On the general subject of TY language books, I think the general feeling is
that they are rather antiquated in their approach. They are OK for skimming
through, though, for overviews of grammar or as sources of good stems for
conlangs!
Mike
"We put the thought of all that we love
into all that we do"
(Tolkien)
visit my website on:
http://freespace.virgin.net/m.poxon/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Mills" <romilly@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 7:04 AM
Subject: Re: Tirehlat romanization
> David Peterson wrote:
>
> >In a message dated 9/25/01 9:42:50 PM, valoczy@VCN.BC.CA writes:
> ><< > I don't want to believe the pronunciation in my TY book...
> >
> >What does it say? >>
> >
> > For /a/ it says, just like you said, the "a" in "father" (they give
the
> >"o" in "hot"). For /a/ with the accent it says (and this I can't wrap my
> >brain around) "like the 'u' in 'hut', only longer". That seemed very
> >far-fetched to me. And it says the o's are the "aw" in "paw" (obviously
> >open-mid back rounded), one short one long. You say close mid, though,
> which
> >I was more inclined to believe... Anyway, maybe it's dialectical.
>
>
> IIRC the TY books were published in the UK, written by and aimed at
speakers
> of Brit. English (and probably based on RP)-- and the pronunciation guides
> will be off for most of us in the US.
> So the vowel of UK "hot" is indeed pretty close to what Frank V.
described;
> the vowel of UK "cup, hut" etc. is indeed closer to IPA [a] than to US
[V].
>
> At the tender age of 15, I had the TY Portuguese book-- they transcribed
> final /a/ as "er", as close to schwa as I guess they could get without
going
> all technical; and the nasal vowels were written with a following "ng"
(that
> much at least I could figure out). So Lesson 1, "boms dias" was a rather
> puzzling _bongsh diersh_, and it went downhill from there.