Re: troubles with IPA vowels (was: Leute)

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 22:28:25 -0000, Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:

>--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@Y...> wrote:
>
>> You'd phonetically spell Züritüütsch words like _Räägel_ (from the name
>> Regula) or _fääze_ (to rain very few) with [a:]? That's unusual, but
>> well, the phonetic transcription is not as strict as we'd wish. To me,
>> they'd be [r&:gl, f&:ts@].
>
>Man, you truly are from another planet.  =P
:) It were the only words with that distinction I could remember, and they
come both from my grandmother how grew up in the city of Zürich, so they'll
be kinda outdated.

I don't speak Züritüütsch, but I've been told in many parts that it has long
/&:/. I've found other examples now: Wääg [v&:g] 'way', Sääl [s&:l] 'halls'
vs. Chëës [xE:s] 'cheese', gëë [gE:] 'give', see the sixth page of the
following (German) pdf (the auther comes from Zurich):
http://www.germanistik.unibe.ch/siebenhaar/SiebenhaarFolder/pdf/Siebenhaar_Voegeli_iPr.pdf
There you'll find as well an affirmation that Züritüütsch /&i/ sounds
different from German /aI/.

>> The sound is quite the same as the one in
>> English _pet, bed_ (quite different from both standard German or
>> French /e/ and /E/), and so the problem of it's representation is the
>> same as well: Some'd represent it with [e], others with [E].
>
>I've never seen anyone represent English "pet, bed" with
>[e].  What's the weather like on your planet?  ;-)
Hot but no sun, wet but no rain, insufferable!

You might have a look at the standardized SAMPA for English (
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/english.htm ), esp. at note 1. (ii):

> (ii) The symbol /E/ is quite widely used
> in place of /e/ for the vowel of "pet".
So according to SAMPA, the normal transcription is /e/.

Of course, SAMPA is rather a phonemic transcription, but it tries to stay
close to the spoken sounds, as you can see in the representation of <r>
(which is really rather phonetic) or in note 1. (iii).

g_0ry@_ˆs:
j. 'mach' wust

Reply