Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv

On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 12:54:16AM -0500, Roger Mills wrote:
> H.S.Teoh wrote:
> > As far as natlangs go, Malay is one language that has prominent usage of
> > [@\] (well, it's *the* language I got the idea of Ebisedian's /3/ from!),
> > although I suspect it may be a mutation of an original [a]. You have words
> > like /ada/ [a"d@\], /redang/ ["r@\daN], /teman/ ["t@\man], etc.
>
> In Indonesia, you'll get your wrists slapped for pronunciations like those.
> Written final /a/ is [a] (ada); penult /@/ is unstressed-- besar [b@'sar],
> teman [t@'man] etc.  Though I think empat '4' has it stressed.
[snip]

Well, the "official" Malay pronunciation always has [a] for final /a/, but
that doesn't stop the majority of the younger generation from pronouncing
it as [@] or [@:]. It's considered slang, of course, but they consider it
trendy and "cool". And as a reaction to pedantic schoolteachers who always
point out this "mistake", pronouncing final /a/ as [a] (esp. in regions
around the capital city, KL) marks you as a hyper-correct, outdated
person, just like people who still use "whom" in English.

However, this was roughly a decade ago; things may have changed now.


T

--
EMACS = Extremely Massive And Cumbersome System