Re: USAGE: [a] vs [A]

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@M...> wrote:

 > My understanding is that [a] is the stereotypical Midwestern "ah",
 > heard in the Chicago pronounciation of, well, "Chicago", but also
 > "pop", etc.  It seems to have a bit of an [&] flavor (yeah, I know,
 > real scientific).  It doesn't occur at all in my idiolect, although
 > I hear it all the time in my cousins' speech - they're from Detroit.
 > The [A] sound is not really associated with any particular region,
 > but is common to many; it's the same sound as the Latin long A,
 > preserved as the sole A sound in most of the modern Romance languages.

Well, French and Italian both have a very clear [a] as their
sole A sound.  French used to have an [A] too, but lost it
about a century ago.

Personally, I have no problem with [a] vs [A], since my Swiss
German idiolect distinguishes them as separate phonemes.  My
conlang Jovian does so too, even in diphthongs:

    Paene ys unu, poena ys auder.
    [pajn yz u:n  pAjn yz 'awd@r]
    One man's bread is the other's punishment/pain.

I'll record an MP3 of that phrase if necessary.  =P


-- Christian Thalmann

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