Nasal vowels

[Ruud Harmsen]

An articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:
https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

[Dingbat]

On Friday, April 30, 2021 at 10:38:12 AM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> An articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:
> https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm
> --

Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal and if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?

timbre
entente
lignes

[Peter T. Daniels]

Either you know the language or you know the spelling.

There is no nasal consonant in timbre or entente. \
There is no nasal vowel in lignes.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sun, 30 May 2021 02:24:26 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

>On Friday, April 30, 2021 at 10:38:12 AM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> An articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:
>> https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm
>> --
>
>Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal

Of course, why not? Depends on whether you keep the nasal cavity close
during the vowel, and open it abruptly while closing the oral passage
for the consonant (a fast switchover), or you keep the nasal cavity
open in addition to the oral one, already during the vowel.

>and if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?
>
>timbre
>entente
>lignes

Depends on the language, and the context. Nasal in standard French
(e.g. in Caen, but not in Cannes), non-nasal in southern French. In
Portuguese too, both situations occur, depending on word structure.

The words mentioned are [tE~bR], [A~tA~t], et [liJ]. (If J is the
symbol in some Ascii-isation for a palatal nasal consonant.)

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2021-05-30, Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> An articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:
>> https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm
>

> Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal and if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?

At first I took this for a phonological question--can nasal vowels
appear befor nasal consonants?--and was going to reply to that, but
on second thought I think you are simply asking how French orthography
indicates nasal vowels?

The basic rule is that vowel letter + n/m indicates a nasal vowel,
unless another vowel letter follows.

The French mapping from spelling to pronunciation requires more
context than other European languages (except Irish, I guess), i.e.,
you need to take more surrounding letters into account.

Much like English orthography at its core reflects the pronunciation
of Middle English, French orthography is based on the pronunciation
of Old French, with centuries of sound changes layered on top.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Arnaud Fournet]

The "French mapping from spelling to pronunciation" is quite straightforward.
The main problem is that each phoneme has several, sometimes many, graphic renditions.
The other issue is the Neoplatonician latinification, with all the mute letters.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-05-31 05:54:04 +0000, Arnaud Fournet said:

> Le dimanche 30 mai 2021 à 17:30:08 UTC+2, Christian Weisgerber a écrit :

>> On 2021-05-30, Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:>> >> An
>> articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:> >>
>> https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm> >
>>> Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal and
>>> if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?
>> At first I took this for a phonological question--can nasal vowels>
>> appear befor nasal consonants?--and was going to reply to that, but> on
>> second thought I think you are simply asking how French orthography>
>> indicates nasal vowels?>> The basic rule is that vowel letter + n/m
>> indicates a nasal vowel,> unless another vowel letter follows.>> The
>> French mapping from spelling to pronunciation requires more> context
>> than other European languages (except Irish, I guess), i.e.,> you need
>> to take more surrounding letters into account.>> Much like English
>> orthography at its core reflects the pronunciation> of Middle English,
>> French orthography is based on the pronunciation> of Old French, with
>> centuries of sound changes layered on top.
> The "French mapping from spelling to pronunciation" is quite straightforward.

In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.

> The main problem is that each phoneme has several, sometimes many,
> graphic renditions.
> The other issue is the Neoplatonician latinification, with all the mute
> letters.

--
Athel -- British, living in France for 34 years

[wugi]

Op 31/05/2021 om 9:47 schreef Athel Cornish-Bowden:

>> The "French mapping from spelling to pronunciation" is quite
>> straightforward.
>
> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.

And stagner and bagne, immanquable and immuable, ville and fille, fils
and fils; un accueil pareil dans l'abbaye des abeilles...

Ok, still less crazy than English, admittedly.


--

guido wugi

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Yes. No escaping that.

[Arnaud Fournet]

Le lundi 31 mai 2021 à 09:47:20 UTC+2, Athel Cornish-Bowden a écrit :
> On 2021-05-31 05:54:04 +0000, Arnaud Fournet said:
>
> > Le dimanche 30 mai 2021 à 17:30:08 UTC+2, Christian Weisgerber a écrit :
> >> On 2021-05-30, Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:>> >> An
> >> articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:> >>
> >> https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm> >
> >>> Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal and
> >>> if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?
> >> At first I took this for a phonological question--can nasal vowels>
> >> appear befor nasal consonants?--and was going to reply to that, but> on
> >> second thought I think you are simply asking how French orthography>
> >> indicates nasal vowels?>> The basic rule is that vowel letter + n/m
> >> indicates a nasal vowel,> unless another vowel letter follows.>> The
> >> French mapping from spelling to pronunciation requires more> context
> >> than other European languages (except Irish, I guess), i.e.,> you need
> >> to take more surrounding letters into account.>> Much like English
> >> orthography at its core reflects the pronunciation> of Middle English,
> >> French orthography is based on the pronunciation> of Old French, with
> >> centuries of sound changes layered on top.
> > The "French mapping from spelling to pronunciation" is quite straightforward.
> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.

I have no issue with poêle = [poel]...
but I agree this might not be standard.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 5:22:18 AM UTC-4, wugi wrote:
> Op 31/05/2021 om 9:47 schreef Athel Cornish-Bowden:

NO, HE DID NOT.

> >> The "French mapping from spelling to pronunciation" is quite
> >> straightforward.
> > In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.

> And stagner and bagne, immanquable and immuable, ville and fille, fils
> and fils; un accueil pareil dans l'abbaye des abeilles...
>
> Ok, still less crazy than English, admittedly.

The "dictée" is more dreaded in French schools than the "spelling test"
in English schools, because despite what AF implied above, the French
mapping from pronunciation to spelling is very far from straightforward.

[Pierre Jelenc]

In article <72aa357f-575b-4fe6...@googlegroups.com>,

But that's a regional pronunciation; [pwal] is standard. (Or [pwa:l] in
Québec.)

Pierre

--
Pierre Jelenc
The Gigometer www.gigometer.com
The NYC Beer Guide www.nycbeer.org

[Ruud Harmsen]

Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
<acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:

>In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.

I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation

>
>> The main problem is that each phoneme has several, sometimes many,
>> graphic renditions.
>> The other issue is the Neoplatonician latinification, with all the mute
>> letters.

--

Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

[wugi]

Op 31/05/2021 om 17:30 schreef Ruud Harmsen:

> Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:
>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
> I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation

Pronouncing the English word the French way :0)


--

guido wugi

[António Marques]

Those two will likely be cases where the dialect that produced the written
language differed from the modern standard (as opposed to being outright
fanciful). The others are a matter of conflicting spelling subsystems.

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2021-05-31, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:

>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>

> Those two will likely be cases where the dialect that produced the written
> language differed from the modern standard (as opposed to being outright
> fanciful).

According to TLFi, the Academy has been wavering for centuries:
1718-1762: oignon; 1798: ognon; 1835, 1878: oignon, ognon; 1935: oignon.

TLFi mentions "ineffectual attempts" (velléités) at a spelling
pronunciation /wa-/ or dropping the -i-. Wiktionary-FR points out
that in Old French, <ign> was the notation for the palatal n /ɲ/,
before this was simplified to <gn>, and that "seigneur" and "oignon"
are remnants.

"Poêle" looks like it arrived by a different route at the same
pronunciation /wɛ/ as the diphthong <oi> and then shared the sound
shift /wɛ/ > /wa/.

[António Marques]

Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
> On 2021-05-31, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
>>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>>
>> Those two will likely be cases where the dialect that produced the written
>> language differed from the modern standard (as opposed to being outright
>> fanciful).
>
> According to TLFi, the Academy has been wavering for centuries:
> 1718-1762: oignon; 1798: ognon; 1835, 1878: oignon, ognon; 1935: oignon.
>
> TLFi mentions "ineffectual attempts" (velléités) at a spelling
> pronunciation /wa-/ or dropping the -i-. Wiktionary-FR points out
> that in Old French, <ign> was the notation for the palatal n /ɲ/,
> before this was simplified to <gn>, and that "seigneur" and "oignon"
> are remnants.

Cf Montaigne.

> "Poêle" looks like it arrived by a different route at the same
> pronunciation /wɛ/ as the diphthong <oi> and then shared the sound
> shift /wɛ/ > /wa/.

So it turns out that neither is a dialectal variety.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Mon, 31 May 2021 21:42:37 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:

No. The "en" in the URL means that part of the dictionary "Wiktionary"
is IN English, but it still a dictionary OF French and other
languages, in this case French. Because the English version of
Wiktionary is by far the most comprehensive, and nearly always
includes pronunciation, etymology, and declensions/conjugations, I
always consult that one first.

