Re: Middle English question

On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, dirk elzinga wrote:

>
> My experience with Dutch has been that the pronunciation of this segment
> varies according to dialect, with southern dialects having a glide
> (either labio-velar or labio-dental) and northern dialects having a
> labio-dental fricative. I believe Standard Dutch (ABN) has a fricative
> for this segment.
>
Absolutely! In fact, when we bought a CD-Rom Game for our eldest, Naomi,
to help her learning her letters, all family was in stitches about the
pronounciation of _vis_ 'fish', which was very carefully pronounced
/wIs/ instead of /vIs/... It was produced by the Brabant & most Catholic
(Roman Catholic that is ;-) firm of Zwijssen, while when I learnt my
letters all books were produced by the very Protestant Kok in Kampen.
Of course, twenty-three years ago, CD-Roms didn't exist.

> Unfortunately, I'm not equipped to listen to Boudewijn's pronunciation
> of his name :-(.
>
Oi! Aya! Ach! You haven't got a computer with audio capabilities at all,
or don't you have the RealAudio software? This means you won't be able
to listen to the examples in my Grammar of Denden either, nor to the
recordings of Denden, Den'Naha. Den'poim, Barushlani and Matiraian
texts! Once I was of the opinion that computers, like children,
should be seen and not heard, but I've long since retracted that view,
and nowadays, even Linux can make itself heard...

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt