Re: Obscenities

On 31 Aug, Thomas Wier wrote:

>Dan Sulani wrote:
>
>> On 31 Aug, Thomas Wier wrote:
>>
>> >Matthew Kehrt wrote:
>> >
>> >> My mom, who speaks German, does not know of any differences between
>> >> the pronunciations of the final phonemes of 'doch' and 'ich', which
>> >> doesn't help.
>>
>> Could be a matter of dialect. (There's the famous German
>> song "Muss i denn" where that dialect drops the /x/  at the end
>> of "ich" turning it into "i".)
>>
>> >That's because they're not really phonemes.  The ich-lau occurs in an
>> >environment near a front vowel (/i I e E/), while the ach-laut occurs in
>> >exactly the opposite distribution, near back vowels (/u U o O a/).
>>
>> I'm not an expert in German linguistics,  (note that, in my previous
>> posting, I didn't refer to /x/. I wasn't sure if I was talking about
>> allophones of /x/ in German or not.)  Anyhow, my German grammar
>> book, in the section on pronounciation, lists the [x] and the
>> "c with a tail" just like I wrote.
>
>That's correct.  But note the distinction between brackets [] and solidi
//:
>the former denotes phonetic notations, while the latter denotes phonemic
>notations.
    I know that. Hence, what I wrote above about avoiding the use
of the phoneme-marker // when I wasn't certain if I was talking
about two allophones of a single phoneme or two different
phonemes.

>  In German, there is one phoneme /x/, which has two allophones:
>[x] (the ach-laut) and [ç] (the ich-laut).
I suspected that there might be only one phoneme.

>(it's significantly more complicated than this, and I'm not sure about the
>details)
>> I have also heard German spoken this
>> way. BTW, "c with a tail"  really does sound like a fricative (more
>> noise than "y" ).
>>     Also, with all due credit to the possibility of slight variations in
>> the production of /x/ between two langs, to my ears, the German
>> expression "ach" and the Hebrew aleph-chaf (= however) sound
>>  exactly the same.
>
>I don't know much about Hebrew, but from what you're describing, that's
>because they are the same *phonetically*.
Of course. (My point being that they _are_ the same.)


> The other variant in German,
>the ich-laut, is merely an allophone of /x/.  You can't compare phonemes
>between languages, because phonemes are language-dependent.
Obviously. Phonemes have to do with the _distribution_ of
sounds in a lang. Different langs can distribute the same sounds
differently. Apples and oranges!

> Phones,
>on the other hand, are merely acoustic measurements, and so can be compared
>with any language (or sound for that matter).
And down on that level, one can even find differences between
speakers of the same dialect of the same lang. (Not to
mention between different measurements of the _same_ speaker
at different times under different conditions.) The only question is
how subtle a difference must there be between two sounds
 before one doesn't hear the difference between them any more.
    I do this all the time in my work: I produce a sound that we're
working on and ask the child to copy me. I must then decide
whether it is similar enough to encourage or dissimilar enough
to consider an error. _Perfect_  imitation will never happen.
For one thing, there are the differences in speech-production
 anatomy between people. For another, tongue shaping and
tongue placement are not exact sciences. Enen under the best
circumstances, we all merely approximate where we put our tongues
in order to produce a sound. Very slight differences in production
each time are disregarded if they are slight enough.

>> I have also heard German spoken this
>> way.
Quoting myself from above, I'd just like to add that, here in
Israel we get TV from many countries, 2 channels being in
German. They don't believe in subtitles and prefer to dub
all non-German films into German. (That's ok, the _French_
often subtitle French movies into French! Don't ask me, I only
watch the stuff! :-)  ) Anyhow, the German dubbing of American
films can cause a real culture-shock. As when watching
John Wayne slowly ride into the Indian villiage, and the very
dignified chief comes out to greet him. The chief raises a hand
and solemnly intones: "Wie geht's?". Somehow it doesn't fit
 my impression of an Indian chief in a John Wayne movie at all! ;-)
 Maybe other people think differently,
 but as for me, I'd rather savor
the original language of the film. Especially if I understand the
lang, and even if I don't! (I once watched a movie from central Asia
 on TV here with what appeared to be Turkish subtitles.
 Didn't understand a single word, but enjoyed the film!)

Dan Sulani
--------------------------------------------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.