My reaction to an alternative interpretation of your comment: Yes, I
too think the English onion, including its pronunciation, is from
French. Usually Normandy French, so let's look:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/onion#Etymology
"From Middle English onyon, union, oinyon, borrowed from Anglo-Norman
union et al. and Old French oignon, from Latin [...]"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ui#Dutch
So "ui" is wrong, "uien" should have been the singular, like ajuin.

[António Marques]

Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> Mon, 31 May 2021 21:42:37 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:
>
>> Op 31/05/2021 om 17:30 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:
>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>>> I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation
>>
>>
>> Pronouncing the English word the French way :0)
>
> No. The "en" in the URL means that part of the dictionary "Wiktionary"
> is IN English, but it still a dictionary OF French and other
> languages, in this case French.

I believe le flammand meant that the French might as well write their word
'onion'.

[Dingbat]

On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 5:20:23 PM UTC-7, António Marques wrote:
> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
> > On 2021-05-31, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:
> >
> >>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
> >>
> >> Those two will likely be cases where the dialect that produced the written
> >> language differed from the modern standard (as opposed to being outright
> >> fanciful).
> >
> > According to TLFi, the Academy has been wavering for centuries:
> > 1718-1762: oignon; 1798: ognon; 1835, 1878: oignon, ognon; 1935: oignon.
> >
> > TLFi mentions "ineffectual attempts" (velléités) at a spelling
> > pronunciation /wa-/ or dropping the -i-. Wiktionary-FR points out
> > that in Old French, <ign> was the notation for the palatal n /ɲ/,
> > before this was simplified to <gn>, and that "seigneur" and "oignon"
> > are remnants.

I find it difficult to imagine that if Old French had the word <gnon>,
it would have spelled it as <ignon>.

[wugi]

Op 1/06/2021 om 8:47 schreef António Marques:

> Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> Mon, 31 May 2021 21:42:37 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:
>>
>>> Op 31/05/2021 om 17:30 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
>>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>>> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:
>>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>>>> I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation
>>>
>>> Pronouncing the English word the French way :0)
>> No. The "en" in the URL means that part of the dictionary "Wiktionary"
>> is IN English, but it still a dictionary OF French and other
>> languages, in this case French.
> I believe le flammand meant that the French might as well write their word
> 'onion'.

You mean le Flamand (if not le Flamin):

I meant that le Hollandais, before the mot français oignon, would know
the anglais word onion, and "read that into" the French word.


--

guido wugi

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-06-01 10:06:18 +0000, wugi said:

> Op 1/06/2021 om 8:47 schreef António Marques:
>> Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 21:42:37 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:
>>>
>>>> Op 31/05/2021 om 17:30 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
>>>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>>>> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:
>>>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>>>>> I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
>>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation
>>>>
>>>> Pronouncing the English word the French way :0)
>>> No. The "en" in the URL means that part of the dictionary "Wiktionary"
>>> is IN English, but it still a dictionary OF French and other
>>> languages, in this case French.
>> I believe le flammand meant that the French might as well write their word
>> 'onion'.
>
>
> You mean le Flamand (if not le Flamin):

Certainly not le Flamant, anyway. The English version of an explanatory
notice at the Parc Ornithologique du Pont de Gau says that the Flemings
come to the Camargue to breed. It doesn't say where the Walloons do
their breeding.

>
> I meant that le Hollandais, before the mot français oignon, would know
> the anglais word onion, and "read that into" the French word.


--

[wugi]

Op 1/06/2021 om 13:57 schreef Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> On 2021-06-01 10:06:18 +0000, wugi said:
>

>> Op 1/06/2021 om 8:47 schreef António Marques:

>>> Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 21:42:37 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:
>>>>
>>>>> Op 31/05/2021 om 17:30 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
>>>>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>>>>> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:

>>>>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.

>>>>>> I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
>>>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation
>>>>>
>>>>> Pronouncing the English word the French way :0)
>>>> No. The "en" in the URL means that part of the dictionary "Wiktionary"
>>>> is IN English, but it still a dictionary OF French and other
>>>> languages, in this case French.
>>> I believe le flammand meant that the French might as well write
>>> their word
>>> 'onion'.
>>
>>
>> You mean le Flamand (if not le Flamin):
>
> Certainly not le Flamant, anyway. The English version of an
> explanatory notice at the Parc Ornithologique du Pont de Gau says that
> the Flemings come to the Camargue to breed. It doesn't say where the
> Walloons do their breeding.

Do they at all? ;)

We have a lot of such mistaken translations, some funny, others merely
wrong.

A little historic street in Brussels centre (at a time it was indeed a
Flemish town) was called Steenstraat, because it led to the first stone
building ("het Steen"[-huis]), the count's stronghold on an "Island" in
the Senne river. Much later, in Francized times, the translation was
merely done as "Rue des pierres", since Steen was no longer understood
as the historic building and just taken to be the obvious "de steen", la
pierre.

In a (beautiful) "cité jardin", all streets of a ward were given bird
names. One of them is Rue du Troglodyte (Wren street). Facing the
nuisance of bilingualizing into Dutch (not sure if it was by an
unknowing Fleming or a dictionarising Frenchspeaker) it was translated
to "Holbewonerstraat" (Cave dweller street), after the obvious but
unfitting first meaning of troglodyte.


--

guido wugi

[António Marques]

In Galicia there are a number of streets named after a man whose surname
was La Reina. When the time came to restore native place names, a number of
those were converted into 'da raíña'*.

(*} Portuguese doesn't mark stress when it falls on a hiatus vowel before
-nh-, which is an exception, albeit a logical one - according to our
phonology there cannot be a stressed diphthong in those circumstances. But,
in a display of incoherence, we don't apply the same reasoning to -lh-, so
_faúlha_. It applies to few words anyway. The galician official standard
simply copies the rules of spanish, which relies on context much less than
portuguese, as befits their own phonology.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 1 Jun 2021 00:57:46 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

>On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 5:20:23 PM UTC-7, António Marques wrote:
>> Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>> > On 2021-05-31, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>> >
>> >>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>> >>
>> >> Those two will likely be cases where the dialect that produced the written
>> >> language differed from the modern standard (as opposed to being outright
>> >> fanciful).
>> >
>> > According to TLFi, the Academy has been wavering for centuries:
>> > 1718-1762: oignon; 1798: ognon; 1835, 1878: oignon, ognon; 1935: oignon.
>> >
>> > TLFi mentions "ineffectual attempts" (velléités) at a spelling
>> > pronunciation /wa-/ or dropping the -i-. Wiktionary-FR points out

>> > that in Old French, <ign> was the notation for the palatal n /?/,

>> > before this was simplified to <gn>, and that "seigneur" and "oignon"
>> > are remnants.
>
>I find it difficult to imagine that if Old French had the word <gnon>,
> it would have spelled it as <ignon>.

The point is it hadn't, and couldn't have had.

Phonotactics is king.

>> Cf Montaigne.
>> > "Poêle" looks like it arrived by a different route at the same

>> > pronunciation /w?/ as the diphthong <oi> and then shared the sound
>> > shift /w?/ > /wa/.

>> So it turns out that neither is a dialectal variety.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 1 Jun 2021 06:47:38 -0000 (UTC): António Marques
<anton...@sapo.pt> scribeva:

>Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> Mon, 31 May 2021 21:42:37 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:
>>
>>> Op 31/05/2021 om 17:30 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
>>>> Mon, 31 May 2021 09:47:17 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>>> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:
>>>>> In general, yes, but there are words like oignon and poêle.
>>>> I guessed oignon and I guessed right!
>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oignon#Pronunciation
>>>
>>>
>>> Pronouncing the English word the French way :0)
>>
>> No. The "en" in the URL means that part of the dictionary "Wiktionary"
>> is IN English, but it still a dictionary OF French and other
>> languages, in this case French.
>
>I believe le flammand meant that the French might as well write their word
>'onion'.

Could be and then Guido's right.

>> Because the English version of
>> Wiktionary is by far the most comprehensive, and nearly always
>> includes pronunciation, etymology, and declensions/conjugations, I
>> always consult that one first.
>>
>> My reaction to an alternative interpretation of your comment: Yes, I
>> too think the English onion, including its pronunciation, is from
>> French. Usually Normandy French, so let's look:
>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/onion#Etymology
>> "From Middle English onyon, union, oinyon, borrowed from Anglo-Norman
>> union et al. and Old French oignon, from Latin [...]"
>>
>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ui#Dutch
>> So "ui" is wrong, "uien" should have been the singular, like ajuin.
>>
>
>

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 1 Jun 2021 12:06:18 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:

True. I did, but tried to hide it. Le Portugais comprehendera.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 1 Jun 2021 17:02:52 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:

>A little historic street in Brussels centre (at a time it was indeed a
>Flemish town) was called Steenstraat, because it led to the first stone
>building ("het Steen"[-huis]), the count's stronghold on an "Island" in
>the Senne river. Much later, in Francized times, the translation was
>merely done as "Rue des pierres", since Steen was no longer understood
>as the historic building and just taken to be the obvious "de steen", la
>pierre.

