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Re: /E~/ (was: Re: Kyrgyz was Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang))

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 26, 2003, 15:33
En réponse à Daniel Andreasson Vpc-Work <daniel.andreasson@...>:

> > You know what I think it is? I think it's the Swedish > vowels that are a bit screwed up.
Why doesn't it surprise me? ;))) I can assure you that
> you wouldn't complain about my pronunciation if you heard > it (well, perhaps you would, but my vowels wouldn't make > you throw up). My French-speaking cousins don't. >
Maybe they're used to your accent ;))) .
> The Italian |e| in IPA is /E/,
Is it? I thought Italian had both /e/ and /E/, like French? but to me it sounds more
> like something in between /E/ and /&/. Swedish /E/ as > in |älg| is definitely more close than Italian. And the > English /E/ in |pet| is most often written /e/ in IPA,
Strange, I've always seen it written /E/ in IPA. /pEt/, not /pet/ (although for phonemic distinctions it's more a matter of convention than anything else). But usually I hear the 'e' in 'pet' definitely as a [E].
> but it's much more close to Sw. /E/ than Sw. /e/. >
It's definitely [E] to me, and thus closer to French /E/ than /e/.
> If I pronounce French /E~/ without nasalization, it sounds > just like Italian /E/ (like in |bellezza|). >
That should be OK, but I hear Italian /E/ exactly as French /E/ anyway.
> So, in conclusion, I think the IPA system is screwing > us over. Swedish /E/ (or /&/) ain't the same as French > /E~/. I pronounce it correctly, but the IPA is fooling me. >
Possible. French is easy to describe with the IPA, since it has mostly cardinal vowels, but it's possible that Swedish isn't that nice and thakes only middle values ;)) .
> > If my explanation above seems wrong, please tell me, and > I won't utter another word of French for the rest of my life.
It doesn't. It's possible that all your vowels are slightly higher than the IPA cardinal vowels which are chosen to represent them. In this case it would explain why you make those confusions.
> I wouldn't wanna make a mockery of the French we've all learned > to love. >
I don't think you do (although I've never heard French with a Swedish accent so I cannot tell ;)) ). But then I've never heard you speak French either :) .
> Daniel Andreasson >
Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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Roger Mills <romilly@...>