Re: "to be" and not to be in the world's languages

On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 01:48:10PM -0500, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> So "I am", back when Russophones actually used the verb, was „Я есмъ"?
>
> Vanna?  I'd like to buy a vowel, please.  How does one pronounce that?
>  [jEsm_j=]?  [jEzmj]?
Having had Russian in college (including a special 300-level course on
pronouncing it correctly - yes, we did indeed wait for an "advanced" course
to learn little details like pronunciation), the way I would pronounce it
is pretty much

[jes_jm_j=]

if that makes sense.  (The palatalization, I think, probably penetrates
through the m to the s.)

Being able to pronounce [m_j=] is something I would attribute to the
above-mentioned course :)

Amanda

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