Re: Opinions on English (was Re: basic vocab)

Ray Brown wrote:
->>Yet most varieties of American English surely have more nasalized vowels
>>than French & Polish put together!  Indeed, it is the American
>>nasalization
>>that Brits seem to object most to when they complain about Merkan English
>>:)
        Really, we don't mean to...  And to think those furriners do it
deliberately!! (Somewhere in our school curriculum, there ought to be a
period devoted to Control of the Velum, perhaps otherwise known as
Elocution.)

Barry Garcia wrote:
>You know, I could never figure out how the heck to pronounce nasal vowels.
        You probably do, but without realizing it.  Surround the vowel sound
with m's or n's or in your case ng's "mam, nin, ngung". Then eliminate the
consonants.

>Perhaps i need to find some site that has sound examples of portuguese? (I
>know French has them, but since I really dont know where to look for, it's
>hard to spot them for me, at least).
AFAIK Port. pronounces them pretty much where the symbol indicates, maybe
lowered a little-- sim 'yes' /si~/ or /sI~/, um 'a' /u~/ or /U~/, quente
'hot' /'kE~tSI/-- I find Port. for that reason much easier to speak than
French, and more fun (Brazilians at least are more forgiving of mangled
pronunciation).  But somehow I doubt I'll ever introduce nasalized vowels
into a conlang.

French nasal vowels are lowered a lot:  un 'a' /OE~/ that's _oe ligature_,
prince /pRE~s/ or even /pRæ~s/ (IIRC written ai = E > E~ too), cent '100'
and sans 'without' both > /sa~/ or A~ (?), o > O~.   Honk honk ;-)