Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

On Mon, 3 Feb 2003 11:30:56 +0000 Peter Bleackley
<Peter.Bleackley@...> writes:
> Staving Andreas Johnsson:
> >I don't think I've ever heard an actual native anglophone say
> > "ghoul", but my dictionary thinks it's [gaUl].
> That pronunciation is certainly valid, but the pronunciation [gu:l]
> is
> valid as well. I don't use the word frequently, but I think I use
> both - in
> different contexts. [gaUl] for "demon in Arabic mythology", [gu:l]
> for
> "person of morbid tendencies". Ah, the richness of a language that
> can support such eccentric tendencies as mine!
> Pete Bleackley
-

Really?  I'd expect the opposite, since the original Arabic word is
/Gu:l/.  It's also where the name of the star Algol (/alGu:l/, 'the
ghoul') comes from.
Talking about pronunciation-shifts and stars, ObConlang in Rokbeigalmki
the constellation Orion is called "Tzroríf Saryón", pronounced
/ts)4o4i:p\ sa4jo:n/.  |tzrorif saryon| is a mangling of the phrase
|trorif sa'aryon| /t4o4ip\ sa?a4jon/, "a hunter with a bow".  I actually
created the form |tzrorif| by accident because i kept on accidentally
turning the initial /t/ stop into a /ts)/ affricate, so when i looked
back at the dictionary and saw that the word was actually /t4o4ip\/ i
decided to keep the affricate form as the name of the constellation.
And the word |aryon| for 'bow' i actually stole from the name Orion in
the first place.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "so pull me under your weather patterns,
  your cold fronts and the rain don't matter -
  cause a sun burn's what i needed;
  so don't say: 'these currents are still killing me'
  and you can't explain,
  but the wind went and pulled me
  into your hurricane..."
     ~ 'hurricane' by something corporate
       (my brother's a geography major)