Re: troubles with IPA vowels (was: Leute)

Christian Thalmann wrote:

>--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@Y...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'd say (northern) German and English (RP or GA) have [aI], French has
>>sometimes [Aj] (not as a diphthong), but Züritüütsch has [&i].
>>
>>
>
>[&i] sounds positively Dutch.  Modern French no longer has
>[A].
>
>
And just as well, too. No self-respecting language has [A]. Or at least,
no self-respecting phonology has /A/.

>Man, you truly are from another planet.  =P
>
>My aunt Regula is called "Rägi" ['ragi].  Shy raining is
>"nisle" ['nisl@] or "fiserle" ['fis@rl@].
>
>
'Shy raining'? Mist? or a sun shower?

>>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?  ;-)
>
>
It's winter hereabouts. Pretty cold and overcast and it sounds windy,
but no rain. And if you think that's bad, I would represent the English
of another country in the antipodes as saying [p_hIt], [bId], even if
that's a wee bit extreme. But it's certainly close enough that New
Zealanders are stereotyped as using short I there. (Relative to my
English, /I/ is centralised, I understand to [I\] but it's stereotyped
as 'e' or 'u' (sex for six); and /e/ and /&/ are raised to /I/ and /e/
resp. (less frequently stereotyped, but as thim for them and het for
hat). Less sterotypically but very helpful if you want to have a fake
Kiwi accent: use ear for air, so that here, there and where all rhyme.
(FWIW, AFAICT, Kiwis don't lengthen short a so that 'land' would be
stereotyped as 'lend', not 'lairnd'.) OTOH, some of the speech of
younger Americans that I've heard sound like they're saying 'gas' for
'guess'

I also think some more recent representations of RP in the IPA use /e/.

--
| Tristan.               |       To be nobody-but-yourself in a world
| kesuari@yahoo!.com.au  |  which is doing its best to, night and day,
|                        |                 to make you everybody else---
|                        |          means to fight the hardest battle
|                        |            which any human being can fight;
|                        |                    and never stop fighting.
|                        |      --- E. E. Cummings, "A Miscellany"
|                        |
|                        |     In the fight between you and the world,
|                        |                             back the world.
|                        |      --- Franz Kafka,
|                        |         "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days"

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