English. For
example, they use the same pronunciation, for the <a> in "Tamil" and
the <u> in "bus"; the pronunciation is similar to a secondarily
stressed [V] in US English. There are contexts where the articulation
of Tamil /a/ gets reduced to [@], but they don't seem in large enough
proportion to call the phoneme /@/.
In US English, a terminal [@] (eg. retina) is more open than a medial
one (eg. retinal) and a US [V] is about halfway between the US
terminal [@] and a British [V]. Of the 3 vowels, US terminal [@], US
[V] and British [V], the articulation of Tamil /a/ is most frequently
similar to the US [V]. Its other allophones are an adjectival ending
similar to the US terminal [@] and a reduced medial vowel similar to
the US medial [@] but even in low Tamil, the vowel gets reduced much
less frequently than in Malayalam.
John Atkinson
John Atkinson
>> >>
>> >> Telugu, Hausa, and Czech actually have ten vowels, five short and
>> >> five
>> >> long.
>> >
>> > Some Czech speakers maintain that the "y" and "i" are
>> > in fact two different vowels as in some dialects they are
>> > pronounced differently. Counted them as two separate
>> > vowels would make that a total of twelve vowels, six
>> > short and six long ones, not counting diphthongs.
>>
>> Same with Russian -- except without the length. I was going on the
>> discussion in Comrie's "Slavonic Languages", which claims that in
>> Czech
>> and Russian (and Polish and Belorussian, but not Ukrainian) "i" and
>> "y"
>> are allophones.
>
> When it can lead to ambiguity, the Czech speakers may
> spent extra effort to pronounce "i" and "y" (and "í" and "ı")
> differently from each other. For example, "mít" (to have) can
> be pronounced with more frontal high pitched "í" and "mıt"
> (to wash) with a dark "ı".
This sounds like those English speakers who make a conscious effort to
pronounce <wh> different from <w>, especially in homophones (which there
are lots of), even though their native dialect lost the distinction
centuries ago.
FWIW, both the references on Czech pronunciation that I have at hand say
that <i> and <y> are the same sound, and don't mention that they're ever
pronounced different from one another. Do you have the distinction
yourself?
In Russian, <i> and <y> _are_ pronounced differently, but the difference
isn't phonemic since <i> is used only after palatised consonants and
syllable-initial,, <y> only after unpalatised consonants. Thus <mir>
(peace) is /m;ir/ while <myt'> (to wash) is /mit;/. But in Czech this
wouldn't work since Czech has merged palatised and unpalatised labials
(/m;/ became /m/, etc).
> In the so called "conversational Czech" the "ı" becomes
> distinctly different /eI/ while "í" is /i:/.
I hadn't heard of this. At first sight, this seems like one of those
mysterious cases where two phonemes have merged into one, and then,
generations later, split up again along the same lines as before!
Presumably, though, there is a rational explanation -- perhaps the
influence of a dialect where the merger never happened; or, just
possibly, the influence of the spelling. Do you know any more on this?
John.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> It is a pity that the Spanish words seem to be dying out since,
> despite the difference we are discussing, they fit into Tagalog
> phonology much more naturally than English words. More so with the
> morphology, this can be very strange when applied to English words.
What might be an example of a comparison of strange morphology with
morphology that is not strange?
Neeraj Mathur
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
I'm surprised that Masica doesn't mention the distribution effects in
this section, stating only that it is 'generally agreed' that length
distinctions are now replaced by quality distinctions, mentioning
merely the existence of arguments based on generative phonology but
not stating them.
In both Hindi and Punjabi, short vowels are not permitted word-
finally, only long vowels (including all four of e, E, o, O) are. Even
in words where the orthography shows a short vowel, it will be
pronounced long. This rule appears to have been a productive one
through the last few centuries: Classical Persian word-final short -a
(which, as Yusuf helped me understand, is represented in Persian
orthography with a final <h> or 'ta marbuta' without dots - no doubt
because that letter was pronounced as a final short -a in Arabic when
borrowed) has been regularly lengthened in Hindi and Punjabi to long -
a. (In Persian, the sound has changed to short -e instead: thus Hindi/
Punjabi 'bacca:' vs Farsi 'bacce').
It would be very inconvenient to try to formulate a rule to explain
this behaviour if treating /i I V a U u/ as six completely independent
vowels; dividing them into two natural classes on the basis of the
feature 'length' solves the problem cleanly.
Neeraj Mathur
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
As far as I can tell, there's only a length distinction in first vowel
of the pairs <liyA>/<li:jiye> and <pukArnA>/<pu:cnA>. Also, the pair
<namak>/<pAdayAtrA> seems to have the same first vowels as in the US
English pair <hummock>/<father>, the short and long vowels being
different only in openness according to formant charts for US English.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
> > When it can lead to ambiguity, the Czech speakers may
> > spent extra effort to pronounce "i" and "y" (and "í" and "ý")
> > differently from each other. For example, "mít" (to have) can
> > be pronounced with more frontal high pitched "í" and "mýt"
> > (to wash) with a dark "ý".
>
> This sounds like those English speakers who make a conscious effort to
> pronounce <wh> different from <w>, especially in homophones (which there
> are lots of), even though their native dialect lost the distinction
> centuries ago.
Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
(whole vs. hole)?
Paul J Kriha
Yes. I'd say it's exactly like that.
> FWIW, both the references on Czech pronunciation that I have at hand say
> that <i> and <y> are the same sound, and don't mention that they're ever
> pronounced different from one another. Do you have the distinction
> yourself?
No, I don't, and in the normal spoken conversation (including
the high prestige register speech) nobody is expected to have
any distinction at all. In the rare case of a real semantical
ambiguity, when somebody asks for clarification, the speaker
may either recast the sentence to make the meaning clearer
or repeat the offending word with a distinctive high-pitch-i or
low-pitch-y pronunciation.
> In Russian, <i> and <y> _are_ pronounced differently, but the difference
> isn't phonemic since <i> is used only after palatised consonants and
> syllable-initial,, <y> only after unpalatised consonants. Thus <mir>
> (peace) is /m;ir/ while <myt'> (to wash) is /mit;/.
Min.pair <myt'> (to wash) versus <mit'> (to have).
I was surprised that even Russians were treating them as one
and the same phoneme, but I accept their reasoning.
> But in Czech this
> wouldn't work since Czech has merged palatised and unpalatised labials
> (/m;/ became /m/, etc).
Correct. The only palatisable Cz consonants are <d>, <t>, <n>,
<r>, <s>, <z>.
> > In the so called "conversational Czech" the "ı" becomes
> > distinctly different /eI/ while "í" is /i:/.
>
> I hadn't heard of this. At first sight, this seems like one of those
> mysterious cases where two phonemes have merged into one, and then,
> generations later, split up again along the same lines as before!
No, it's not that mysterious. :-)
There are several cases of two phonemes merging into one,
often a long vowel. For example, a diphthong "uo" generally
merged into a long-u written as <u> with a small circle
(krouz^ek) above it. In several dialects it is still a diphthong.
However, in the case of long "ı", I don't think there ever
was a full merge followed by a split in spoken low-register
Czech. The earlier diphthong(s) just morphed into the current
/eI/ diphthong.
This /eI/ is quite common even in the main central dialects.
The primary school children find it very helpful during exam
dictations. To misspell "i" or "í" as "y" or "ı", or vice versa,
is the most serious transgression one can commit in written
Czech. The teacher, of course, will pronounce the words like
<vır>(owl) and <vír>(wind willy)
<mıt>(to wash) and <mít>(to have)
in exactly the same way. The children have to replay the
words in their heads as /veIr/ and /meIt/. Only the "owl"
and "to wash" could ever be pronounced that way.
The short "i" versus "y" is much more difficult.
Only "y" can follow non-palatalized h, ch, k, r, d, t, or n,
but either of them can follow consonants b, f, l, m, p, s, v, or z.
Children have to memorize by rota long lists of word roots
in which "y" occurs after one of them.
pjk
John Atkinson
> "John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
>> > When it can lead to ambiguity, the Czech speakers may
>> > spent extra effort to pronounce "i" and "y" (and "í" and "ı")
>> > differently from each other. For example, "mít" (to have) can
>> > be pronounced with more frontal high pitched "í" and "mıt"
>> > (to wash) with a dark "ı".
>
>> This sounds like those English speakers who make a conscious effort
>> to
>> pronounce <wh> different from <w>, especially in homophones (which
>> there
>> are lots of), even though their native dialect lost the distinction
>> centuries ago.
> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
> (whole vs. hole)?
I've never heard anyone pronounce <wh> as [h]. The usual pronunciation,
both for those who have it naturally (Scots, Irish, some Yanks and
NZers) and those who acquire it later in life (quasi-RP wannabes), is
[hw<vls>]. Or, at least, that's what it sounds like to me. For those
who acquire it in infancy, it's arguably a single phoneme, upside-down
w. For those who learn to do it later, it would be /hw/, a cluster
consisting of the /h/ and /w/ that they already have.
John.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
> > "John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> >> This sounds like those English speakers who make a conscious effort
> >> to pronounce <wh> different from <w>, especially in homophones
> > (whole vs. hole)?
>
> I've never heard anyone pronounce <wh> as [h].
According to this, such pronunciation has prevalent for a millenium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonants
The hole-whole merger is the replacement of /ʍ/ with /h/ before the
vowels /oː/ and /uː/ which occurred in Old English.
John Atkinson
> John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
>> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
>> > John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
>> >> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
>> >> >
Is <mit'> a word in Russian? The usual word for "have" is <umet'>.
A minimal pair might be "Mylo milo", the soap is amiable. (Though
perhaps the long form adjective "milye" would be more appropriate here,
no?)
> I was surprised that even Russians were treating them as one
> and the same phoneme, but I accept their reasoning.
>
>> But in Czech this
>> wouldn't work since Czech has merged palatised and unpalatised
>> labials
>> (/m;/ became /m/, etc).
>
> Correct. The only palatisable Cz consonants are <d>, <t>, <n>,
> <r>, <s>, <z>.
[...]
John.
Paul D
>> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
>> (whole vs. hole)?
No.
>
> I've never heard anyone pronounce <wh> as [h].
I've never heard anyone not pronounce "whole" with [h]. (Or "whore",
for that matter)
Paul D.
Paul J Kriha
> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
> > John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
> >> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
> >> > John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
> >> >> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Some Czech speakers maintain that the "y" and "i" are
> >> >> > in fact two different vowels as in some dialects they are
> >> >> > pronounced differently. Counted them as two separate
> >> >> > vowels would make that a total of twelve vowels, six
> >> >> > short and six long ones, not counting diphthongs.
> >> >>
> >> >> Same with Russian -- except without the length. I was going on
> >> >> the
> >> >> discussion in Comrie's "Slavonic Languages", which claims that in
> >> >> Czech
> >> >> and Russian (and Polish and Belorussian, but not Ukrainian)
> >> >> "i" and "y" are allophones.
> >> >
> >> > When it can lead to ambiguity, the Czech speakers may
> >> > differently from each other. For example, "mít" (to have) can
> >> > (to wash) with a dark "ý".
Grrrrrrr..... No it's not. Sorry about that, <mít> is a ruddy westslavism!
When I wrote it I was actually thinking of <bit'> and <byt'>
which I used before.
Btw, it's <imet'>. I think I know how you got <umet'> (to hnow how).
Hmmm, let's say <mishka> (teddy bear) and <mysh'ka> (mousie).
It's not quite a minimal pair, the sh in <mysh'ka> needs a myagkiy
znak. Okay, how about <pil> (he drank) and <pyl'> (dust).
Oh, drats, again only one of them has a myagkiy znak.
What about <pitat'> (to feed/supply) and <pytat'> (to torture).
....at last, a true min. pair.
Now I cheated, armed with <milo> and <bit'> I got this off the web:
бить — быть
вить — выть
следи — следы
грози́ — грозы́
клик — клык
мило — мыло
сосни́ — сосны́
пил — пыл
сгори — с горы
сир — сыр
ти́кать — ты́кать
графи́ — графы́
> A minimal pair might be "Mylo milo", the soap is amiable. (Though
> perhaps the long form adjective "milye" would be more appropriate here,
> no?)
"Mylo" is a neuter, I'd probably say "milo mylo" or "mylo miloje"
but my Russian is far from idiomatic.
pjk
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> >> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
> >> (whole vs. hole)?
>
> No.
>
> for that matter)
I have [H] in <whore> but [h"] in <hoar>.
[H] voiceless pharyngeal fricative
[h"] voiced glottal fricative
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
It is the combination of Tagalog morphology and English roots that I
called strange. Tagalog morphology is unusual (at least from a
European point of view) but of course it seems natural and normal to
native speakers. Conversely, English phonology is unusual from a
Tagalog point of view. Tagalog has fewer phonemes (both vowel and
consonant) and lacks the clusters of consonants that are common in
English. Tagalog syllables are simple CV and CVC or sometimes V and
VC. Morphology not only involves prefixes and suffixes but also
infixes and reduplication.
This is quite well described in this Wikipedia article: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog_grammar
Here are some examples from that page: root sulat, sumulat (infix um
between the first C and V), sumusulat (infix and reduplication).
For native words, it is easy to perform this morphology.
With words of Spanish origin, it is a little more complex but not
greatly so. The spelling system is similar (no coincidence) and
Spanish syllables are not as complex as English. Simple consonant
clusters are possible. Example: root trabaho has an initial tr, these
clusters are simplified when reduplicated, magtatrabaho which has
prefix mag and reduplicated first syllable. Note the h in trabaho,
Tagalog spelling is similar, but not identical, to Spanish. Some
words of Spanish origin fit in so naturally that it is not apparent
that they are of Spanish origin (unless you know Spanish).
The situation is different with English words. The syllables can be
much more complex than Tagalog and the spelling is very different.
One odd example I found recently was kinacook from cook. This was an
attempt to apply the infix in and reduplication to cook. The
duplicated c had to change to k because an i would follow. I am not
sure why the oo became a but possibly because, away from the obvious
English context, it would probably be misinterpreted. oo is a common
sequence in Tagalog, in fact it is a word in its own right, but it is
pronounced as two o's separated by a glottal stop.
I am not sure why the speaker chose to do this since Tagalog does have
its own word for cook. Tagalog grammar seems to be alive and well but
its vocabulary is under attack from English. I have already mentioned
that words of Spanish origin are often replaced with English. This
sometimes happens even with native words.
English words which have been officially adopted into Tagalog have an
official Tagalog spelling e.g. jeepney -> dyipni but these are rarely
used outside dictionaries and school books. If this was done for all
adoptions, the English words may fit in better but only slightly.
Note that my experience is mostly in Manila or England. In both
cases, the speakers have a high exposure to English. Things may be
different in areas where English is not used so much but these places
are hard to find.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote...
VSO is usual in my experience. I didn't notice the OSV in Peter's
post.
This Wikipedia article will tell you a bit more: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog_grammar
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
John Atkinson
> <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> ><ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
> > >"John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > >> This sounds like those English speakers who make a conscious
> > >> effort
> > >> to pronounce <wh> different from <w>, especially in homophones
> > > Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
> > > (whole vs. hole)?
>
> > I've never heard anyone pronounce <wh> as [h].
> According to this, such pronunciation has prevalent for a millenium.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonants
> The hole-whole merger is the replacement of /ʍ/ with /h/ before the
> vowels /oː/ and /uː/ which occurred in Old English.
OK, I see what you're getting at! I completely misread you. Sorry!
No, I've never heard of anyone pronouncing the "wh" in "whole" or "who"
or "whore" as either [hw] or [w]. My SOED does say "whole" has [w] "in
many dialects", but I've no idea what dialects those might be.
These three (and their derivatives) seem to be about the only words in
the dictionary where /h/ is spelled <wh>. None of them involve "the
replacement of /hw/ with /h/ before the vowels /o:/ and /u:/ which
occured in Old English."
"Who" comes from OE "hwa:" -- the OE vowel is "a:"; it didn't become
"o:" till later.
"Whore" comes from late OE "ho:re", from ONorse "ho:ra" -- no "w" in the
original.
"Whole" comes from OE "ha:l", from PGerm "*hailoz" -- OE had "a:", not
"o:"; and the spelling with "w" didn't appear till the 15th century.
So maybe Wiki needs to rewrite that bit? No doubt there's a basis of
fact somewhere behind what they say, but it's oversimplified to death.
John.
John Atkinson
> John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
>> "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote...
>> >
>>
>> Is <mit'> a word in Russian? The usual word for "have" is <umet'>.
>
> Grrrrrrr..... No it's not. Sorry about that, <mít> is a ruddy
> westslavism!
> When I wrote it I was actually thinking of <bit'> and <byt'>
> which I used before.
