Re: OT: [META] Re: OT: NMRK

On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 08:33:39PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 14:02:41 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> > now I have to go look up which vowel [7] is. :)
>
> So did I. For those who haven't: it's rams-horn (open-mid back
> unrounded vowel; unrounded variant of [o]).
>
> Which surprised me a little since AFAIK in normal Japanese, there's
> unrounded [M] but rounded [o], but the pronunciation of such
> specialised phrases may take a variant pronunciation.
I've read descriptions of Japanese that varied on the roundedness of the
back vowels.  Some give [M] and [o], while others give [M] and [7].  Of
course, many actually give [u] and [o], but I write those off as
simplifications for benefit of the linguistically unsophisticated. :)

-Marcos