Re: Scandinavian Languages

Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:

> At 08:51 PM 8/18/03 +0200, you wrote:
> >At the BEGINNING of _sju_? Foreigners are supposed to have trouble with the
> >vowel, not the consonant, of that ...
>
> Is that a high front rounded vowel?  (I ask because the Danish is syv.)  If
> so, then I can imagine foreigners haivng trouble with it.  It took me some
> time to get it right, and I simply can't get my daughter to pronounce
> it.  Often, she won't even try.
Exactly what vowel it is depends on dialect. In mine, it's a high central
rounded vowel. Some dialects have a labialized (same lip position as
Swedish "o" if that's any help) version of this, some a labialized [2] (mid-
high front rounded). None is exactly usual, and substituting [y] or [u] is a
bad idea - those are both claimed by other phonemes (don't even think of using
a plain [2]!).

> >The consonant depends on dialect - mine have [x^w], which is pretty common.
> >That labialization isn't phonemic by the way - I have it before rounded
> >vowels, some people have it everywhere and skipping it totally shouldn't be
> a
> >problem. Some dialects, eg in Finland, have [S] or [S^w]. Some have [x\],
> and
> >for some reason textbooks are prone to give that or [S].
> >
> >(In case you're unfamiliar with the phonetic transcription I'm using (X-
> >SAMPA), [x] is "ch" as in German "Bach", [S] is "sh" as in English "fish"
> and
> >[x\] are those two pronounced simultaneously. [^w] indicates labialization
> of
> >the previous sound.)
>
> Thank you for the explanation.  I have heard the sound pronounced a long
> time ago (before I had the linguistic training to catagorize things) and
> have since wondered if it was some sort of palatal fricative (or
> palatalized velar).  Now I know.  (BTW, learning to coarticulate [x] and
> [S] could take a considerable amount of practice for some foreigners to
> acheive.:)
Certainly, but there's little reason they should adopt the most exotic
pronunciation. I should perhaps add that another fairly common variant is a
voiceless velar approximant. I think the X-SAMPA for that is [M\_0].

                                              Andreas

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