> Btw, it's <imet'>. I think I know how you got <umet'> (to hnow how).
Yeah, right. It was a semi-transliteration -- a mixture of Cyrillic and
Roman!
[...]
>> A minimal pair might be "Mylo milo", the soap is amiable. (Though
>> perhaps the long form adjective "milye" would be more appropriate
>> here,
>> no?)
>
> "Mylo" is a neuter, I'd probably say "milo mylo" or "mylo miloje"
> but my Russian is far from idiomatic.
Yep. Typo. I meant to write "miloe".
Is that inversion of the order when the short form is used usual?
John.
Paul D
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> said:
You might want to work on that. :) They're homonyms, pronounced with a
voiceless glottal fricative, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a
native speaker who pronounces them otherwise.
Voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are going to sound pretty weird in
English no matter what word you try using them in. :)
Paul
Peter T. Daniels
> It is a pity that the Spanish words seem to be dying out since,
> despite the difference we are discussing, they fit into Tagalog
> phonology much more naturally than English words. More so with the
> morphology, this can be very strange when applied to English words.
Americans expect all our Filipino nurses etc. to speak Spanish,
because they almost all have Spanish names, but absolutely none of
them do. (My physical therapist last spring was desperately trying to
learn some Spanish because of the neighborhood where his practice is.)
Either a single century of American presence (as colonizers for half
the time, and as Big Brother ever since) managed to wipe out four
centuries of Spanish, or the Spanish language never gained a secure
foothold even though its naming-practices were adopted along with its
religion.
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote...
> > (and with the alleged OSV word order, you can wiggle them around to be
> > adjacent)
>
> Surely you mean VSO!
No, I meant OSV, because the Philippine languages are always the
parade example of weird word order typology. Like, "Subject-Object" is
pretty useless there, it's all "Topic-Comment."
Am I misremembering my Li?
VSO is perfectly normal -- e.g. Classical Arabic.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On 2007-01-31 18:15:42 +0900, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> said:
>
> > On Jan 31, 1:58 am, Paul D <p...@hiddenfortress.ten> wrote:
> >>>> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
> >>>> (whole vs. hole)?
>
> >> No.
>
> >> I've never heard anyone not pronounce "whole" with [h]. (Or "whore",
> >> for that matter)
>
> > I have [H] in <whore> but [h"] in <hoar>.
>
> > [H] voiceless pharyngeal fricative
> > [h"] voiced glottal fricative
>
> You might want to work on that. :) They're homonyms, pronounced with a
> voiceless glottal fricative,
I haven't had any trouble having my Indian English h be understood;
it's is articulated with voicing although not as much voicing as in
Dutch.
> and you'll be hard-pressed to find a
> native speaker who pronounces them otherwise.
>
> Voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are going to sound pretty weird in
> English no matter what word you try using them in. :)
The salient difference in my pronunciation of <whore> is that it
starts with an unvoiced fricative. I can seem to get away with using a
voiced one for /h/ but in this word, it doesn't go across well at all
if it's voiced. Not that I have much occasion to pronounce it; the
last occasion was in 2003 in San Francisco when a sign caught my eye
and I got a cackle out of my colleague by saying "a restaurant named
Ho's, eh?"
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On 2007-01-31 18:15:42 +0900, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> said:
>
> > On Jan 31, 1:58 am, Paul D <p...@hiddenfortress.ten> wrote:
> >>>> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh> differently from <h>
> >>>> (whole vs. hole)?
>
> >> No.
>
> >> I've never heard anyone not pronounce "whole" with [h]. (Or "whore",
> >> for that matter)
>
> > I have [H] in <whore> but [h"] in <hoar>.
>
> > [H] voiceless pharyngeal fricative
> > [h"] voiced glottal fricative
>
> You might want to work on that. :) They're homonyms, pronounced with a
> voiceless glottal fricative,
I haven't had any trouble having my Indian English h be understood;
it's is articulated with voicing although not as much voicing as in
Dutch.
> and you'll be hard-pressed to find a
> native speaker who pronounces them otherwise.
>
> Voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are going to sound pretty weird in
> English no matter what word you try using them in. :)
The salient difference in my pronunciation of <whore> is that it
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
It seems to be [hu:r.a] in Swedish.
> "Whole" comes from OE "ha:l", from PGerm "*hailoz" -- OE had "a:", not
> "o:"; and the spelling with "w" didn't appear till the 15th century.
Ah!
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
I don't think that Spanish ever became well established in the
Philippines, certainly it is very rare today. I have heard that there
are pockets of it around but I have not encountered them. Even my
wife has not found them and she has travelled very widely in the
Philippines.
Tagalog, and many other Philippine languages, did borrow a huge amount
of Spanish vocabulary. I feel that this is now being slowly replaced
by English e.g. "beer" is now more common than "servesa" but there is
still a lot left. I could easily name hundreds of examples from the
top of my head. The majority of borrowings are nouns but there are
plenty of verbs and adjectives as well. An odd case is "pero" for
"but". I don't know what, if anything, Tagalog used for this concept
before the Spanish came. This one is quite resistant to change. I
have often heard Filipinos use a sentence that was entirely English
except for "pero" in place of "but". An odd category is numbers.
Tagalog, Spanish, and English numbers are used alongside each other.
Small whole numbers are usually Tagalog. Numbers used with time and
money are usually Spanish (but giving way to English). Large or
technical numbers are usually English. I have only seen time
expressed in native numbers in school books. When I read out some
examples, people understood but thought that it was quaint and
amusing.
As far as I can tell, the grammar was largely or wholly unaffected by
Spanish. Certainly it bares little resemblance to Spanish.
The Spaniards did successfully impose their religion on the Filipinos
which explains why most of them have adopted Spanish names (first and
last). My wife's maiden name was not Spanish but that is unusual.
Assuming that Filipinos speak Spanish does not seem so common here but
we have less exposure to Spanish. It is not unknown, if you use a
Filipino mobile (cell) phone here, the UK network O2 will greet you in
Spanish.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Maybe Philippine languages other than Tagalog. There are a lot of
them.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Artur Jachacy
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonants
"set to music by Handel"
How very relevant.
A.
--
Expertise is unusual among Wikipedia contributors [citation needed].
Pan for Windows (beta) - <http://panbuilds.googlepages.com>
António Marques
> Assuming that Filipinos speak Spanish does not seem so common here but
> we have less exposure to Spanish. It is not unknown, if you use a
> Filipino mobile (cell) phone here, the UK network O2 will greet you in
> Spanish.
And again, even though there is very little spanish in the Philippines,
there isn't that much more french in many of the assumed francophone
countries. The main difference in *some* cases is that french enjoys
some sort of institutional promotion which spanish has lost in the
Philippines.
--
am
laurus : rhodophyta : brethoneg : smalltalk : stargate
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Peter T. Daniels
I started to learn Cebuano as an undergraduate, but that was before
Li's *Subject and Topic*.
António Marques
>>> (and with the alleged OSV word order, you can wiggle them around to be
>>> adjacent)
>> Surely you mean VSO!
>
> No, I meant OSV, because the Philippine languages are always the
> parade example of weird word order typology. Like, "Subject-Object" is
> pretty useless there, it's all "Topic-Comment."
>
> Am I misremembering my Li?
>
> VSO is perfectly normal -- e.g. Classical Arabic.
To keep off topic, what's with the recent fuss about some of the
features of the Qur'an's language being more easily explainable through
aramaic than other attested arabic material?
Aidan Kehoe
Ar an t-aonú lá is triochad de mí Eanair, scríobh Paul D.:
> On 2007-01-31 18:15:42 +0900,ranjit_...@yahoo.com said:
>
> > I have [H] in <whore> but [h"] in <hoar>. [H] voiceless pharyngeal
> > fricative [h"] voiced glottal fricative
>
> You might want to work on that. :) They're homonyms, pronounced with a
> voiceless glottal fricative, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a native
> speaker who pronounces them otherwise.
Growing up, for me the former was /huːʳ/, the latter /hoːʳ/̣ I switched to
/hwoːʳ/ for <whore> at around fourteen, since despite the OED’s view that
/huːʳ/ is the more natural development from the OE, it’s not in any standard
version of the language--and the standard pronunciation in a non-rhotic
dialect is marked enough to have its own spelling in the US. Then last year
at some point I came across the OED’s entry, and modified what I said
accordingly.
> Voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are going to sound pretty weird in English
> no matter what word you try using them in. :)
Certainly non-native, though depending on where the conversation takes
place, possibly not weird.
--
On the quay of the little Black Sea port, where the rescued pair came once
more into contact with civilization, Dobrinton was bitten by a dog which was
assumed to be mad, though it may only have been indiscriminating. (Saki)
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> > > > Surely you mean VSO!
I don't know any Cebuano myself but I do know some L1 speakers. I
don't know when I will see them next. In the meantime, I will try to
look through some of my books on the Philippine languages.
I would be a bit surprised if Cebuano was OSV, I don't think that it
is regarded as one of the more distant (from Tagalog) languages. If
there are OSV examples, I would guess that they are more obscure than
Cebuano.
A little internet searching found this document at The Department of
Linguistics at the University at Buffalo.
http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/DryerWalsSO...
It says that there is some controversy over the categorisation of
Philippines languages such as Cebuano but it chooses VSO. Later it
gives four OSV examples but none are anywhere near the Philippines:
Venezuela, Brazil, Australia, and Indonesia. The last was Tobati in
West Papua. I have never heard of it but being in Indonesia, it could
be a relative of Tagalog.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> Ar an t-aonú lá is triochad de mí Eanair, scríobh Paul D.:
>
> >
> > > I have [H] in <whore> but [h"] in <hoar>. [H] voiceless pharyngeal
> > > fricative [h"] voiced glottal fricative
> >
> > You might want to work on that. :) They're homonyms, pronounced with a
> > voiceless glottal fricative, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a native
> > speaker who pronounces them otherwise.
>
> Growing up, for me the former was /huːʳ/, the latter /hoːʳ/̣ I switched to
> /hwoːʳ/ for <whore> at around fourteen, since despite the OED’s view that
> /huːʳ/ is the more natural development from the OE, it’s not in any standard
> version of the language--and the standard pronunciation in a non-rhotic
> dialect is marked enough to have its own spelling in the US. Then last year
> at some point I came across the OED’s entry, and modified what I said
> accordingly.
>
> > Voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are going to sound pretty weird in English
> > no matter what word you try using them in. :)
>
> Certainly non-native, though depending on where the conversation takes
> place, possibly not weird.
A voiced [h"] sounds wierder to Anglophones which is why I use [H]. I
use [H] also for German ach-laut like in "Ach wie gut".
John Atkinson
>
> Ar an t-aonú lá is triochad de mí Eanair, scríobh Paul D.:
>
> > On 2007-01-31 18:15:42 +0900,ranjit_...@yahoo.com said:
> >
> > > I have [H] in <whore> but [h"] in <hoar>. [H] voiceless
> > > pharyngeal
> > > fricative [h"] voiced glottal fricative
> >
> > You might want to work on that. :) They're homonyms, pronounced with
> > a
> > voiceless glottal fricative, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a
> > native
> > speaker who pronounces them otherwise.
>
> Growing up, for me the former was /huːʳ/, the latter /hoːʳ/̣ I
> switched to
> /hwoːʳ/ for <whore> at around fourteen, since despite the OED’s view
> that
> /huːʳ/ is the more natural development from the OE, it’s not in any
> standard
> version of the language
The pronunciation [hu:@] (rhymes with "pure" and "sewer") is quite
prevalent here in Oz (perhaps due to the Irish influence here?), though
I don't know whether or not it predominates over the standard [hO:]. I
used to have [wO:] for a period in my youth, but I'm sure that was just
a spelling pronunciation -- I'd probably only seen it in books, as the
word was practically obselete in the spoken language, having been
replaced by "prostitute", etc -- today it seems to be making a
comeback..
> --and the standard pronunciation in a non-rhotic
> dialect is marked enough to have its own spelling in the US.
I always assumed that the spelling <ho> is meant to emphasise the
non-rhoticity. Also, perhaps, to emphasise that the vowel in non-rhotic
Southern American is the GOAT vowel, not the THOUGHT vowel (check: is
this the case?) Nothing to do with the consonant, which, in my limited
experience, is [h] in all American varieties anyway.
John.
John Atkinson
<jwla...@gmail.com> wrote...
> > Li's *Subject and Topic*
> I don't know any Cebuano myself but I do know some L1 speakers. I
> don't know when I will see them next. In the meantime, I will try to
> look through some of my books on the Philippine languages.
> I would be a bit surprised if Cebuano was OSV, I don't think that it
> is regarded as one of the more distant (from Tagalog) languages. If
> there are OSV examples, I would guess that they are more obscure than
> Cebuano.
> A little internet searching found this document at The Department of
> Linguistics at the University at Buffalo.
> http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/DryerWalsSOVNoMap.pdf
> It says that there is some controversy over the categorisation of
> Philippines languages such as Cebuano but it chooses VSO. Later it
> gives four OSV examples but none are anywhere near the Philippines:
> Venezuela, Brazil, Australia, and Indonesia. The last was Tobati in
> West Papua. I have never heard of it but being in Indonesia, it could
> be a relative of Tagalog.
I'm sure you're right, that the Philippines languages in general (and
certainly both Tagalog and Cebuano) have predicate-first as their normal
order. Peter's right about the fuzziness of the concept of "subject" in
these languages -- "topic" or "focus" makes more sense, but I believe
that isn't ideal either. Paul Schachter in Comrie's book avoids the
issue by calling the NP which determines the form of the verb the
"trigger".
Whatever they're called, the order of post-verbal arguments in Tagalog
is generally free -- the function of each NP is largely determined the
particle which precedes it.
I don't know about Tobati, but there are several verb-last Austronesian
languages along the south coast of Papua-New Guinea. It's generally
reckoned the change from the VO order of all(?) these Austronesian
languages is due to a Papuan substrate. Anyway, these languages belong
to the Oceanic branch of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, while the
Philippines languages belong to Western MP.
Just checked Ethnologue -- yes, Tobati is an Oceanic language; it's
spoken around Djarapura on the north coast. It was originally thought
to be a Papuan (Non-Austronesian) language. The other verb-last
Austronesian languages I mentioned are on the SE coast of the island
(Motu being the best known of them) -- they're Oceanic, but not closely
related to Tobati.
John.
John Atkinson
> "Jim Heckman" <rot13(reply-to)@none.invalid> wrote...
>
<snip>
> > Tagalog
> No long vowels that I know of.
Just to correct myself. Apparently vowel length _is_ phonemic in
non-final syllables in Tagalog. There are minimal pairs, for example:
<aso> /?a:soh/ "dog" vs <aso> /?asoh/ "smoke"
<maglalkbay> /magla:lakbay/ "will travel" vs <maglalkbay> /maglalakbay/
"travel a lot"
Do you agree, John L.?
John.
John Atkinson
"António Marques" <m....@sapo.pt> wrote...
> Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
>
>> Assuming that Filipinos speak Spanish does not seem so common here
>> but
>> we have less exposure to Spanish. It is not unknown, if you use a
>> Filipino mobile (cell) phone here, the UK network O2 will greet you
>> in
>> Spanish.
>
> And again, even though there is very little spanish in the
> Philippines, there isn't that much more french in many of the assumed
> francophone countries. The main difference in *some* cases is that
> french enjoys some sort of institutional promotion which spanish has
> lost in the Philippines.
True in "francophone" Africa, but definitely not true in SE Asia. Even
more so than Spanish in the Philippines, French is today hardly known at
all in Vietnam. This despite the fact that many Vietnamese have
relatives who now live in France (though perhaps not as many as fled to
Australia and the US.)
Spanish is still widely taught in schools in the Philippines, isn't it?
In our department, we had an administrative assistant from the
Philippines who apparently learned it in school, who I used to converse
with in Spanish -- pidgin Spanish, actually, since her knowledge of the
language was, if possible, even worse than mine.
John.
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:6W_vh.1050$sd2...@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang:
> <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote...
>> <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>><ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
>>>>"John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>>>> This sounds like those English speakers who make a
>>>>> conscious effort to pronounce <wh> different from
>>>>> <w>, especially in homophones
>>>> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh>
>>>> differently from <h> (whole vs. hole)?
>>> I've never heard anyone pronounce <wh> as [h].
>> According to this, such pronunciation has prevalent for a
>> millenium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_hist
>> ory_of_English_consonants The hole-whole merger is the
>> replacement of /ʍ/ with /h/ before the vowels /oː/ and
>> /uː/ which occurred in Old English.
> OK, I see what you're getting at! I completely misread
> you. Sorry!
