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

Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Yes, I think so, too.  In the Japanese films that I very
> frequently watch, my ear said: it's a mixture of [Y]
> (almost-front almost-high rounded) and [u] (both occur
> in German).  Ok, both are rounded, but it was a
> misinterpretation of my ear.  When I tried to speak [u-],
> it turned out that when moved forward a bit, it gave
> something between [I=] (center high unrounded) and [u-]
> (back high unrounded).  And that's exactly the sound that
> I heard in the films.
This makes me think of a loan/slangword we have in Sweden.
It's from Turkish [gMs], probably spelt {gIs}. In Swedish
it is rendered {guss} (and meaning 'girl'). The {u} is the
short Swedish {u}, which is a lax variant of [u-] (some say
it's rounded central high, I say it's a mix between [2] and
[y] but the lips rounded inwards). Actually, the short variant
of {u} is rather like a rounded schwa. The Turkish unrounded u
and the Swedish short u sound somewhat similar. It's by far
the best approximation of [M] in any case.

Anyway...

||| daniel

--
<> "As far as I'm concerned <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <>
<>  I prefer silent vice to <> Daniel Andreasson           <>
<>     ostentatious virtue" -- Albert Einstein             <>