Re: OT: English and front rounded vowels
| From: | Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, December 7, 2007, 22:15 |
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On Dec 5, 2007, at 7:07 PM, T. A. McLeay wrote:
> In English, the high front rounded vowels were unrounded towards
> the end
> of the Old English period. Mid front rounded vowels were either lost
> much earlier, or generally not written. Decent (;) dialects of English
> have since re-created them from things like [u:] and [@:].
A rounded [@:]? Does that belong to the phoneme which in rhotic
dialects is /r=/? In which case, I wonder if that's why German /2/
and /9/ sometimes get pronounced in English as /r=/, e.g.
_Göthe_ /"gr=t@/, _danke schön_ /"daNk@ Sr=n/.
A related thing I've been wondering: How rare is it for front rounded
vowels to become back rounded vowels? I don't think I've ever run
across that sound change, but it seems plausible to me.
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