The same Steen, no doubt, which appears as Stein in the name of my now
home town (since 2016), IJsselstein, after the Castle, the only
building made of stone, around which the small town grew. The stone
castle along the river IJssel. Only one tower still stands, the rest
has recently been renovated as a town park, which indications of where
the old walls were, and there is a statue of a coragious, but
physically small woman:
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_van_Heukelom
under whose supervision the castle and city were defended against the
ever evil bisschop of Utrecht, a mere 15 km along. Wars were local
then, and safety a luxury. Count your blessings. We can now go there
by bicycle and noone does us any harm.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 1 Jun 2021 16:23:14 -0000 (UTC): António Marques
<anton...@sapo.pt> scribeva:

>In Galicia there are a number of streets named after a man whose surname
>was La Reina. When the time came to restore native place names, a number of
>those were converted into 'da raíña'*.
>
>(*} Portuguese doesn't mark stress when it falls on a hiatus vowel before
>-nh-, which is an exception, albeit a logical one -

Yes. I clearly remember having learnt that from you. And here.

>according to our
>phonology there cannot be a stressed diphthong in those circumstances. But,
>in a display of incoherence, we don't apply the same reasoning to -lh-, so
>_faúlha_. It applies to few words anyway. The galician official standard
>simply copies the rules of spanish, which relies on context much less than
>portuguese, as befits their own phonology.

Befits, yes. Nice word. Difficult to translate, into some languages.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 21:09:12 +0200: Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com>
scribeva:

>Tue, 1 Jun 2021 17:02:52 +0200: wugi <br...@wugi.be> scribeva:
>
>>A little historic street in Brussels centre (at a time it was indeed a
>>Flemish town) was called Steenstraat, because it led to the first stone
>>building ("het Steen"[-huis]), the count's stronghold on an "Island" in
>>the Senne river. Much later, in Francized times, the translation was
>>merely done as "Rue des pierres", since Steen was no longer understood
>>as the historic building and just taken to be the obvious "de steen", la
>>pierre.
>
>The same Steen, no doubt, which appears as Stein in the name of my now
>home town (since 2016), IJsselstein, after the Castle, the only
>building made of stone, around which the small town grew. The stone
>castle along the river IJssel. Only one tower still stands, the rest
>has recently been renovated as a town park, which

with

[wugi]

Op 1/06/2021 om 9:57 schreef Dingbat:

> I find it difficult to imagine that if Old French had the word <gnon>,
> it would have spelled it as <ignon>.

https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/gnon
So it first seems to have appeared as (de)nhon!
Didn't know it was a shortened oignon. Neither about the supposed -ign-
graphy.

--
guido wugi

[Dingbat]

English has not only a Latin derived word onion but also a word ramps from OE hramsa cognate with Greek kromion.
https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/on-the-etymology-of-the-word-ramps

English chive and French cive come from the same source
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chive#English

[Arnaud Fournet]

Le mardi 1 juin 2021 à 22:02:21 UTC+2, wugi a écrit :
> Op 1/06/2021 om 9:57 schreef Dingbat:
> > I find it difficult to imagine that if Old French had the word <gnon>,
> > it would have spelled it as <ignon>.
> https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/gnon
> So it first seems to have appeared as (de)nhon!

yes, quite funny, with Southern spelling nh = ign
LOL

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-06-01 19:55:18 +0000, Ruud Harmsen said:

> Tue, 1 Jun 2021 16:23:14 -0000 (UTC): António Marques
> <anton...@sapo.pt> scribeva:
>> In Galicia there are a number of streets named after a man whose surname
>> was La Reina. When the time came to restore native place names, a number of
>> those were converted into 'da raíña'*.

You've sent me off on a tangent with this comment. There is a prominent
Chilean family called Larraín, and an up-market comuna of Santiago
called La Reina (where the late unlamented Erich Honecker spent his
declining years). I had sometimes wondered if the slight similarity of
names had any significance, but apparently not: La Reina means what it
looks as if it means, and Larraín is of Basque rather than Galician
origin.

>>
>> (*} Portuguese doesn't mark stress when it falls on a hiatus vowel before
>> -nh-, which is an exception, albeit a logical one -
>
> Yes. I clearly remember having learnt that from you. And here.
>
>> according to our
>> phonology there cannot be a stressed diphthong in those circumstances. But,
>> in a display of incoherence, we don't apply the same reasoning to -lh-, so
>> _faúlha_. It applies to few words anyway. The galician official standard
>> simply copies the rules of spanish, which relies on context much less than
>> portuguese, as befits their own phonology.
>
> Befits, yes. Nice word. Difficult to translate, into some languages.


--

[Dingbat]

On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 6:14:02 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 5:24:27 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:

> > On Friday, April 30, 2021 at 10:38:12 AM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> > > An articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:
> > > https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm

> > > --

> > Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal and if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?
> >

> > timbre
> > entente
> > lignes
> Either you know the language or you know the spelling.
>
> There is no nasal consonant in timbre or entente. \
> There is no nasal vowel in lignes.

Listen to Emma pronouncing Macedoine
Does she have a nasal vowel, a nasal consonant or both?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEsOQsabUvU

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 6:01:18 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 6:14:02 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 5:24:27 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> > > On Friday, April 30, 2021 at 10:38:12 AM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen wrote:

> > > > An articulatory observation about the nasal vowels of French:
> > > > https://rudhar.com/fonetics/nasstrng.htm

> > > Can a vowel before a nasal consonant be either nasal or non-nasal and if so, how do you tell whether to make it nasal?
> > > timbre
> > > entente
> > > lignes
> > Either you know the language or you know the spelling.
> >
> > There is no nasal consonant in timbre or entente. \
> > There is no nasal vowel in lignes.
>
> Listen to Emma pronouncing Macedoine
> Does she have a nasal vowel, a nasal consonant or both?
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEsOQsabUvU

Both. As expected in that environment.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Wed, 2 Jun 2021 03:01:16 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

But that's American English, not French.

Some Americans nasalise ALL vowels, regardless. She probably does not.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Wed, 2 Jun 2021 05:35:04 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:

Also in British English, also in French? I don't think so.

List to "aim" in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxTwHYg1WE . Fully
nasalised all over. Then compare https://nl.forvo.com/word/aim/ .
Clear difference.

[Dingbat]

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEsOQsabUvUDingbat:

> Listen to Emma pronouncing Macedoine
> Does she have a nasal vowel, a nasal consonant or both?
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEsOQsabUvU

PTD:

Both. As expected in that environment.

My only question in my 1st posting was:
In which contexts is this expected?
Why is it expected for only one of these words?

timbre
entente
lignes
macedoine

And is it expected only from some speakers?

[Ruud Harmsen]

Wed, 2 Jun 2021 20:23:11 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

Lots of things language have no why and wherefore. They are as the
are.

>timbre
>entente
>lignes
>macedoine

Are you asking about French words, or English loanwords from French?

>And is it expected only from some speakers?

[Dingbat]

French words. Is there any French word with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop in a French accent?

[António Marques]

The recently mentioned immanquable, along with thousands of others?

In breton you have a number of minimal pairs between Vn and (nasal V).

[Arnaud Fournet]

ennui for example
enamouré is another instance, not reflected by spelling.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Thu, 3 Jun 2021 03:56:25 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

What is a nasal stop??

[Arnaud Fournet]

/n/ /m/ for example.

[wugi]

Op 3/06/2021 om 18:45 schreef Arnaud Fournet:

Nous vînmes?

--
guido wugi

[wugi]

Op 3/06/2021 om 22:49 schreef wugi:

Immanquable et al. which I mentioned elsewhere; unpredictable whether
im-m... is going to be nasal or not (in most cases not).

