Re: 'mouth noises' bad? [was: Re: YAPT]

On 5 Jan 2005, at 9.43 am, Gary Shannon wrote:

>> The velocity of sound change seems to vary from
>> language to language:
>> Italian is still pronounced more or less the same as
>> in the Middle Ages,
>> whereas English has changed dramatically.
>>
>
> As I noted in an earlier post, languages like Italian
> which are confined to a relatively small geographic
> area might have more stable pronunciation.
Okay... How about this then... Italy is 301 230 km² in size; whereas
England is 130 395 km². So Italy's about twice as big. If it counts as
a relatively small geographic area, than England's gotta be *tiny*. Yet
the variation of pronunciation in England is *huge*---and be ye glad I
didn't take the whole UK.

> Introduce
> geographic isolation between two populations, however,
> and they appear to diverge rapidly, as witness Sydney
> vs Alabama.
On the other hand, Australia is *massive* at 7 686 850 km². Empires
have been smaller than that! We have huge tracts of virtually
unpopulated land separating a few cities. Yet the (regional) variation
of speech, be it pronunciation or vocabulary or otherwise, between
Melbourne and Darwin is incredibly minor.

It would seem to me that you're looking for something else---I imagine
it's pronounced /keJig/ (oh, sorry, my mouth stuffed up; but I'm sure
you can work out that I meant 'fashion', after all, the fashion of
English speakers is to change their mouthnoises).

> (What about Amish country vs Germany? How
> much do they differ with respect to details of mouth
> noises?)
Well, the Amish country *aren't* isolated. They're surrounded by people
who speak English, so it's to be expected that their mouthnoises and
wordrammingtogether and meaningcarriers are going to diverge.

Incidentally (what I gather from you)
  1. pronunciation is variable
  2. vocabulary is very stable
  3. I can understand you in spite of pronunciation differences

  1 & 2 => pronunciation is irrelevant

  4. vocabulary is not irrelevant

  2 & 4, then, would seem to => vocabulary differences should make it
harder for me to understand you

Yet, I had absolutely no trouble when you went off and replaced the
English words with meanings like 'pronunciation' and 'phonology' with
'mouthnoise'. If it weren't for the serious tone of your messages, I
would've thought you were piss-taking* yourself/the argument!

* This word seems like it might have the capacity to inadvertently
offend, but it is not the fashion of where I come from to use it
offensively.

--
Tristan.

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