> No, I've never heard of anyone pronouncing the "wh" in
> "whole" or "who" or "whore" as either [hw] or [w]. My
> SOED does say "whole" has [w] "in many dialects", but
> I've no idea what dialects those might be.
'[M]odern dialects over an area extending from Somerset to
north-east Yorkshire', according to OED(1989).
> These three (and their derivatives) seem to be about the
> only words in the dictionary where /h/ is spelled <wh>.
> None of them involve "the replacement of /hw/ with /h/
> before the vowels /o:/ and /u:/ which occured in Old
> English."
From the OED(1989) under 'wh', edited for ASCII:
Early in the 15th century appear spellings with <wh>
of words with initial <h> followed by an o-sound. It
occurs first before /O:/ (: -- /a:/), e.g. <whom> for
/hO:m/ (OE. /hám/) in Brut c1420 (E.E.T.S.), pp.
346, 370, <wholle> for /hO:le/ (OE. /hál/) in Chron.
Vilod. c 1420, 3368, and Camb. MS. of Guy of
Warwick 3422, <whote> for /hO:t/ (OE. /hát/) in
Partonope, <whore> for /hO:re/ 'hoar' (OE. /hár/)
in Revel. Monk of Evesham (1482); <wholy> for
/hO:ly/ is used by Tindale, 1526. Later, other words
normally spelt with initial <ho-> (of whatever origin)
became subject to the same variation of spelling; e.g.
<whore> for /hO:re/ (OE. /hóre/), <whole> for
/hO:le/ (OE. /hol/), <whood> for <hood> (OE. /hód/),
<whoord> for /hO:rd/ 'hoard' (OE. /hord/). Some of
these spellings were especially frequent in the 16th
century; thus <whood> 'hood' is used by Hall the
chronicler, Nashe, Harvey, John Davies of Hereford,
and Sylvester. The wh-spelling has become standardized
in two of these words, viz. <whole> and <whore>,
and their derivatives, in which it became common
c 1600. The corresponding labialized pronunciation
is current dialectally only in <whole>, but it survives
in several other words where the standard form has
preserved the original <ho->, as in <hoard>, <hold>,
<hole>, <home>, <hot>; in <home>, pronunciations
such as (wOm), (wU@m), (wVm) cover a wide area.
For details of the evidence see the various words in
this Dict. and Eng. Dial. Dict.
[...]
Brian
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:HOawh.1256$sd2...@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang:
[...]
['whore']
> The pronunciation [hu:@] (rhymes with "pure" and "sewer")
> is quite prevalent here in Oz (perhaps due to the Irish
> influence here?), though I don't know whether or not it
> predominates over the standard [hO:]. I used to have
> [wO:] for a period in my youth, but I'm sure that was
> just a spelling pronunciation -- I'd probably only seen
> it in books, as the word was practically obselete in the
> spoken language, having been replaced by "prostitute",
> etc -- today it seems to be making a comeback..
I was at least in my 20s and possibly in my 30s before I
realized that it had /h/, not /W/ (inverted-w). If I don't
think about it, I still say [WO:] ~ [WO@]. But of course
this was a spelling pronunciation.
[...]
Brian
Paul J Kriha
news:ve%vh.1062$sd2...@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
Perhaps all four combinations are commonly possible.
To me, those two just _feel_ better. But I am not betting
any money here. I can't relate these multiple forms
to the west slavic forms because there is only a single
west form of "milo", i.e. "milé", as in "milé mýdlo"
(plus archaic/poetic sounding "mýdlo milé").
Then, of course, these being Slavic languages, there are
several possible diminutives of the adjective and several
different diminutives of the noun with oodles of combinations.
That is as many as umpteen combinations but certainly
not as many as zillions or even gazillions. :-)
pjk
John Atkinson
>>>><ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote...
>>>>> Does anyone make an effort to pronounce <wh>
>>>>> differently from <h> (whole vs. hole)?
[...]
>
>>> According to this, such pronunciation has prevalent for a
>>> millenium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_hist
>>> ory_of_English_consonants The hole-whole merger is the
>>> replacement of /ʍ/ with /h/ before the vowels /oː/ and
>>> /uː/ which occurred in Old English.
>
[snip]
Yeah, I thought it must be something like that, and that whatever
happened had to be much later than OE. Makes a lot more sense than
Wiki's single sentence: "The hole-whole merger is the replacement of
/hw/ with /h/ before the vowels /oː/ and /uː/ which occurred in Old
English."
Thanks Brian.
John.
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
A while ago, in a thread titled "No diacritics in English", I gave aso
as an example of phonemic stress in Tagalog. This is how the official
spelling treats these words (see below) but I am sure that other
analyses would be possible and could be more accurate, I would not be
able to judge that.
Here is an extract from the thread that I referred to.
All the accents seem to have got lost.
> Acute indicates stress: aso = dog, aso = smoke
Dog should have had an acute on the a. Smoke should have had one on
the o.
> Grave indicates a following glottal stop: bata = bathrobe, bata =
> child
No accents in bathrobe but the final a in child should have had a
grave.
> Circumflex indicates both of these at the same time.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
> "António Marques" <m...@sapo.pt> wrote...
Spanish was a mandatory subject when my wife's was a child but few
became proficient in it. It seems similar to here where a foreign
language (typically French) was mandatory but few became proficient in
it. I don't recall if it is still a required subject but I think
not. My nieces and nephews appear to know no Spanish so either it is
not a required subject any more or they sleep through it. I will check
tonight.
It is interesting to compare my and my wife's knowledge of Spanish. I
am self-taught but found it easy after years of French. She was forced
to learn through most of her school life. She probably has the better
accent (but does not distinguish s and z). She certainly knows more
vocabulary than me (she gets a lot for free). I know the grammar much
better (since it seemed so easy after French). My sister-in-law also
had to learn Spanish but knows almost nothing. She is even usually
unaware of which Tagalog words are of Spanish origin. When we all
went to Spain once, my wife had to point out how much "Tagalog" she
could use. For a start, she could understand times and prices (with
peseta in place of pseo).
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
> <jwlaw...@gmail.com> wrote...
> > It says that there is some controversy over the categorisation of
> > Philippines languages such as Cebuano but it chooses VSO. Later it
> > gives four OSV examples but none are anywhere near the Philippines:
> > Venezuela, Brazil, Australia, and Indonesia. The last was Tobati in
> > West Papua. I have never heard of it but being in Indonesia, it could
> > be a relative of Tagalog.
>
> I'm sure you're right, that the Philippines languages in general (and
> certainly both Tagalog and Cebuano) have predicate-first as their normal
> order. Peter's right about the fuzziness of the concept of "subject" in
> these languages -- "topic" or "focus" makes more sense, but I believe
> that isn't ideal either. Paul Schachter in Comrie's book avoids the
> issue by calling the NP which determines the form of the verb the
> "trigger".
At least one of my Tagalog books uses "trigger" but it may also be
Comrie. That name sounds familiar. This is the analysis that I
prefer. The grammar made more sense to me after reading this one.
"focus" is a very common term in Tagalog books and, at least, is
preferable to forcing European concepts onto the language.
> Whatever they're called, the order of post-verbal arguments in Tagalog
> is generally free -- the function of each NP is largely determined the
> particle which precedes it.
Indeed.
> I don't know about Tobati, but there are several verb-last Austronesian
> languages along the south coast of Papua-New Guinea. It's generally
> reckoned the change from the VO order of all(?) these Austronesian
> languages is due to a Papuan substrate. Anyway, these languages belong
> to the Oceanic branch of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, while the
> Philippines languages belong to Western MP.
>
> Just checked Ethnologue -- yes, Tobati is an Oceanic language; it's
> spoken around Djarapura on the north coast. It was originally thought
> to be a Papuan (Non-Austronesian) language. The other verb-last
> Austronesian languages I mentioned are on the SE coast of the island
> (Motu being the best known of them) -- they're Oceanic, but not closely
> related to Tobati.
Thanks for that research.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
António Marques
> It is interesting to compare my and my wife's knowledge of Spanish.
> I am self-taught but found it easy after years of French. She was
> forced to learn through most of her school life. She probably has
> the better accent (but does not distinguish s and z).
It's certainly not mandatory to. Unless I'm mistaken, it's only native
to centre-west northern iberian dialects, even if it's artificially kept
in several other places. Seseo is a *different* evolution of the
medieval s/s. distinction.
