Re: YAPT

On Tuesday 04 January 2005 18:41, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

 > Gary Shannon wrote:
 > > More evidence for my contention that the exact nature
 > > of mouth noises is probably the least important aspect
 > > of language. Just listen to a four way conversation
 > > between people from Syndey, Bombay, Boston and South
 > > Carolina and you'll notice that they all understand
 > > each other just fine even though they have practically
 > > no mouth noises in common.
 >
 > The list has discussed this claim before, and I don't
 > think those of us (like me) who disagreed with the claim
 > ever got a sensible and objective answer for why this
 > should be so. I mean, one could just as well argue that
 > in a language like German case is entirely superfluous,
 > since word order is (normally) pretty predictable, or
 > that word order in a language like Dyirbal is
 > superfluous, since all the NPs have explicit case-marking
 > telling you who did what to whom.

Eh? OK, I didn't know that "Sri Lanka" is indeed pronounced
[Sr\i...] in English. Actually I didn't want to say
anything about "wrong" or "unaesthetic" pronounciation, my
question was thought completely objective and just out of
curiosity. I was just a bit baffeled of that reporter's
pronounciation. In German, that island is pronounced with a
[sRi] usually, and "Colombo" is pronounced as it is written
as well. The speaker was a German speaking German.
According to Thomas' explanation, the newsman just used the
English pronounciation which I was not aware of.

With "local" I did not mean the pronounciation where you or
I are, but how the people *there* tend to pronounce the
places.

Carsten

--

Eri silveváng aibannama padangin.
Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei.
  -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri