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

At 4/6/01 12:55 PM +0200, you wrote:
>Hi!
>
>D Tse <exponent@...> writes:
> > I'm quite sure it's an unrounded version of /u/.
>
>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.
The Japanese {u} is high back unrounded, except before an alveolar
obstruent, in which case it becomes high central unrounded.


Marcus Smith

"Sit down before fact as a little child,
be prepared to give up every preconceived notion,
follow humbly wherever and to whatsoever abysses Nature leads,
or you shall learn nothing."
                -- Thomas Huxley

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