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Indeed, plenty of native speakers, even in Spain, do not make the
distinction either which is why I put the comment in parentheses, it
was intended just as an observation rather than a criticism. Do any
Spanish speakers from outside Spain distinguish s and z?
I am influenced by friends from Madrid who do make the distinction and
feel that it is important.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
António Marques
>> It's certainly not mandatory to. Unless I'm mistaken, it's only native
>> to centre-west northern iberian dialects, even if it's artificially kept
>> in several other places. Seseo is a *different* evolution of the
>> medieval s/s. distinction.
>
> Indeed, plenty of native speakers, even in Spain, do not make the
> distinction either which is why I put the comment in parentheses, it
> was intended just as an observation rather than a criticism. Do any
> Spanish speakers from outside Spain distinguish s and z?
I suppose some do, but more out of education than native dialect. I'm
not that much acquainted with spanish, though, even less outside Spain.
> I am influenced by friends from Madrid who do make the distinction and
> feel that it is important.
Well, who doesn't. I'd just like to point out that dialects which merge
s and z have not been through a /T/ -> /z/ phenomenon. Rather,
1 2 3a 3b 3c 4a 4b1 4b2
s, -ss- s. s. s. s. s s. s. T
-s- z. z. z. z. z s. s. T
ç (c,) ts s s. T s s. T T
z dz z z. D z s. T T
(1) the original iberian scenario
(2) later iberian scenario, still Tras-os-Montes (portuguese) and
Miranda do Douro (leonese, Portugal)
(3a) one intermediate spanish situation, ancestor of 4a, and common
nowadays in centre-north Portugal and - it seems to me - Catalonia,
either by convergent evolution or not
(3b) other intermediate spanish situation, ancestor of 4b1 and 4b2,
still found on the Li´mia Baixa (galician, in an indent on the
portuguese border)
(3c) general portuguese
(4a) seseo, which came to prevail in most of Spain and the periphery
(4b1) standard 'proper' spanish, in the center, north and west (inclding
general galician)
(4b2) ceceo, found in some places but don't ask me where
Basque, if I'm not mistaken, has s./s./s/s, and maybe catalan more
generally has s./z/s./z, but these two are outisde the scope.
As far as it's 'important' to keep distinctions, (2) and (3b) people can
make fun of all the others, except that they are very few nowadays and
speakers of other variants may not even hear the distinctions they make.
(3a, 3c) and (4b1) - portuguese and 'standard' spanish - keep two
distinctions to the original 4, which is reasonable. But (4a) people
don't seem to have a problem wityh having no distinctions at all.
(In no way am I implying you're claiming some sort of superiority for
people who make the distinctions, of course. It was just an opportunity
to present the historical development, which by the way is very broadly
presented - though at the moment I can't think of any neat reference for
a more careful presentation.)
--
am
laurus : rhodophyta : brethoneg : smalltalk : stargate
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Thanks. I had not seen that analysis before and had assumed that the s
only dialects were developments from s / T. Do you know why s only
came to prevail outside Spain? Is it due to the time that Spanish was
exported or where the export came from?
On your last point, I don't claim any superiority for distinguishing s
and z but I know some Madridlenos who do. The reason in my case was
simply that my first experience with Spanish was with speakers who
make the distinction. One advantage is that I can predict the
spelling from the sound more easily. With an s = z dialect, I would
just have to memorise when to write z.
The opposite happened to me with Thai. Many speakers do not
distinguish l from r and I learnt from them. As a result when I
started to learn to read, I often did not know whether to expect a
word to be spelt with l or r.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
António Marques
> Thanks. I had not seen that analysis before and had assumed that the s
> only dialects were developments from s / T. Do you know why s only
> came to prevail outside Spain? Is it due to the time that Spanish was
> exported or where the export came from?
As I've seen mentioned but seldom substantiated (as it's supposed to be
a given, but even so...), colonisation of America was done from Seville,
which is in the south, and would-be colonists would have to stay there
for a few years before they had the change to emigrate. On the other
hand, one might simply consider that s / T is the geographically
restricted variant (centre, north, west, and even there it isn't alone),
so there is really no need to explain areas with s only.
> On your last point, I don't claim any superiority for distinguishing s
> and z but I know some Madridlenos who do.
Language always seems to lend itself to such things.
> The reason in my case was
> simply that my first experience with Spanish was with speakers who
> make the distinction. One advantage is that I can predict the
> spelling from the sound more easily. With an s = z dialect, I would
> just have to memorise when to write z.
>
> The opposite happened to me with Thai. Many speakers do not
> distinguish l from r and I learnt from them. As a result when I
> started to learn to read, I often did not know whether to expect a
> word to be spelt with l or r.
And in this case (where I suppose most of the vocabulary has no
recognisable cognates in other languages you know), it's the more
inconvenient!
--
am
laurus : rhodophyta : brethoneg : smalltalk : stargate
--
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
> 1 2 3a 3b 3c 4a 4b1 4b2
>s, -ss- s. s. s. s. s s. s. T
>-s- z. z. z. z. z s. s. T
>ç (c,) ts s s. T s s. T T
>z dz z z. D z s. T T
>(1) the original iberian scenario
>
>(2) later iberian scenario, still Tras-os-Montes (portuguese) and
>Miranda do Douro (leonese, Portugal)
>
>(3a) one intermediate spanish situation, ancestor of 4a, and common
>nowadays in centre-north Portugal and - it seems to me - Catalonia,
>either by convergent evolution or not
>
>(3b) other intermediate spanish situation, ancestor of 4b1 and 4b2,
>still found on the Li´mia Baixa (galician, in an indent on the
>portuguese border)
>
>(3c) general portuguese
>
>(4a) seseo, which came to prevail in most of Spain and the periphery
>
>(4b1) standard 'proper' spanish, in the center, north and west (inclding
>general galician)
>
>(4b2) ceceo, found in some places but don't ask me where
Andalusía?
Hasn't American Spanish ssss (non-apical) instead?
Also, Andalisian and American Spanish have -h for -s in many places.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>Thanks. I had not seen that analysis before and had assumed that the s
>only dialects were developments from s / T. Do you know why s only
>came to prevail outside Spain?
Many original colonizers were from Cáceres and surroundings, which
linguistally is part of Andalusia, as modern regional radio reveals.
The historic center of Cáceres would built based on the richess of
returning colonizers.
>Is it due to the time that Spanish was
>exported or where the export came from?
Both, but more or the latter.
Ruud Harmsen
<realema...@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang:
>1 Feb 2007 07:51:18 -0800: "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwla...@yahoo.com>:
>in sci.lang:
>
>>Thanks. I had not seen that analysis before and had assumed that the s
>>only dialects were developments from s / T. Do you know why s only
>>came to prevail outside Spain?
>
>Many original colonizers were from Cáceres and surroundings, which
>linguistally is part of Andalusia, as modern regional radio reveals.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1ceres
Funny trivium: The mayor of Portalegre in neighbouring Portugal is
caleld Mata-Cáceres, Kills of Cáceres, but more likely Cáceres wood,
although there are no woods anywhere to be seen there.
The city is vert attractive, but the neighbouring land is utterly
boring.
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
> Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
> > Thanks. I had not seen that analysis before and had assumed that the s
> > only dialects were developments from s / T. Do you know why s only
> > came to prevail outside Spain? Is it due to the time that Spanish was
> > exported or where the export came from?
>
> As I've seen mentioned but seldom substantiated (as it's supposed to be
> a given, but even so...), colonisation of America was done from Seville,
> which is in the south, and would-be colonists would have to stay there
> for a few years before they had the change to emigrate. On the other
> hand, one might simply consider that s / T is the geographically
> restricted variant (centre, north, west, and even there it isn't alone),
> so there is really no need to explain areas with s only.
>
> > On your last point, I don't claim any superiority for distinguishing s
> > and z but I know some Madridlenos who do.
>
> Language always seems to lend itself to such things.
Plenty of examples in English for a start. For example, I believe
that true English is non-rhotic. (I am sure that you will see this as
the joke it is but I had better add a warning since I fear some others
might not.)
> > The reason in my case was
> > simply that my first experience with Spanish was with speakers who
> > make the distinction. One advantage is that I can predict the
> > spelling from the sound more easily. With an s = z dialect, I would
> > just have to memorise when to write z.
>
> > The opposite happened to me with Thai. Many speakers do not
> > distinguish l from r and I learnt from them. As a result when I
> > started to learn to read, I often did not know whether to expect a
> > word to be spelt with l or r.
