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Re: /x/ and 'inter-Germanic' (was: Intergermansk)

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Sunday, January 30, 2005, 18:27
On Saturday, January 29, 2005, at 07:13 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>: > >> It is quite clear from Philip's mail that Swedish does not have /x/; it >> is >> just that some varieties of Swedish have [x] as a realization of the >> phoneme /S/, while in other Swedish speaking areas it is realized as [s` >> ] >> or [s\]. > > I don't see how that's clear at all. How do we determine that a phoneme > that the > majority pronounces as [x] is, in fact, /S/? Especially when those who > don't > mostly use [s`] or [s\] rather than [S]?
I really do not want to get into an argument about at what stage during a sound change, you change from using one phonemic symbol to another. But I think I may be excused in view of: On Friday, January 28, 2005, at 07:51 , Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Ray Brown wrote: > >> I had not realized, I admit, that /S/ in modern Swedish was now >> (generally/ >> always?) pronounced [x].
[snip]
> It has been spreading northward from southernmost Sweden for more > than a century -- apparently reaching the Stockholm area after the > WW2 period, but it has not yet reached the northern half of Sweden, > where we instead find merger of earlier /S/ and /rs/, nor has it > reached the Swedish-speaking parts of Finland where /S/ actually > is realized [s\] -- the actual pronunciation of traditional "/C/" > on the mainland --, while "/C/" is [ts\] and /rs/ is still [rs]. > > One often cited reason for the spread of [x] is the "need" to
Not only did Philip not correct my use of /S/, he also used it himself. In his mail [x], [s`] and [s\] are shown as _phonetic_ symbols. Philip is Swedish-speaking, I am not. Also you yourself have written: On Wednesday, January 26, 2005, at 08:38 , Andreas Johansson wrote: [snip]
> I'll take exception to that - [x] is all over my Swedish, and over that > of a > great many other Swedes. That the phoneme in question is traditionally > denoted > /S/ should not be allowed to influence our judgement as to whether it's > "the > same" as the /x/ of German or Afrikaans.
and:
> On Thursday, January 27, 2005, at 08:52 , Andreas Johansson wrote: > > Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
[snip]
>> I had not realized, I admit, that /S/ in modern Swedish was now >> (generally/ >> always?) pronounced [x]. > > Other pronunciations are found, including reportedly [S], but I think it' > s fair > to say [x] is the standard one. It's often more-or-less rounded, > especially > before rounded vowels, and sometimes it's weakened to [M\_0] (that's a vl > velar > approximant) - I seem to recall Daniel Andreasson saying he's got that > pronunciation.
I'm sorry, but my use of /S/ has not been 'corrected' before; it was used by Philip and you yourself referred to a phoneme "traditionally denoted /S/ ". In all the quotes above [x] is shown as a _phone_. I have only your & Philip's descriptions to go on. If I have drawn the wrong conclusions, I am sorry - but in view of the evidence presented to me, I do not think my conclusion was unreasonable. [Back to Andreas' email of Jan. 29th}
> (Yes, I've got something personal against denoting this phoneme as /S/.)
That was not clear before. I think I may have inadvertently stepped into an area of inter-Swede disagreement - if so, I want no part part in it.
> Now, this is of limited interest to a project like Folkspraak, since the > phoneme > doesn't have much of anything to do with the German /x/, but that's > another > matter.
Too true. Also it does not, as far as I can see, invalidate my basic thesis that because the Folkspraak Charter says: "The primary design principle is that Folkspraak omit any linguistic feature not common to most of the modern Germanic languages." ..then it will omit /x/ (as well as /T/ and /D/. Basically, my error has been to lump the Swedes in with Norwegians and Danes as "continental Scandinavians" - ME CVLPA. =============================================== On Saturday, January 29, 2005, at 08:19 , Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: [snip]
> Sure. If *I* (absit omen) were to design an intergermanic conlang > I would start from the common North-West Germanic sound system, before > umlaut, palatalization and the High German sound shift, but merge */T/ > into /t/ and /d/ and allow [v] as a realization of /w/ and [ju] as > a realization of /iu/eu/.
That seems reasonable :) =============================================== On Saturday, January 29, 2005, at 10:15 , Isaac Penzev wrote:
> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > >> Sure. If *I* (absit omen) were to design an intergermanic conlang > > Guys. That all is very interesting. You may succeed in provoking me to > start > such a project...
I know the feeling. The Tutonish extract was like by some, and others have liked Intergermansk. A pity there is AFAIK no continuous text in Folkspraak. But it is interesting seeing the quite different approaches of these three. It does sort of make one feel: "I wonder what I would make of it" :) Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com =============================================== Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

Replies

Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>
Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>