Re: CHAT: affricates/grammar help/intransitivity/free word order

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 14:25:53 -0500, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...> wrote:

>On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 11:09:03 -0500, Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...> wrote:
>
>>>>> Duden German != spoken German in most areas. Not in all, but at least
>>>>> in a lot of cases, so you're better off not taking it as a guideline
>>>>> for anything. In essence, the Duden is quite useful to stop a desk or
>>>>> chair from wobbling, but it's very unsuitable to make qualitative
>>>>> statements about the actually spoken German.
>>>
>>>Your own variety of standard German seems to be much worse, since it has
>>>long consonants, which is definitly not found in most varieties of
>>>standard German.
>>
>>First, I never said something about my dialect having long consonants, no
>>idea where you got that from...
>
>I'm sorry, it was me who had the idea when I was relating your variety of
>standard German to Swiss German, since both feature short /&/, which is
>definitly not found in most varieties of standard German:
>
>http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410B&L=conlang&P=R5304
So you simply assumed that my variety would also share the other features
found in Swiss German, just based on this one occurence? Jumping to such
premature conclusions isn't exactly smart...
Actually, with a few exceptions, my variety is quite different from Swiss
German.

>>Second, just because my variety has some features which you're apparently
>>unable to handle still doesn't give you the right to condemn it and
>>classify it as "much worse" than any other.
>
>I'm sorry for the wording. Here's a second try: Your variety is less useful
>"as a guideline to anything" than the Duden standard, because it features
>peculiarties such as a short /&/ which are not found in most varieties of
>standard German.
That doesn't sound as bad, but "less usefull" is still highly subjective.

>>The Duden variety has also lots of features which are definitely not found
>>in most varieties of Standard German.
>
>The pronunciation? That's new to me. Could you give some examples?
Just take the "new spelling". Most people will e.g. pronounce "Gemse" as
/gemz@/ (or /jemz@/ in some varieties), but not as /g&mse/, as they would
have to according to the new spelling.

>>>And don't forget that it's the Duden variety that is teached abroad,
>>>not yours. So if your making any assertions on German on this list, you'd
>>>better make them on the Duden variety, not on your local one.
>>
>>Sad, but true - it's the same problem as with English, where you won't find
>>much native speakers who speak exactly that Oxford English you're taught in
>>school/college.
>
>I wasn't teached Oxford English. I think that foreigners are happy that
>there is a widely accepted standard they can learn.
No? So you didn't learn English in school? Because the English taught in all
schools throughout Germany is Oxford English (except maybe some private
schools).

>You haven't said it explicitly. You've implied it, since you've never
>pointed out that you were talking about your local pronunciation when you
>have claimed something to be pronounced like this or like that in German.
Of course I haven't said it explicitly, because I wasn't talking about it,
and I haven't implied it either. If I would have been talking about it, I
would have clearly said so.

>If you're making a statement on German pronunciation without specifying
>where this pronunciation is used, people will assume you're talking about
>the standard pronunciation unless they know German very well.
Well, that is rather an assumption on your part, that most people would
think I was talking about the prescriptive standard.
I'd say the exact opposite is probably true: if someone is speaking about
pronunciation, he is probably speaking about the pronunciation he actually
uses, and not about some prescriptive standard which he (and most others)
*don't* use.
So, unless someone said that he is actually speaking about the less used
prescriptive standard, I would say that he is rather talking about *his*
pronunciation.

--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/