> And in this case (where I suppose most of the vocabulary has no
> recognisable cognates in other languages you know), it's the more
> inconvenient!
Indeed. There are some borrowings from English. These may sound
quite odd but are usually recognisable. They will use l or r in
writing corresponding to the English. It is usually easy to predict
the Thai spelling from the English. There are a few borrowings from
French but they have typically been in the language longer and are
harder to recognise. Of course, the core vocabulary is non-IE.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Keith GOERINGER
> Same with Russian -- except without the length. I was going on the
> discussion in Comrie's "Slavonic Languages", which claims that in Czech
> and Russian (and Polish and Belorussian, but not Ukrainian) "i" and "y"
> are allophones. I realise that not everyone agrees with this, and it
> probably varies with dialect, in all these languages. (Polish wouldn't
> make the list anyway because of its extra nasal vowel.)
If you're talking solely about tonic vowels, then you could get away
with claiming the five vowels -- despite the fact that there is such a
great phonetic difference between the /i/ and /y/ allophones (to include
a /w/ on-glide after labial consonants). But if you're talking about
overall phoneme inventory, you would have to include /@/ at least,
because of vowel reduction, so there you are with six. A couple
examples:
<k
Keith GOERINGER
Let's try this again, and this time I hopefully won't launch the damn
message by hitting some unintended series of keys...
<kOlokol> ['kOl@k@l] 'bell (N/A sing)'
<kolokolA> [k@l@ka'la] 'bells (N/A plu)'
<borodA> [b@ra'da] 'beard (N sing)'
<bOrodu> ['bor@du] 'beard (A sing)'
and this one, which has a nice number of vowel-letters:
<primykajuschegosja> [primy'kajuschiv@sj@] 'adjoining (G masc/neut
sing)'
(Ugly transcription with <sch>, but what can you do?)
Cheers,
Keith
Keith GOERINGER
> Hmmm, let's say <mishka> (teddy bear) and <mysh'ka> (mousie).
> It's not quite a minimal pair, the sh in <mysh'ka> needs a myagkiy
> znak.
Actually, you're OK without one -- historically, it *should* be there,
but it seems like it's disappeared (since it's kind of like the soft
sign after the <sh> in second-person non-past verb forms -- it's purely
decorative, since the <sh> is hard anyway). So that's a fine minimal
pair... ;-)
Cheers,
Keith
John Atkinson
"Keith GOERINGER" <verb...@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:verbivore-F9929...@news-europe.giganews.com...
> John,
>
> Let's try this again, and this time I hopefully won't launch the damn
> message by hitting some unintended series of keys...
>
>> Same with Russian -- except without the length. I was going on the
>> discussion in Comrie's "Slavonic Languages", which claims that in
>> Czech
>> and Russian (and Polish and Belorussian, but not Ukrainian) "i" and
>> "y"
>> are allophones. I realise that not everyone agrees with this, and it
>> probably varies with dialect, in all these languages. (Polish
>> wouldn't
>> make the list anyway because of its extra nasal vowel.)
>
> If you're talking solely about tonic vowels, then you could get away
> with claiming the five vowels -- despite the fact that there is such a
> great phonetic difference between the /i/ and /y/ allophones (to
> include
> a /w/ on-glide after labial consonants). But if you're talking about
> overall phoneme inventory, you would have to include /@/ at least,
> because of vowel reduction, so there you are with six. A couple
> examples:
> <kOlokol>
Any reason for the upper-case "O" in this transliteration?
> ['kOl@k@l] 'bell (N/A sing)'
> <kolokolA> [k@l@ka'la] 'bells (N/A plu)'
>
> <borodA> [b@ra'da] 'beard (N sing)'
> <bOrodu> ['bor@du] 'beard (A sing)'
>
> and this one, which has a nice number of vowel-letters:
>
> <primykajuschegosja> [primy'kajuschiv@sj@] 'adjoining (G masc/neut
> sing)'
>
> (Ugly transcription with <sch>, but what can you do?)
As I understand it, once you know where the stress is located (stress
being phonemic), then it's completely predicable which vowels will be
"reduced", and whether they'll go all the way to shwa. So, /@/ isn't a
separate phoneme -- it's just the allophone of /a/ and /o/, used in all
syllables except those that're stressed and those immediately preceding
a stressed syllable. Just as both /a/ and /o/ have the allophone [a]
(or, perhaps more accurately, [V]) in immediate pre-stress syllables.
John.
John Atkinson
> António Marques <m....@sapo.pt>: in sci.lang:
>
>> 1 2 3a 3b 3c 4a 4b1 4b2
>>s, -ss- s. s. s. s. s s. s. T
>>-s- z. z. z. z. z s. s. T
>>ç (c,) ts s s. T s s. T T
>>z dz z z. D z s. T T
>
>>(1) the original iberian scenario
>>
>>(2) later iberian scenario, still Tras-os-Montes (portuguese) and
>>Miranda do Douro (leonese, Portugal)
>>
>>(3a) one intermediate spanish situation, ancestor of 4a, and common
>>nowadays in centre-north Portugal and - it seems to me - Catalonia,
>>either by convergent evolution or not
>>
>>(3b) other intermediate spanish situation, ancestor of 4b1 and 4b2,
>>still found on the Li´mia Baixa (galician, in an indent on the
>>portuguese border)
>>
>>(3c) general portuguese
>>
>>(4a) seseo, which came to prevail in most of Spain and the periphery
>>
>>(4b1) standard 'proper' spanish, in the center, north and west
>>general galician)
>>
>>(4b2) ceceo, found in some places but don't ask me where
>
> Andalusía?
Just the coastal areas, including the cities of Huelva, Cadiz, Malaga,
and Granada, according to Penny. And he says it's actually a fronted
variety of "s", different from the Castillians' /T/. But it sounds to
them more like their /T/ than their /s/, which is why they call it
ceceo.
> Hasn't American Spanish ssss (non-apical) instead?
Yes, 4(a). That's what António meant by "the periphery", surely.
And, of course, Philippines Spanish has it, since the Philippines was
ruled from Mexico.
> Also, Andalusian and American Spanish have -h for -s in many places.
This is very variable in America -- some countries have it, some don't.
John.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>> Hasn't American Spanish ssss (non-apical) instead?
>Yes, 4(a). That's what António meant by "the periphery", surely.
I thought Central etc. Spain has s.s.s.s (apical) and SaCA (South and
Central America) ssss (non-apical = laminal)? Or is SaCA also apical?
John Atkinson
> "John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com>:
>
>>> Hasn't American Spanish ssss (non-apical) instead?
>>Yes, 4(a). That's what António meant by "the periphery", surely.
>
> I thought Central etc. Spain has s.s.s.s (apical) and SaCA (South and
> Central America) ssss (non-apical = laminal)? Or is SaCA also apical?
AFAIK. they're both closer to dental than aveolar (therefore s[ ), but
whether they're apical or laminal I've no idea. I'll leave that to the
real phoneticians
Doesn't s. denote a _retroflex_ sibilant -- if so, it's surely not
correct?
John.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>Doesn't s. denote a _retroflex_ sibilant -- if so, it's surely not
>correct?
Suppose to, I just follow António's notation.
António Marques
>>>> Hasn't American Spanish ssss (non-apical) instead?
>>> Yes, 4(a). That's what António meant by "the periphery", surely.
>>
>> I thought Central etc. Spain has s.s.s.s (apical) and SaCA (South and
>> Central America) ssss (non-apical = laminal)? Or is SaCA also apical?
(I just focused on the historical development. Dialects with only one
phoneme - /s./ - have come to realise it in a number of ways. One of
which is laminal [s], in much of LA. As varieties distinguishing the two
have died out in all of the spanish-speaking dominion - Basque, NE
portuguese and mirandese not being within, and the galician area with a
four way distinction not being spanish anyway and having interdentals
for the original c and z -, there is really no reason not to call the
phoneme just /s/ instead of /s./, no matter what its realisations are.)
> AFAIK. they're both closer to dental than aveolar (therefore s[ ), but
> whether they're apical or laminal I've no idea. I'll leave that to the
> real phoneticians
I think one is apical and alveolar while the other is laminal and
dental, but I second leaving it to the Real Phoneticians.
> Doesn't s. denote a _retroflex_ sibilant -- if so, it's surely not
> correct?
May be. I thought it justified to leave the laminal unmarked, what's the
ASCII IPA for apical? [s,]? [s_]? And for laminal, [sº]?
