Re: USAGE: German VhC pronunciation

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...> wrote:
> Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@M...>:
>
> > For her birthday my wife received a German card game called
> > Drahtseilakt.  (We are of the opinion that the best board and
> > card games come from Germany, and this one looks interesting
> > so far.)  My question, however, is how to pronounce the name -
> > specifically, the |h|.   Is it silent?  Is it pronounced as [h],
> > which feels awkward, but not impossible, to my English-speaking tongue
> > in that position? Does it affect the preceding |a| somehow?
>
> Intramorphemically, a following 'h' indicates that the preceeding
vowel is long
> - in this case, 'ah' spells [a:].

Yep... which makes the word [dRa:t.zajl.?akt] or, if you want
to be extra-correct, [d_0Ra:t.z_0ajl.?akt], i.e. the
non-intervocalic "voiced" consonants are pronounced unvoiced,
but still clearly distinguished from their unvoiced counterparts
by articulatory force (just as you can still distinguish /s z/
when whispering).

The meaning is "tightrope performance", i.e. a situation prone
to go wrong at the slightest mistake.


-- Christian Thalmann

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