Re: CHAT: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

YHL wrote:
> > In Tairezazh's sister language Steianzh (or Steienzh to use its own
>term),
> > the stress is always on the first syllable of a word, and ALL unstressed
> > vowels are reduced to schwa. The alphabet these langs are written in
>have no
> > sign for schwa, so the sign for "e" is used instead. The words above are
>in
> > Steianzh _lein_, _ilen_, _Ilene_. For obvious reasons, prefices are
>often
> > avoided in Steianzh ...
>
><whistle>  Yeah, I can see that.  Do Tairezazh speakers grumble about
>those lazy Steianzh speakers who mumble everything and can't get their
>vowels right?  :-)
Well, the less enlightened/more patriotic do. Steienzh trying to learn
Tairezazh usually have great trouble pronouncing unstressed vowels clearly.
To make their lives really miserable, Tairezazh keeps the distinction
between long and short vowels, long since lost in Steianzh. Pronouncing,
say, _Thárai_ (a fem name in the genitive) as [Tar@] won't make you popular
with the Tairezazh.

                                                Andreas
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