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Re: YADPT (D=Dutch)

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Sunday, November 9, 2003, 14:51
En réponse à Jean-François Colson :


>Why did my Dutch teacherS always use [w] for <w>?
Probably because they are Flemish? As I said, it's the normal pronunciation there :)) .
> IIRC this pronunciation is >confirmed by the dictionary Robert & Van Dale.
That I find hard to believe, unless they are talking purely phonemically. Phonetically, /w/ takes on many values depending on the region, and in ABN [w] is certainly not the main one.
>Who uses [w]? Who uses [v]? Who uses [v\]? Is there a somewhat coherent >repartition of all those pronunciations?
Basically, from South (Flanders) to North it goes [w]-[v\]-[v] (Brabant is typically in the middle and uses commonly [v\]). But there are plenty of places which don't follow this typical trend.
>BTW there's something similar in French. In standard French <w> is >pronounced [w] in some words (week-end, watt, willien, western...) and [v] >in others (wagon, weber, wisigoth, wagnérisme...).
Basically, since "w" exists only in borrowings, it is pronounced as it was in the original language. So borrowings from English have the [w] pronunciation, while borrowings from German have the [v] pronunciation. Of course, some people mix them :)) .
>In Belgian French [w] is used everywhere.
Is it because Germanophones are closer there, so that you want to separate strongly from them? :))) Christophe Grandsire. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

Reply

Jean-François Colson <bn130627@...>