Re: Uusisuom language (Online lesson)

At 9:05 pm -0800 28/3/01, J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>Daniel44 wrote:
>
>> Thanks for helping me try to clear this up.
>>
>> 'y' is pronounced like 'oo' in 'bOOt'. It is perhaps more rounded than the
>> Finnish version. Just make the lips into a perfectly round shape and make
>> the 'oo' sound. The german 'u' is a fair approximation.
>>
>> 'u' is pronounced like the 'oo' in 'tOOk'. This would seem to correspond
>> with the 'y' sound in Finnish.
>
>The reason why people are confused is that the "y" sound in Finnish is
>actually
>very different from the "oo" sound in "took".  The former is a tense front
>rounded vowel, and the latter is a lax back rounded vowel.  If you want people
>to understand how to pronounce "u" in Uusisuom, then you should just drop the
>reference to Finnish altogether.
Unless, of course, one of these symbols - {y} or {u} - is meant to
represent the Finnish /y/!

I must confess, I'm utterly & completely confused.

Above Daniel repeats what he said in an earlier reply, namely:
{y} = 'oo' in English 'took', i.e. [U]
{u} = 'oo' in English 'boot', i.e. [u]

This must mean that {yy} = [U:] and {uu} = [u:].  It seems to be going
directly against making a language easy to have [U], [U:], [u] and [u:] as
four separate sounds!!

None of these, of course, corresponds with the Finnish /y/.

At any rate, English 'u' in 'but' seems ruled out  :)

Ray.





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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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