Re: NATLANG: icelandic, finnish, english

 --- Tristan Mc Leay-h <conlang@...>
idà-i:
> How is <v> pronounced in Icelandic? I gather that
> <kv> is pronounced [kw], but listening to an
> Icelandic band with it seems less than brilliant
> clarity (Sigur Rós), some other cases of <v> seem to
> be [v], some [w] and some silent.
This might help, though it may not be entirely
accurate, since the compiler of the site is not a
native speaker of Icelandic (to my knowledge):

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/icelandic.htm

I'm pretty inclined to believe that the diagraph <kv>
is pronounced as [kw] or [kf] myself, having listened
to my fair share of Björk, whose idiolect of Icelandic
(and English, for that matter) sounds something like
this:

[a::::::::::_X_R]

:)

> (I suppose I shouldn't complain too much---some
> cases of English <w> are [v], some [w], others
> silent, and some participate in digraphs. But on the
> other hand, all our <w>=[v] are borrowings.)
And none are in common usage. The only terms I can
think of are /Wehrmacht/ and /Luftwaffe/, both of
which are commonly pronounced with the /w/ as [w],
though it is pretty common among the educated or those
who know better to pronounce the /w/ correctly, as
[v].

My music professor, her teaching assistant and the
DJ's at the local classical station all pronounce the
name of the composer /Wagner/ as [vag.nr\], which is
becoming more and more common these days, in my
experience, for reasons I cannot quite fathom (but
appreciate anyways)--it's not like people are surging
to learn German or classical music appreciation these
days...

Now, if only we could get /Tchaikovsky/ right...

> Are Finnish unvoiced stops aspirated? Has its
> pronunciation been influenced particularly under the
> influnce of Germanic languages and Swedish in
> particular?
They sound unaspirated to me; but then again, I still
find it pretty hard to tell between aspirated and
unaspirated consonants without all those handy English
secondary pronunciation features to help me out.

> A lot of older English texts with otherwise
> apparently modern spelling spell 'diverse'
> as 'divers'. When did the final -e become usual?
I think it's still spelled as /divers/ in British
English. /diverse/ has pretty much always been the
American standard.

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