António Marques
>>>> Hasn't American Spanish ssss (non-apical) instead?
>>> Yes, 4(a). That's what António meant by "the periphery", surely.
>>
>> I thought Central etc. Spain has s.s.s.s (apical) and SaCA (South and
>> Central America) ssss (non-apical = laminal)? Or is SaCA also apical?
(I just focused on the historical development. Dialects with only one
phoneme - /s./ - have come to realise it in a number of ways. One of
which is laminal [s], in much of LA. As varieties distinguishing the two
have died out in all of the spanish-speaking dominion - Basque, NE
portuguese and mirandese not being within, and the galician area with a
four way distinction not being spanish anyway and having interdentals
for the original c and z -, there is really no reason not to call the
phoneme just /s/ instead of /s./, no matter what its realisations are.)
> AFAIK. they're both closer to dental than aveolar (therefore s[ ), but
> whether they're apical or laminal I've no idea. I'll leave that to the
> real phoneticians
I think one is apical and alveolar while the other is laminal and
dental, but I second leaving it to the Real Phoneticians.
> Doesn't s. denote a _retroflex_ sibilant -- if so, it's surely not
> correct?
May be. I thought it justified to leave the laminal unmarked, what's the
ASCII IPA for apical? [s,]? [s_]? And for laminal, [sº]?
Keith GOERINGER
> Any reason for the upper-case "O" in this transliteration?
Yes, because I'm an idiot. (more on that below) The capitalized vowels
indicate stress.
> As I understand it, once you know where the stress is located (stress
> being phonemic), then it's completely predicable which vowels will be
> "reduced", and whether they'll go all the way to shwa. So, /@/ isn't a
> separate phoneme -- it's just the allophone of /a/ and /o/, <...>
You are, of course, quite right. I reread what I had written last night
(at roughly this time), and can only conclude that someone slipped me
some crack, or something. <head in hands> All I will say is I hereby
resolve not to post items that require accuracy when I'm staying up past
my bedtime (which is about 60 minutes ago).
The phonemic status of /i/ and /y/ is indeed still debated, so some
analyses might yield 6 phonemes for Russian, but most conclude that they
are allophones.
And now, before I start spewing some other craziness ("stress in Russian
is fixed!" "Slavic languages descended from the language of the lost
continent of Atlantis!"), I will go to bed.
Cheers,
Keith
Brian M. Scott
<m....@sapo.pt> wrote in
<news:45c3465f$0$16382$8826...@free.teranews.com> in
sci.lang:
> John Atkinson wrote:
[...]
>> AFAIK. they're both closer to dental than aveolar (therefore s[ ), but
>> whether they're apical or laminal I've no idea. I'll leave that to the
>> real phoneticians
> I think one is apical and alveolar while the other is laminal and
> dental, but I second leaving it to the Real Phoneticians.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology>, which
relies on Robert M. Hammond, The Sounds of Spanish: Analysis
and Application, 2001, describes the two as apico-alveolar
(Northern/Central Spain and Antioquia, Colombia) and
lamino-alveolar -- 'often called "dental"' -- (Southern
Spain and most of Latin Amer.).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceceo>, which relies on Jose
Ignacio Hualde, The Sounds of Spanish, 2005, describes the
Castilian sound as apicoalveolar, writing it with the apical
diacritic (s]), and the Andalusian as predorsal alveolar and
writing it with the laminal diacritic (s[]).
Brian
Aidan Kehoe
Ar an chéad lá de mí Feabhra, scríobh John Atkinson:
> The pronunciation [hu:@] (rhymes with "pure" and "sewer") is quite prevalent
> here in Oz (perhaps due to the Irish influence here?),
Probably not exclusively; it’s not a peculiarly Irish variation, lots of
British regional varieties have [had] it too.
> though I don't know whether or not it predominates over the standard
> [hO:]. I used to have [wO:] for a period in my youth, but I'm sure that
> was just a spelling pronunciation -- I'd probably only seen it in books,
> as the word was practically obselete in the spoken language, having been
> replaced by "prostitute", etc -- today it seems to be making a comeback..
I suppose the relevant labour unions in Oz don’t use the word? It was
startling to me to come across this German union mentioned in the news:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huren_wehren_sich_gemeinsam_e.V.
--
On the quay of the little Black Sea port, where the rescued pair came once
more into contact with civilization, Dobrinton was bitten by a dog which was
assumed to be mad, though it may only have been indiscriminating. (Saki)
John Atkinson
>
> Ar an chéad lá de mí Feabhra, scríobh John Atkinson:
>
> > The pronunciation [hu:@] (rhymes with "pure" and "sewer") is quite
> > prevalent
> > here in Oz (perhaps due to the Irish influence here?),
>
> Probably not exclusively; it’s not a peculiarly Irish variation, lots
> of
> British regional varieties have [had] it too.
>
> > though I don't know whether or not it predominates over the standard
> > [hO:]. I used to have [wO:] for a period in my youth, but I'm sure
> > that
> > was just a spelling pronunciation -- I'd probably only seen it in
> > books,
> > as the word was practically obselete in the spoken language, having
> > been
> > replaced by "prostitute", etc -- today it seems to be making a
> > comeback..
>
> I suppose the relevant labour unions in Oz don’t use the word?
No, of course not. Like everywhere else in the English-speaking world
these days, they refer to their members as "sex workers". The relevant
union is the Australian Sex Workers Association.
> It was
> startling to me to come across this German union mentioned in the
> news:
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huren_wehren_sich_gemeinsam_e.V.
>
That link leads to "Diese Seite existiert nicht". What's "e.V." anyway?
John.
phog...@abo.fi
Sonja Elen Kisa wrote:
> I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> more or less this exact system?
>
> I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> well?
Not Ancient Hebrew, but certainly Biblical Nebrew.
phog...@abo.fi
Sonja Elen Kisa wrote:
> I often hear that a 5-vowel system is one of the most common. Is there
> a list somewhere of the 10 most spoken languages in the world that use
> more or less this exact system?
>
> I already know about Spanish, Esperanto and Japanese... Hebrew as
> well?
Not Ancient/Biblical Hebrew, but certainly Modern Nebrew.
phog...@abo.fi
I mean: not Ancient/Biblical Hebrew, but certainly Modern Hebrew.
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:8jbxh.2551$sd2....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang:
> "Aidan Kehoe" <keh...@parhasard.net> wrote...
[...]
>> It was startling to me to come across this German union
>> mentioned in the news:
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huren_wehren_sich_gemeinsam_e.V.
> That link leads to "Diese Seite existiert nicht".
Try
<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huren_wehren_sich_gemeinsam_e.V.>;
make sure to include the full stop after <V>, which my
newsreader doesn't recognize as part of the URL in Aidan's
post. From 1984 to 1999 it was a self-help project of
prostitutes in Frankfurt am Main.
> What's "e.V." anyway?
'Eingetragener Verein' -- 'registered organization'.
Brian
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
> "António Marques" <m...@sapo.pt> wrote...
> > Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
>
> >> Assuming that Filipinos speak Spanish does not seem so common here
> >> but
> >> we have less exposure to Spanish. It is not unknown, if you use a
> >> Filipino mobile (cell) phone here, the UK network O2 will greet you
> >> in
> >> Spanish.
>
> > And again, even though there is very little spanish in the
> > Philippines, there isn't that much more french in many of the assumed
> > francophone countries. The main difference in *some* cases is that
> > french enjoys some sort of institutional promotion which spanish has
> > lost in the Philippines.
>
> True in "francophone" Africa, but definitely not true in SE Asia. Even
> more so than Spanish in the Philippines, French is today hardly known at
> all in Vietnam. This despite the fact that many Vietnamese have
> relatives who now live in France (though perhaps not as many as fled to
> Australia and the US.)
>
> Spanish is still widely taught in schools in the Philippines, isn't it?
> In our department, we had an administrative assistant from the
> Philippines who apparently learned it in school, who I used to converse
> with in Spanish -- pidgin Spanish, actually, since her knowledge of the
> language was, if possible, even worse than mine.
I finally remembered to check this. Two nieces, 17 and 21, were not
required to learn Spanish at school. Nor is it a popular choice; they
did not know any friends who have taken it. I have not determined
when it stopped, those in their mid 40s or older did have to learn
Spanish but not necessarily very well.
Interesting news item here in the UK, schools here in the UK may start
to offer Mandarin and Arabic as well, or instead, of French and
German.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair