Re: CHAT: Hello

Roger Mills wrote:

> You're right on the vowels I'm sure, and the [ew] rather than my [eu].
But
> I definitely heard a lot of friction, which makes it velar [x] or uvular
> [X].  _h_ is glottal, classed as a continuant IIRC, and relatively
> frictionless.
That's interesting -- I live in an area (Cape Cod, MA) with a lot of
Brazilian immigrants, and also get 2 Brazilian channels on the satellite TV,
and the only pronunciation I ever hear for initial/double r is [h] - like
the English h. The only time I hear [x] is before a consonant -- e.g. in
words like "normal", "quarta" -- and at the end of a word. And the latter is
somewhat sporadic, as word-final r seems to like to disappear.

> Of course, I was in Brazil over 30 years ago, so things could well have
> changed-- or may vary by region.
The latter must certainly be true, but I'd be curious to know about the
former. I wonder how much the pronunciation of a language can evolve in 30
years.

Regards

Thomas