Re: USAGE: What happened to Anglo-Saxon letters? (was: Intro to Frankish)

On Saturday 15 January 2005 14:44, Andreas Johansson wrote:

 > Danish æ is /E/ and /E:/. In Old Icelandic, it was /E/,
 > with the accented version for /E:/. Icelandic vowels were
 > subsequently thoroughly screwed up.

Trebor Jung once sent me a paper on the pronounciation of
modern Icelandic which the ZBB's resident Icelander, Kári
Helgasson (www.calara.tk <http://www.calara.tk>), sent him. It's also
somewhere on
the ZBB I think, the thread was titled "Íslenskur
framburður" IIRC. As for vowels, it says:

| SLENDER VOWELS               BROAD VOWELS
| ==============               ============
| a + 1 consonant       [A:]   á + 1 consonant        [Au:]
| a + 2 or more cons.   [A]    á + 2 or more cons.    [Au]
| e + 1 consonant       [E:]   ei/ey + 1 consonant    [Ei:]
| e + 2 or more cons.   [E]    ei/ey + 2 or more cons.[Ei:]
| é + 1 consonant       [jE:]  é + -ng-               [jEi:]
| é + 2 or more cons.   [jE]   é + -nk-               [jEi]
| i/y + 1 consonant     [I:]   í/ý + 1 consonant      [i]
| i/y + 2 or more cons. [I]    í/ý + 2 or more cons.  [i]
| o + 1 consonant       [O:]   ó + 1 consonant        [Ou:]
| o + 2 or more cons.   [O]    ó + 2 or more cons.    [Ou]
| u + 1 consonant       [Y:]   ú + 1 consonant        [u:]
| u + 2 or more cons.   [Y]    ú + 2 or more cons.    [u]
| ö + 1 consonant       [9:]   au + 1 consonant       [9y:]
| ö + 2 or more cons.   [9]    au + 2 or more cons.   [9y]
| æ + 1 consonant       [Ai:]  N/A
| æ + 2 or more cons.   [Ai]   N/A
|
| All slender vowels are pronounced as broad vowels before
| ng or nk, but that is not indicated orthographically,
| except if the origin of the word requires:
|
| engi   ["Ei:N.cI:]
| tunga  ["tu:N.kA:]
| kóngur ["kOu:N.kY:r_h]

The consonants are even worse. I'm very glad to have a very
simple orthography in German, as for the pronounciation
rules at least ...

Carsten

--
http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri