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Re: A break in the evils of English (or, Sturnan is beautiful)

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Sunday, April 28, 2002, 19:52
En réponse à JS Bangs <jaspax@...>:

> > How about English: > > wet [wEt] > weight [weit] > > fret [frEt] > freight [freit] >
Except that the second one is always a diphtongue. Don't compare apples and oranges. And you're talking about a language that can have |ei| pronounced [aj] or [i]! At least in French, |ei| is only ever pronounced [E]. If another pronunciation is meant, another spelling is used.
> And Greek used to have |epsilon|=[E] (or something similar) and > |epsilon-iota|=[e:] as a general rule. Neither of these are perfect > examples, but I don't know a very large language sample, either. >
The only thing I see is that you cannot find an example proving your point, while I can find at least one proving mine. Even with a 1-0 score I win! ;))
> > You've misunderstood my argument. I wholly agree that |e| by itself > is > most likely [e]. However, given two different graphs |e| and |ei|, I > would always always ALWAYS assume that |ei| was higher than |e|.
And you would be strange, as others have pointed out. This
> is > because |ei| includes |i|, which symbolizes a high vowel. To make |ei| > be > a *lower* vowel than |e| is very counterintuitive. >
To you maybe, not to me.
> > Of course, by "nearly everyone" you mean "Frenchies." For the rest of > the > world, I think you're wrong, for the reasons outlined above. >
And I think you are wrong, because people don't use logic to guess the pronunciation of a spelling. I don't think *anyone* would ever naturally connect |ei| to [e]. To [ei], [ej], [Ej], [eI], [E] for those who would assume it's French, but never to [e]. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.