Re: Origin of Estonian /7/

Hi!

Herman Miller <hmiller@...> writes:
> Trebor Jung wrote:
> > Merhaba!
> >
> > In the Estonian language article at Wikipedia, it is said that Estonian o~
> > is /1/ ("a high, central, unrounded vowel"). In the Estonian textbook I got
> > from the library, o~ was defined as "somewhere between the 'i' in 'pit'
> > [/I/, I assume] and 'u' in 'put' [/U/, I assume]" (? I'll have to take the
> > book out agaim). Thoughts, anyone? Where does /1/ come from?
I don't have any idea.  I don't think it is that sound.

> But if the Estonian sound is between /I/ and /U/, it would probably
> be something like /I\/ or /U\/, which don't have IPA symbols and
> only exist in X-SAMPA as far as I know.
An Estonian once pronounced the sound for me.  It was very clearly
/7/.  In the word o~hk ('air'), it comes out breathy voiced and long,
and sounds very, very strange to my ear, but clearly /7/.

**Henrik