But those are not with "ending stops", compare:

[Dingbat]

On Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 10:21:09 AM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Thu, 3 Jun 2021 03:56:25 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat scribeva:

> >On Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 1:24:51 AM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >> >timbre
> >> >entente
> >> >lignes
> >> >macedoine
> >>
> >> Are you asking about French words, or English loanwords from French?
>
> >French words. Is there any French word with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop in a French accent?
> What is a nasal stop??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_consonant

[Ruud Harmsen]

Thu, 3 Jun 2021 11:55:19 -0700 (PDT): Arnaud Fournet
<fournet...@wanadoo.fr> scribeva:

I only knew 'stop' as a synonym for plosive, like t, d, p, k etc.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Thu, 3 Jun 2021 23:46:21 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

So it is a term. I didn't know it, but now do. It is quite logical
too: the oral airflow is stopped.

[Dingbat]

Thanks. Whether it is predictable was something I wanted to know.

I find this word enigmatic:
encastré
https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/

It seems to start with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop.
The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!
The <a> is pronounced as <E>!
The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
(the ending vowel of ancestry)

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 10:07 schreef Dingbat:

>
> I find this word enigmatic:
> encastré
> https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>
> It seems to start with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop.

Where should that 'stop' be?

> The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!

Regular.

> The <a> is pronounced as <E>!

Rince your ears a bit.

> The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!

é ~ longish [I], [I] ~ shortish [e]

> (the ending vowel of ancestry)

Why, it's just standard French pronunciation. en-cas-tré.


--
guido wugi

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 10:28 schreef mabel wugi:

> Op 4/06/2021 om 10:07 schreef Dingbat:
>
>>
>> I find this word enigmatic:
>> encastré
>> https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>>

>

>> The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!
>
> Regular.

Have a look at this doublet: châtrer - castrer
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/châtrer/14931
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/castrer/13677


--
guido wugi

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-06-04 08:33:21 +0000, mabel wugi said:

> Op 4/06/2021 om 10:28 schreef mabel wugi:
>> Op 4/06/2021 om 10:07 schreef Dingbat:
>>
>>>
>>> I find this word enigmatic:

>>> encastré

>>> https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>>>
>
>>
>>> The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!
>>
>> Regular.
>
>

> Have a look at this doublet: châtrer - castrer
> https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/châtrer/14931
> https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/castrer/13677

Not to be confused with Castrais, which refers to someone from Castres.
We know someone from Castres, and when we first met him and we asked
him if he was from this region (Provence) he said "Non, je suis
Castrais". As intended, we understood Castrais as castré until he
explained.

[António Marques]

In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been
made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?

[Tim Lang]

On 04.06.2021 10:07, Dingbat wrote:

>>Immanquable et al. which I mentioned elsewhere; unpredictable whether
>>im-m... is going to be nasal or not (in most cases not).
>
>Thanks. Whether it is predictable was something I wanted to know.

Here, the Fr. spelling -mm- helps you. OTOH, it'd be nasalized if the
Fr. spelling were ... "inmanqable", where the Latin prefix in- wouldn't
be transformed becoming en- (in the French & Hispanic style).

>I find this word enigmatic:

Why enigmatic? It's perfect "standard" => "easy" to read to any
foreigner /ɔ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - kas - tre:/.

>encastré
>https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
> >It seems to start with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop.
>The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!

i.e., /k/ (as well as in the above mentioned ... manquable)
(BTW: Italian incastrare; participle incastrato; noun incastro)

>The <a> is pronounced as <E>!

?!

>The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
>(the ending vowel of ancestry)

?! To me it sounds /e:::::::::::::::::::::::::::/. Like
an American English /e/, e.g. in "bed", yet very ... long.
No /i/ or /I/ in it whatsoever. It's an Anglosaxon,
esp. American, habit to make of virtually all -e endings
in foreign words /i(:)/ and /eɪ, ɛɪ/. (Spies, take care of
your tongue training. :-))

In East-Austrian & Vienna-German it could be spelled ... "aunkaßtreh"
and "aungaßtreh" (yet preserving the French pronunciation).
"Aun-" is an unofficial, yet popular spelling, preferred by many
in the Vienna region for almost the same /ɔ~/-nasal. In South-East
Germany, for the same phenomenon (i.e. the regional pronunciation
variants of the German prefix an-) is rendered by an awkward
regional spelling, o-. Awkward, since it doesn't convey any hint
to a foreigner as to what pronunciation is to be expected in those
regional areas of the "lingo". The Austrian spelling counterpart,
aung-, isn't either a good one, but one showing a vivid ... imagination. :-)

But to be aware of what this is about, one should hear several
nativespeakers from Bavaria and Austria uttering this. And only
then also getting aware of the fact, wow,this thing reminds one
the French an-, am-, en-, em-, i.e. "enfant", "Entente" (although
the German prefix an- is etymologically and semantically not quite
related to em-, en-, am-, an- of the western areas of the Romance
world).

The real (i.e., existing!) differences to the French nasal an, am, en,
em, as well as to the Polish one, -ą-, are tiny; and not all
foreigners are able to perceive the differences. (The nasalisation
of aeiouöüɨʉɯ can be achieved by various native-speakers' mouths
in various languages in various ways, that would amaze French and
Poles, who might thing only their idioms have such nasals. :-)
To be precise: I mean all situation where the vowel isn't followed
by a real /n/ pronounced with any contact between the lingual apex
and the the teeth or the alveola or the palate or (as in some
German areas, incl. one former federal chancellor, Helmut Kohl)
the upper lip; be aware: a German minority of native speakers
pronounce /n/ with the tongue tip hitting the (outside) upper lip!
No German language school would teach you this in any
course whatsoever (perhaps in some rare "Germanistik" classes) ;-)))

Tim

[Tim Lang]

On 04.06.2021 11:55, António Marques wrote:

>In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>.

Me too.

>I've since been made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that.

Yes, indeed.

>What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?

Thank goodness that "elles sont" much more ... regular, i.e. not
as overwhelmed by ... whole lotta exceptions, as is the case in
the universe of English spellings (an utterly ... "libertarian"
world :-D).

Tim

[Daud Deden]

Do not castrate a chaste rat...

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 13:18 schreef Tim Lang:

> On 04.06.2021 10:07, Dingbat wrote:
>
>>> Immanquable et al. which I mentioned elsewhere; unpredictable whether
>>> im-m... is going to be nasal or not (in most cases not).
>>
>> Thanks. Whether it is predictable was something I wanted to know.
>
> Here, the Fr. spelling -mm- helps you. OTOH, it'd be nasalized if the

No, it doesn't.

> Fr. spelling were ... "inmanqable", where the Latin prefix in- wouldn't

That would be the perfect spelling solution, but... too obvious:
l'inmanquable immeuble.

> be transformed becoming en- (in the French & Hispanic style).
>
>> I find this word enigmatic:
>
> Why enigmatic? It's perfect "standard" => "easy" to read to any
> foreigner /ɔ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - kas - tre:/.
>
>> encastré
>> https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>> >It seems to start with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop.
>> The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!
>
> i.e., /k/ (as well as in the above mentioned ... manquable)
> (BTW: Italian incastrare; participle incastrato; noun incastro)
>
>> The <a> is pronounced as <E>!
>
> ?!
>
>> The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
>> (the ending vowel of ancestry)
>
> ?! To me it sounds /e:::::::::::::::::::::::::::/. Like

But in the given sample it sounds just rather short, [I]ish.

> an American English /e/, e.g. in "bed", yet very ... long.
> No /i/ or /I/ in it whatsoever.

--
guido wugi

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 14:07 schreef mabel wugi:

>> Here, the Fr. spelling -mm- helps you. OTOH, it'd be nasalized if the
>
> No, it doesn't.

(I meant, spelling does not help)

--
guido wugi

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 11:55 schreef António Marques:

There aren't clear ones, and if there are, they're not universal. From
what there is, the distinction is better maintained in eg. Belgium
(except dialectical) than in 'mainstream' Île de France (which is also
in the stage of coinciding -in and -un).

-ai ~ é: parlai ~ parlé, parler, parlez etc.
-ais, -ait, -aient ~ è: mais ~ mets
-aise ~ è: (ma)laise ~ (mé)lèze.

But the increased confusion é,è shows up in spelling errors between
parlai and parlais, parlerai and parlerais (besides between homophonic
parlé, parler and parlez). Also in spelling confusion éléverai/élèverai;
accéderai/accèderai....

--
guido wugi

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 14:21 schreef mabel wugi:

> -ais, -ait, -aient ~ è: mais ~ mets

I meant short è like in très.

> -aise ~ è: (ma)laise ~ (mé)lèze.

I meant long è: like in Thérèse.

