Re: tSat: Re: 'tEst 'pli:z ig'nOr\

On 02/02/07, Benct Philip Jonsson <conlang@...> wrote:

>  > Hence that "Igor"/"Ivan" with a "long e" vowel is not
>  > particularly much more apt than with a "long i" vowel.
>  > Perhaps I should try saying what I mean, instead of
>  > expecting people to jump to my conclusions :)
>
> Or at least point out clearly that the FLEECE vowel is [Ii]
> for you! :-) But is the KIT vowel really [i] for you? No
> wonder that Aussies and Kiwis find their accents *very*
> different, since Kiwi KIT is [I\] or even [@]!
[i] is the nearest vowel, but it's not as peripheral as, say, French.
From the various cases of [i] and [I] I've heard in different
languages (e.g. Icelandic, some German dialects or Kazakh), [i] sounds
much more like KIT than [I] does on average. (Actually, in Kazakh, [i]
is described as a "long i" and is phonemically /Ij/, but to my ear it
is quite clearly a short [i]..)

Aussies stereotype Kiwis as saying 'sex' for the number after five or
'fush and chups'; Kiwis reckon we say 'Seednee' and 'feesh and cheeps'
(in spite of the fact that their FLEECE is comparably diphthongised,
and their DRESS is pretty close to [I]). OTOH it takes a short front
vowel, FOOT (very centralised) or SQUARE (Kiwis merge this with NEAR)
to be able to distinguish a Kiwi from an Australian, and you can say a
fair amount before you get to one of these... This means that the only
length distinction in NZE is /a/ "hut" vs /a:/ "heart". (There are
other differences between my accent and a Kiwis, or between a
Sydneysider's accent and Kiwis, but these also occur in different
Australian accents.)

So ... it's possible for an Australian to exchange a few words with a
Kiwi without being able to tell they're a Kiwi. But if you say much,
then it becomes completely obvious.

> FÖNNi huåt KAJND av ä THRED maj TEST messidzh SPANed!
Pronouncing a /h/ in 'what'? That's a little bit dated!

--
Tristan.

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