Re: Uusisuom's influences

Yoon Ha Lee scripsit:

> And if a foreign-language speaker produces [u] for both [u] and [U] in
> English, I have a pretty good chance of understanding him/her, and if
> his/her pronunciation is a bit off-target--well, I've tried learning
> other languages and I can't say my pronunciation is perfect, either.
That is because the [u]/[U] distinction has low functional load:
there are few minimal pairs, and indeed there are many items that
vary among even closely related dialects.  I remember being
laughed at for saying [ruf] instead of local [rUf], and yet I was born
and bred only a few miles away.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter

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