(Though vowel length is also fuzzy in French)

--
guido wugi

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 14:21 schreef mabel wugi:

> There aren't clear ones, and if there are, they're not universal. From
> what there is, the distinction is better maintained in eg. Belgium
> (except dialectical) than in 'mainstream' Île de France (which is also
> in the stage of coinciding -in and -un).
>
> -ai ~ é: parlai ~ parlé, parler, parlez etc.
> -ais, -ait, -aient ~ è: mais ~ mets
> -aise ~ è: (ma)laise ~ (mé)lèze.

Aime, -aire, -aine, aide, aigu, aile, glaive, laize...: all long è:

--
guido wugi

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 01:07:28 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

>I find this word enigmatic:
>encastré
>https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>
>It seems to start with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop.

I don't hear that. It's [A~] or maybe even [O~].

>The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!

Yes, what else? A simple [k], as the spelling rules of ALL Romance
languages dictate.

>The <a> is pronounced as <E>!

No, [ä] or [a]. Central or front, fully open.

>The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
> (the ending vowel of ancestry)

Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
undefined.

I clearly hear a cardinal [e], however, as expected.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 10:28:56 +0200: mabel wugi <wu...@scarlet.be> scribeva:

>Op 4/06/2021 om 10:07 schreef Dingbat:
>
>>
>> I find this word enigmatic:
>> encastré
>> https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>>
>> It seems to start with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal stop.
>
>Where should that 'stop' be?

For starting pressure build-up for the [k], you have to close the
nasal passage. In that sense, these is a stop.

>> The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!
>
>Regular.
>
>> The <a> is pronounced as <E>!
>
>Rince your ears a bit.
>
>> The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
>
>é ~ longish [I], [I] ~ shortish [e]
>
>> (the ending vowel of ancestry)
>
>Why, it's just standard French pronunciation. en-cas-tré.

Agreed.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 10:46:20 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
<acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> scribeva:

>> Have a look at this doublet: châtrer - castrer
>> https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/châtrer/14931
>> https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/castrer/13677
>
>Not to be confused with Castrais, which refers to someone from Castres.
>We know someone from Castres, and when we first met him and we asked
>him if he was from this region (Provence) he said "Non, je suis
>Castrais". As intended, we understood Castrais as castré until he
>explained.

In many regions of France (I always forget which ones) there is very
little difference, if any.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 09:55:21 -0000 (UTC): António Marques
<anton...@sapo.pt> scribeva:

>In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been
>made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
>looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
>What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prononciation_du_fran%C3%A7ais#Voyelles_2

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 11:54:33 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Fri, 4 Jun 2021 01:07:28 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
> <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

> >I find this word enigmatic:
> >encastré
> >https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>

> >The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
> > (the ending vowel of ancestry)

(In early-20th-century RP. I don't know where Indian English stands
on that suffix.)

> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
> undefined.

What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)

For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt.

> I clearly hear a cardinal [e], however, as expected.

You need to ask Ranjit to lay out the Malayalam vowel system
to see why he hears what he hears.

[mabel wugi]

Op 4/06/2021 om 19:58 schreef Peter T. Daniels:

>> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
>> undefined.

> What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different

I agree with Ruud.

> phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
> them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)

No.

> For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt. long in meer.


For [e]/[I], smeer/smeed/smid in Dutch. [I] (very) short in smid, [e.]
half long in smeed, [e:] long in smeer. Same mouth position each vowel.

--
guido wugi

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 3:16:02 PM UTC-4, wugi wrote:
> Op 4/06/2021 om 19:58 schreef Peter T. Daniels:

DO NOT DELETE ATTRIBUTIONS

> >> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
> >> undefined.
> > What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
>
> I agree with Ruud.

Maybe he is misusing "undefined." What do you think he meant by it?

> > phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
> > them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
>
> No.

[e] and [I] are quite different

> > For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt. long in meer.
>
> For [e]/[I], smeer/smeed/smid in Dutch. [I] (very) short in smid, [e.]
> half long in smeed, [e:] long in smeer. Same mouth position each vowel.

If those are phonemically different, there is no reason for Ruud
to find them hard to distinguish.

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2021-06-04, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> [e] and [I] are quite different

You need to listen to some New Zealanders. Their DRESS vowel is
described as [e] or raised [e], but is frequently mistaken for the
KIT vowel by AmE speakers.

Obligatory sketch from _Flight of the Concords_:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRdg1MOYxHo

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Dingbat]

On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 10:58:42 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 11:54:33 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > Fri, 4 Jun 2021 01:07:28 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
> > <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:
>
> > >I find this word enigmatic:
> > >encastré
> > >https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
> >
> > >The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
> > > (the ending vowel of ancestry)
> (In early-20th-century RP. I don't know where Indian English stands
> on that suffix.)
> > Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
> > undefined.
> What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
> phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
> them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
>

He couldn't have meant [E]. It is too far from [I] to be identified as [I].

>
> For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt.
> > I clearly hear a cardinal [e], however, as expected.

mate has [eI], not [e].

> You need to ask Ranjit to lay out the Malayalam vowel system
> to see why he hears what he hears.

The Malayalam short e is slightly more open than cardinal e on a chart I've seen.
The German [I] is slightly more closed than cardinal e on a chart I've seen.
Both are retracted from the fronted position of cardinal e.
The two are equidistant from cardinal e as far as I can tell.
I don't remember an English chart but English doesn't have an [e].
I've heard it from Anglophones only in a French word like
DEPARTMENT, the political division in France, and not all
Anglophones manage to make it a pure vowel.

[Arnaud Fournet]

Le vendredi 4 juin 2021 à 11:55:29 UTC+2, António Marques a écrit :
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
> > On 2021-06-04 08:33:21 +0000, mabel wugi said:
> >
> >> Op 4/06/2021 om 10:28 schreef mabel wugi:
> >>> Op 4/06/2021 om 10:07 schreef Dingbat:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> I find this word enigmatic:
> >>>> encastré
> >>>> https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
> >>>>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>> The <c> is pronounced like in Italian!
> >>>
> >>> Regular.
> >>
> >>
> >> Have a look at this doublet: châtrer - castrer
> >> https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/châtrer/14931
> >> https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/castrer/13677
> >
> > Not to be confused with Castrais, which refers to someone from Castres.
> > We know someone from Castres, and when we first met him and we asked
> > him if he was from this region (Provence) he said "Non, je suis
> > Castrais". As intended, we understood Castrais as castré until he
> > explained.
> >
> >

> In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been -,

> made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
> looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
> What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?

In theory, as is inherited from Middle French,
digraph -ai# should be closed é
digraph -ai- followed by -e(s), -s, -t, -ent, should be open è
Now, it's obvious that present-day speakers tend to harmonize their oral practice to spelling,
so that most people who have a distinction between é and è would pronounce ai as è in all cases,
which from a diachronical point of view is incorrect.
In theory, inherited phonology would mean aimai is émé, but aimais is émè, gai is gé but gaie is gè, etc.
I seriously doubt that present-day francophones respect that.
About all have spelling-driven phonology, not inherited phonology.
Of course, all those who have no distinction between é and è are unaware of these issues.

[Arnaud Fournet]

It's the theoretical phonology of Parisian French,
but I seriously doubt present-day speakers abide by these laws.

> But the increased confusion é,è shows up in spelling errors between
> parlai and parlais, parlerai and parlerais (besides between homophonic
> parlé, parler and parlez). Also in spelling confusion éléverai/élèverai;
> accéderai/accèderai....

There's a lot of confusion in actual speech and idiolects.

>
> --
> guido wugi

[S K]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 8:33:06 AM UTC-4, Arnaud Fournet wrote:

> It's the theoretical phonology of Parisian French,
> but I seriously doubt present-day speakers abide by these laws.

you are among the best practitioners of the futile and baseless discipline of linguistics - but you pulled the rug out from under it, with that statement.

Most of linguistics is like "israel's right to defend itself" - the utterer knows that the only purpose is to mortify the listener.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 10:58:40 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:

>On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 11:54:33 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Fri, 4 Jun 2021 01:07:28 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
>> <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:
>
>> >I find this word enigmatic:
>> >encastré
>> >https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
>>
>> >The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
>> > (the ending vowel of ancestry)
>
>(In early-20th-century RP. I don't know where Indian English stands
>on that suffix.)
>
>> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
>> undefined.
>
>What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
>phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
>them.

I asked about the phonetic difference.

>(Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)

No, I did not.

>For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt.

Yes, thanks.

>> I clearly hear a cardinal [e], however, as expected.
>
>You need to ask Ranjit to lay out the Malayalam vowel system
>to see why he hears what he hears.

Yes, probably. Or read up in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam#Vowels
It has only close, mid and open. So [e], [E] and [I] is probably all
one phoneme.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 21:15:56 +0200: mabel wugi <wu...@scarlet.be> scribeva:

For smeer and smid, yes. Smeed however seems to have a different
position, even if I reduce/eliminate my tendency towards a diphthong
there. But I don't know what it is.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 12:35:51 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:

>On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 3:16:02 PM UTC-4, wugi wrote:
>> Op 4/06/2021 om 19:58 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
>
>DO NOT DELETE ATTRIBUTIONS
>
>> >> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
>> >> undefined.
>> > What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
>>
>> I agree with Ruud.
>
>Maybe he is misusing "undefined." What do you think he meant by it?

A clear discription of what the difference is, in acoustic,
articulary, auditory terms. Height, positition on front-back scale,
formants.

>> > phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
>> > them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
>>
>> No.
>
>[e] and [I] are quite different
>
>> > For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt. long in meer.
>>
>> For [e]/[I], smeer/smeed/smid in Dutch. [I] (very) short in smid, [e.]
>> half long in smeed, [e:] long in smeer. Same mouth position each vowel.
>
>If those are phonemically different, there is no reason for Ruud
>to find them hard to distinguish.

Smeer and smeed aren't phonemically different, only phonetically (for
me, probably not for Wugi), conditioned by syllable-final /r/.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 5:30:07 PM UTC-4, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2021-06-04, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > [e] and [I] are quite different
>
> You need to listen to some New Zealanders. Their DRESS vowel is
> described as [e] or raised [e], but is frequently mistaken for the
> KIT vowel by AmE speakers.

That's because the phones are assigned to different phonemes in
the two dialects, not because of the amount of inherent similarity
or difference of the phones.

It normally takes a few seconds, if that long, for speakers of different
dialects to latch onto the somewhat different assignment of phonemes.

One of Labov's favorite tricks is to chop a sound (usually a vowel!) or
even a whole word out an utterance and ask a listener to identify it.
Usually either they can't or they guess wrong, but upon hearing one or
two seconds before and after the mystery sound, it's perfectly clear.

I've only just had to look at African phonologival phenomena. Turns
out that the feature "+ATR" was discovered only in the 1960s -- because
the vowels that in Bantu and many West African languages were transcribed
with [i I e E u U o O] -- in English, the "tense-lax" or "higher-lower" pairs, do
not in fact have any change in muscle tension or tongue height at all, but
instead degree of constriction at the root of the tongue. (The "A" is for Advanced.)

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 7:54:35 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 10:58:42 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 11:54:33 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > Fri, 4 Jun 2021 01:07:28 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
> > > <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

> > > >I find this word enigmatic:
> > > >encastré
> > > >https://forvo.com/word/encastr%C3%A9/
> > > >The terminal vowel sounds like [I]!
> > > > (the ending vowel of ancestry)
> > (In early-20th-century RP. I don't know where Indian English stands
> > on that suffix.)
> > > Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
> > > undefined.
> > What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
> > phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
> > them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
>
> He couldn't have meant [E]. It is too far from [I] to be identified as [I].

Sorry, but in the American English dialect of St. Louis, Missouri (and
environs), "pin" and "pen" have merged. [I] and [E] are similar enough
to have become indistinguishable before [n]. (People there write with
an inkpen. Chicagoans find that amusing.)

> > For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt.
> > > I clearly hear a cardinal [e], however, as expected.
>
> mate has [eI], not [e].

Depends on your phonemic analysis. British phoneticians prefer
to write [e:].

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 4 Jun 2021 21:02:02 -0000 (UTC): Christian Weisgerber
<na...@mips.inka.de> scribeva:

>On 2021-06-04, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> [e] and [I] are quite different
>
>You need to listen to some New Zealanders. Their DRESS vowel is
>described as [e] or raised [e], but is frequently mistaken for the
>KIT vowel by AmE speakers.

Yes. Their sax is sex, their sex is six, and their six sucks.
Some kind of musical orgy that wasn't a good idea after all.

>Obligatory sketch from _Flight of the Concords_:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRdg1MOYxHo

--

Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 8:33:06 AM UTC-4, Arnaud Fournet wrote:

> Le vendredi 4 juin 2021 à 14:21:15 UTC+2, wugi a écrit :
> > Op 4/06/2021 om 11:55 schreef António Marques:

> > > In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been
> > > made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
> > > looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
> > > What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?
> > There aren't clear ones, and if there are, they're not universal. From
> > what there is, the distinction is better maintained in eg. Belgium
> > (except dialectical) than in 'mainstream' Île de France (which is also
> > in the stage of coinciding -in and -un).
> > -ai ~ é: parlai ~ parlé, parler, parlez etc.
> > -ais, -ait, -aient ~ è: mais ~ mets
> > -aise ~ è: (ma)laise ~ (mé)lèze.
>
> It's the theoretical phonology of Parisian French,
> but I seriously doubt present-day speakers abide by these laws.

In school French class in the early 1960s, they (our teacher was
a native speaker) told us about that distinction (and also pâte/patte)
but said you'd only hear it at the Comédie Française.

That was more than 50 years ago.

> > But the increased confusion é,è shows up in spelling errors between
> > parlai and parlais, parlerai and parlerais (besides between homophonic
> > parlé, parler and parlez). Also in spelling confusion éléverai/élèverai;
> > accéderai/accèderai....
>
> There's a lot of confusion in actual speech and idiolects.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même cause.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 9:40:04 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Fri, 4 Jun 2021 12:35:51 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:
> >On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 3:16:02 PM UTC-4, wugi wrote:
> >> Op 4/06/2021 om 19:58 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
> >
> >DO NOT DELETE ATTRIBUTIONS
> >
> >> >> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
> >> >> undefined.
> >> > What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
> >> I agree with Ruud.
> >Maybe he is misusing "undefined." What do you think he meant by it?
>
> A clear discription of what the difference is, in acoustic,
> articulary, auditory terms. Height, positition on front-back scale,
> formants.

Perhaps in your autodidacticism you've never encountered the prolific
authors Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson. They provide charts
galore of the formant-based vowel triangles of English and many other
languages averaged from dozens (or more; fewer for endangered languages,
of course) of speakers.

> >> > phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
> >> > them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
> >> No.
> >[e] and [I] are quite different
> >> > For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt. long in meer.
> >> For [e]/[I], smeer/smeed/smid in Dutch. [I] (very) short in smid, [e.]
> >> half long in smeed, [e:] long in smeer. Same mouth position each vowel.
> >If those are phonemically different, there is no reason for Ruud
> >to find them hard to distinguish.
>
> Smeer and smeed aren't phonemically different, only phonetically (for
> me, probably not for Wugi), conditioned by syllable-final /r/.

Oy. Sounds like the British r-less problem -- they have to posit a whole
extra series of surface phonemes to account for the vowels before
former /r/. (See both ita and Shavian, which you can compare side by
side in my *Exploration*.)

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2021-06-05, Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't remember an English chart but English doesn't have an [e].

At that level of detail you need to specify which variant of English.
Southern hemisphere accents have raised the DRESS vowel to [e].

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2021-06-04, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:

> In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been
> made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
> looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
> What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?

That is part of the bigger question how the mid-close /e, ø, o/ and
mid-open vowels /ɛ, œ, ɔ/ are distributed. The answer to that is
made complicated by regional differences--don't trust the Belgian!--and
the fact that the descriptive rules from 1900 have fossilized into
prescriptive ones.

Based on Fagyal/Kibbee/Jenkins, _French: A Linguistic Introduction_,
I'll try to summarize for Northern Metropolitan (= Parisian) French.

The basic rule is that CVC syllables have /ɛ, œ, ɔ/ and CV syllables
have /e, ø, o/. There are significant exceptions in word-final
syllables:

There is no /e/ in CVC syllables, but in CV syllables, an opposition
between /e/ and /ɛ/ is somewhat maintained. This is largely indicated
by the spelling where historically closed syllables like -et, -ait,
-ais have /ɛ/ and historically open ones like -é, -ai have /e/.
This distinction is breaking down and "appears to be reliably
maintained only in [...] frequent lexical items"; in particular the
conditional and future tense endings -rais and -rai have effectively
merged.

For /œ/-/ø/ and /ɔ/-/o/ the situation is reversed: There is no /œ/
or /ɔ/ in CV syllables. There is one regular modification for CVC
syllables: final /z/ forces /o/ and /ø/. Apart from that, the
opposition is somewhat maintained in CVC syllables. For /ø/ vs.
/œ/ the examples are very strained: veule - veulent, jeûne - jeune.
There are more potential minimal pairs for /o/ vs. /ɔ/, where /o/
is frequently spelled -ô- or -au-.

For non-final syllables the mid-open/mid-close distinction is
neutralized. Here vowel harmony can be frequently observed where
the mid vowels assimilate to the height of the final vowel.

I think overall it is fairly clear that the system is in a state
of collapse and that the formerly phonemic distinctions [e]-[ɛ],
[ø]-[œ], [o]-[ɔ] are well into the process of becoming allophonic.

----

Two further vowel mergers are worth mentioning:

The dictionary opposition /a/-/ɑ/ is dead. As recent editions of
Grevisse point out exasperatedly, even among the speakers who
maintain the distinction, there is too little agreement on which
word has which vowel.

The two nasal vowels /ɛ̃/ and /œ̃/ have merged in Parisian French.
Notice for instance the widespread cutesy abbreviation "1fo" for
"info". This seems to have crept up on everybody largely unnoticed,
since I think far less ink has been spilled over it than over the
other vowel changes.

[Dingbat]

Phonetically, there are 7 front vowels:
[i/I], [i:], [e],[e:], [E], [E:] and [&:].
The last is found in loans from English but there's no proper way to spell it.

The phonemes of which these are allophones::
Phoneme - Allophones
/i/ - [i],[I],[e] The last is in a /iCa/ context, eg. /ila/ realized as [ela].
/e/ - [e]
/a/ - [@],[a],[E] The last is like Arabic's imala realization of /a/.
/i:/ - [i:]
/e:/ - [e:],[E:] The latter is in an /e:r/ context, eg. /ve:re:/ realized as [wE:r.e:]
/&/ - [&:] long like in <jam> even in a word like <bat> where Brits have short [&].

P.S. My [a] means what Kirshenbaum calls [V].

[Dingbat]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 7:30:06 AM UTC-7, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2021-06-05, Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't remember an English chart but English doesn't have an [e].
> At that level of detail you need to specify which variant of English.
> Southern hemisphere accents have raised the DRESS vowel to [e].

DRESS has [e] in Malayalis' English also but I wasn't counting such accents.
The only thing I remember from an Oz English chart is that /aI/ is realized as [EI].

[Dingbat]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 8:30:06 AM UTC-7, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2021-06-04, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
> > In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been
> > made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
> > looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
> > What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?
> That is part of the bigger question how the mid-close /e, ø, o/ and
> mid-open vowels /ɛ, œ, ɔ/ are distributed. The answer to that is
> made complicated by regional differences--don't trust the Belgian!--and
> the fact that the descriptive rules from 1900 have fossilized into
> prescriptive ones.
>
> Based on Fagyal/Kibbee/Jenkins, _French: A Linguistic Introduction_,
> I'll try to summarize for Northern Metropolitan (= Parisian) French.
>
> The basic rule is that CVC syllables have /ɛ, œ, ɔ/ and CV syllables
> have /e, ø, o/. There are significant exceptions in word-final
> syllables:
>
> There is no /e/ in CVC syllables, but in CV syllables, an opposition
> between /e/ and /ɛ/ is somewhat maintained. This is largely indicated
> by the spelling where historically closed syllables like -et, -ait,
> -ais have /ɛ/ and historically open ones like -é, -ai have /e/.

How about a closed syllable spelled with <é>? I've heard [depAtma] from
an Anglophone affecting French pronunciation. Would French listeners
flag his [e] as wrong?

> This distinction is breaking down and "appears to be reliably
> maintained only in [...] frequent lexical items"; in particular the
> conditional and future tense endings -rais and -rai have effectively
> merged.
>
> For /œ/-/ø/ and /ɔ/-/o/ the situation is reversed: There is no /œ/
> or /ɔ/ in CV syllables.

<fleur> ends with [œ] to my ear. If the r was pronounced, I didn't
notice it.

> There is one regular modification for CVC
> syllables: final /z/ forces /o/ and /ø/.

In the CVC context <com>/ <comme>, the pronunciation is described
as [kɔm] but I find the [ɔ] quality hardly perceptile; they sound rather like
English <come>. In <come> in a Sheffield accent is where I hear [kɔm];
I've also heard John Lennon pronounce <stunned> as [stɔnd].
Confusingly, in an English dictionary's pronunciation guide, [kɔm] is
not that regional pronunciation of <come> but a non-rhotic
pronunciation of <corm> which I'd prefer to see as [kɔ:m]..

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 07:01:11 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"

<gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:

>On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 9:40:04 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Fri, 4 Jun 2021 12:35:51 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:
>> >On Friday, June 4, 2021 at 3:16:02 PM UTC-4, wugi wrote:
>> >> Op 4/06/2021 om 19:58 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
>> >
>> >DO NOT DELETE ATTRIBUTIONS
>> >
>> >> >> Not surprising. The phonetic difference between [e] and [I] is largely
>> >> >> undefined.
>> >> > What an odd thing to say. If those two phones belong to different
>> >> I agree with Ruud.
>> >Maybe he is misusing "undefined." What do you think he meant by it?
>>
>> A clear discription of what the difference is, in acoustic,
>> articulary, auditory terms. Height, positition on front-back scale,
>> formants.
>
>Perhaps in your autodidacticism you've never encountered the prolific
>authors Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson.

Ladefoged is a VERY well known name to me, Maddieson is not.

>They provide charts
>galore of the formant-based vowel triangles of English and many other
>languages averaged from dozens (or more; fewer for endangered languages,
>of course) of speakers.

I am talking about IPA in general, not about specific languages.

>> >> > phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
>> >> > them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
>> >> No.
>> >[e] and [I] are quite different
>> >> > For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt. long in meer.
>> >> For [e]/[I], smeer/smeed/smid in Dutch. [I] (very) short in smid, [e.]
>> >> half long in smeed, [e:] long in smeer. Same mouth position each vowel.
>> >If those are phonemically different, there is no reason for Ruud
>> >to find them hard to distinguish.
>>
>> Smeer and smeed aren't phonemically different, only phonetically (for
>> me, probably not for Wugi), conditioned by syllable-final /r/.
>
>Oy. Sounds like the British r-less problem --

Historically related, yes. Many forms of English, Dutch, German,
Danish have vocalisations of syllable-final r, although the details
vary. They affect the vowels.

>they have to posit a whole
>extra series of surface phonemes to account for the vowels before
>former /r/.

We don't. Not yet. Allophones.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 06:49:15 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:

Do they? Never ever seen that.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 05:33:05 -0700 (PDT): Arnaud Fournet
<fournet...@wanadoo.fr> scribeva:

>Le vendredi 4 juin 2021 à 14:21:15 UTC+2, wugi a écrit :
>> There aren't clear ones, and if there are, they're not universal. From
>> what there is, the distinction is better maintained in eg. Belgium
>> (except dialectical) than in 'mainstream' Île de France (which is also
>> in the stage of coinciding -in and -un).
>>
>> -ai ~ é: parlai ~ parlé, parler, parlez etc.
>> -ais, -ait, -aient ~ è: mais ~ mets
>> -aise ~ è: (ma)laise ~ (mé)lèze.
>
>It's the theoretical phonology of Parisian French,

of the 1950s or before. But it seems a lot of shifts and mergers have
been gradually taking place in the meantime.

>but I seriously doubt present-day speakers abide by these laws.

Right.

Isn't 'parlai' a largely theoretical and litterary form anyway? If
people don't use a form in day-to-day speech, they no longer learn it
as a child, so how should they know how it's pronounced?

>> But the increased confusion é,è shows up in spelling errors between
>> parlai and parlais, parlerai and parlerais (besides between homophonic
>> parlé, parler and parlez). Also in spelling confusion éléverai/élèverai;
>> accéderai/accèderai....
>
>There's a lot of confusion in actual speech and idiolects.

--

Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 05:28:09 -0700 (PDT): Arnaud Fournet
<fournet...@wanadoo.fr> scribeva:

Why is that obvious?

>so that most people who have a distinction between é and è would pronounce ai as è in all cases,
>which from a diachronical point of view is incorrect.

>In theory, inherited phonology would mean aimai is émé, but aimais is émè,

Not èmé and èmè? We were taught (in 1966) to pronounce the more common
words aimer, aimez, aimé and aimée all as èmé.

>gai is gé but gaie is gè, etc.
>I seriously doubt that present-day francophones respect that.

>About all have spelling-driven phonology, not inherited phonology.

What about inherited but shifted, changed by more recent developments?
People learn such things are young children, long before they can read
and write.

Our 2 and 3 year olds can both perfectly pronounce the infamous Dutch
<ui>, which all foreign later learners struggle with, and they never
confuse <ei/ij> with <ee>, which our Argentinian queen keeps finding
difficult, despite her intensive lessons and now very good Dutch.

I remember a scene probably over a year ago, in which I showed the now
3,5 and egg and an onion, and asked here if she recognised and could
repeat the sound difference, <ei> and <ui>. She looked at me with a
face expressing "how on earth could you think I would NOT know that?
It's too easy."

>Of course, all those who have no distinction between é and è are unaware of these issues.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 16:36:57 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

>On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 8:30:06 AM UTC-7, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

>> On 2021-06-04, António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>>
>> > In the french I was taught, <ai> was just the same as <è>. I've since been
>> > made aware that is often the same as <é>, but not the rules for that. This
>> > looks like as good as time as any other to inquire about those.
>> > What are the rules? Quelles sont-elles, les règles?
>> That is part of the bigger question how the mid-close /e, ø, o/ and

>> mid-open vowels /?, œ, ?/ are distributed. The answer to that is

>> made complicated by regional differences--don't trust the Belgian!--and
>> the fact that the descriptive rules from 1900 have fossilized into
>> prescriptive ones.
>>
>> Based on Fagyal/Kibbee/Jenkins, _French: A Linguistic Introduction_,
>> I'll try to summarize for Northern Metropolitan (= Parisian) French.
>>

>> The basic rule is that CVC syllables have /?, œ, ?/ and CV syllables

>> have /e, ø, o/. There are significant exceptions in word-final
>> syllables:
>>
>> There is no /e/ in CVC syllables, but in CV syllables,
>

>I've heard an Anglophone pronounce DEPARTMENT as
>[depAtma]. Would the French find the [e] wrong?
>
>> an opposition
>> between /e/ and /?/ is somewhat maintained.

>> This is largely indicated
>> by the spelling where historically closed syllables like -et, -ait,

>> -ais have /?/ and historically open ones like -é, -ai have /e/.
>
>Suggested correction:
>This is largely indicated
>by the spelling where historically OPEN syllables like -et, -ait,
>-ais have /?/ and historically CLOSED ones like -é, -ai have /e/.

Closed syllables are CVC, open syllables are CV.
In many languages, like Dutch and French, open syllables tend to have
close vowels, and closed syllables have open vowels. Confusing.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 19:52:17 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

>How about a closed syllable spelled with <é>? I've heard [depAtma] from
> an Anglophone affecting French pronunciation. Would French listeners
> flag his [e] as wrong?

It isn't an open syllable. Départment is dé-part-ment, the syllables
are open-closed-closed, the vowels close (high), neutral, back
nasalised, [depaRtmA~].

>> This distinction is breaking down and "appears to be reliably
>> maintained only in [...] frequent lexical items"; in particular the
>> conditional and future tense endings -rais and -rai have effectively
>> merged.
>>

>> For /œ/-/ø/ and /?/-/o/ the situation is reversed: There is no /œ/
>> or /?/ in CV syllables.

>
><fleur> ends with [œ] to my ear. If the r was pronounced, I didn't
> notice it.

It is pronounced, but involves some vocalisation.

[Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups <google@rudhar.com>]

On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 4:52:19 AM UTC+2, Dingbat wrote:
> In the CVC context <com>/ <comme>, the pronunciation is described
> as [kɔm] but I find the [ɔ] quality hardly perceptile; they sound rather like
> English <come>.

<com> would produce a nasalised vowel. <comme> does not.
The /ɔ/ tends to lose its rounding in modern French.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prononciation_du_fran%C3%A7ais#cite_note-8
"La voyelle /ɔ/ est souvent « désarrondie » et se rapproche du /ʌ/."

> In <come> in a Sheffield accent is where I hear [kɔm];
> I've also heard John Lennon pronounce <stunned> as [stɔnd].
> Confusingly, in an English dictionary's pronunciation guide, [kɔm] is
> not that regional pronunciation of <come> but a non-rhotic
> pronunciation of <corm> which I'd prefer to see as [kɔ:m]..

That Northern English vowel is an unrounded [o], so that's [ɤ] phonetically.
It occurs for historic short /u/, regardless of whether that has shifted in
Standard (i.e. Southern) English. The words <but> and <put> have the same
vowel in such pronunciation styles (like they used to have everywhere). Also
also <looked>, <foot>, etc. <Look> and <luck> are homophones there.

> Confusingly, in an English dictionary's pronunciation guide, [kɔm] is
> not that regional pronunciation of <come> but a non-rhotic
> pronunciation of <corm> which I'd prefer to see as [kɔ:m]..

Yes, me too. And always seen as such.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 5 Jun 2021 16:14:01 -0700 (PDT): Dingbat
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> scribeva:

More like [OI]?

[Arnaud Fournet]

This sounds quite incorrect, both synchronically and diachronically.

[Dingbat]

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 11:09:02 PM UTC-7, Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups <goo...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 4:52:19 AM UTC+2, Dingbat wrote:
> > In the CVC context <com>/ <comme>, the pronunciation is described
> > as [kɔm] but I find the [ɔ] quality hardly perceptile; they sound rather like
> > English <come>.
> <com> would produce a nasalised vowel. <comme> does not.
> The /ɔ/ tends to lose its rounding in modern French.
> https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prononciation_du_fran%C3%A7ais#cite_note-8
> "La voyelle /ɔ/ est souvent « désarrondie » et se rapproche du /ʌ/."
> > In <come> in a Sheffield accent is where I hear [kɔm];
> > I've also heard John Lennon pronounce <stunned> as [stɔnd].
> > Confusingly, in an English dictionary's pronunciation guide, [kɔm] is
> > not that regional pronunciation of <come> but a non-rhotic
> > pronunciation of <corm> which I'd prefer to see as [kɔ:m]..

> That Northern English vowel is an unrounded [o], so that's [ɤ] phonetically.

I've been called LOVE pronounced as [lɤv] by a waitress near Hull. Weird
way to address a stranger, I thought. So, there's at least one word with [ɤ].
But I'm sure that I've heard SLUG as not [slɤg] but [slɔg], in Manchester.

> It occurs for historic short /u/, regardless of whether that has shifted in
> Standard (i.e. Southern) English. The words <but> and <put> have the same
> vowel in such pronunciation styles (like they used to have everywhere). Also
> also <looked>, <foot>, etc. <Look> and <luck> are homophones there.

I remember a punny joke about a WW pilot's story about being chased by
Fokkers being heard as Fuckers. There is a surname Focker with too
open a vowel to be thus heard.

> > Confusingly, in an English dictionary's pronunciation guide, [kɔm] is
> > not that regional pronunciation of <come> but a non-rhotic
> > pronunciation of <corm> which I'd prefer to see as [kɔ:m].

[Peter T. Daniels]

Utterly meaningless. The Internat Phon Assoc has tried to provide enough
symbols that they can be used to write all _phonemic_ distinctions in any
language. (For a few rare contrasts, they resort to diacritics, such as for the
few languages that contrast dental and alveolar points of articulation.)

Daniel Jones's "Cardinal Vowels" system is orthogonal to IPA. It can only
\be learned by personal instruction direct from Jones, or from those who
had it from him (Ladefoged was one of his very last students) -- but he
made audio recordings of the Cardinal Vowels several times during his
career, and the several recordings _do not agree_ among themselves.

Maddieson is Ladefoged's most prominent student -- now retired --
and is the co-author of the most important phonetics reference guide
there is (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996). (Australian-origin; pronounced
like Madison.)

> >> >> > phonemes in one's native language, one has no trouble distinguishing
> >> >> > them. (Anyway you probably meant [E] and [I]?)
> >> >> No.
> >> >[e] and [I] are quite different
> >> >> > For [e]/[I], mate/mitt in English; for [E]/[I], met/mitt. long in meer.
> >> >> For [e]/[I], smeer/smeed/smid in Dutch. [I] (very) short in smid, [e.]
> >> >> half long in smeed, [e:] long in smeer. Same mouth position each vowel.
> >> >If those are phonemically different, there is no reason for Ruud
> >> >to find them hard to distinguish.
> >> Smeer and smeed aren't phonemically different, only phonetically (for
> >> me, probably not for Wugi), conditioned by syllable-final /r/.
> >Oy. Sounds like the British r-less problem --
>
> Historically related, yes. Many forms of English, Dutch, German,
> Danish have vocalisations of syllable-final r, although the details
> vary. They affect the vowels.
>
> >they have to posit a whole
> >extra series of surface phonemes to account for the vowels before
> >former /r/.
>
> We don't. Not yet. Allophones.

It would be simpler to just not drop the r's/