Re: Announcement: New auxlang "Choton"

Funny discussion. If I understand it all right, here
we have two native speakers of German, one arguing
that there is no audible difference between 'a umlaut'
and e (in the examples given), the other one arguing
that there is one, even if you can't hear it.

Isn't it an evident conclusion that this is all
subjective, that different native people of the same
language will pronounce a different way, depending on
plenty of parameters, and that the main thing is that
they understand each other ?

This is called "couper les cheveux en quatre" in
French. Sometimes we replace the word "cheveux" by
another expression, also meaning hair, but referring
to a different body location (being a gentleman, I'm
afraid I cannot mention it here).

(By the way, I repeated several times aloud the words
'sätze' and 'setze', and I agree that under some
conditions there might a faint difference, but so
faint indeed that it's really not worth to fight about
it. This after 8 years learning German at school, and
talking with many German people in my youth).

There is also, supposedly, a difference between French
"brin" and "brun". I even can understand which one if
I try hard. But who cares ? Nobody, and me the last.

 --- "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...> skrev:
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:48:30 +0200, Henrik Theiling
> <theiling@...> wrote:
>
> >Hi!
> >
> >"Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...> writes:
> >> On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:25:15 -0000, Christian
> Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:
> >> >...
> >> >the chart are both wrong.  Standard German short
> ä is /E/
> >> >and indistinguishable from short e in
> pronunciation,
> >> >while long ä is realized as either /E:/ or (more
> commonly
> >> >nowadays) /e:/.
> >>
> >> I disagree, it clearly IS distinguishable. An
> English speaker generally
> >> hears no difference between these two sounds, but
> that doesn't mean that
> >> there isn't one.
> >
> >Christian knows German quite well...
>
> I know German very well either, thank you very much.
> I'm a native speaker.
> Just look at my mail account: arcor.DE
>
> >> A good example here is the German word "Ärger"
> (engl. "anger"). It is given
> >> as /ErgEr/ in the dictionary,
> >
> >Hmm, it should rather be /"Er.g@r/ phonemically and
> ["?E6.g6] phonetically.
> >
> >> which is clearly wrong as there is a notable
> >> difference between the 'ä' and the 'e'.
> >
> >The graphemes are different, but the phonemes are
> both /E/, just as
> >Christian said.
>
> If you follow the Ipa argumentation that fails to
> notice the difference,
> then yes.
>
> >> The word is neither "Ärgär" nor "Erger", but
> "Ärger".
> >
> >The last |e| in |Ärger| is /@/, of course, so that
> is different from /E/.
> >
> >> Another example: Sanskrit ...
> >> ...
> >> A European speaker will generally hear no
> differerence between these two,
> >> but that still doesn't mean that there is no
> difference!
> >
> >I can hear the difference quite easily.
>
> Then you are one of the few who can hear a
> difference. Most people fail to
> notice it.
>
> >This does not mean that |ä| and |e| are different,
> though.
> >
> >And I'm a native speaker of German, but there is no
> difference between
> >
> >  |er hält| and |erhellt|, both have ...[hElt]
> >  |Sätze|   and |setze|,   both are ["zE.ts@]
>
> I don't mean to be offensive or anything, but you
> should be concernerned
> about your hearing if you hear no difference. In
> both examples, there's a
> clear difference, even though some apparently fail
> to notice it. Just
> because *you* don't hear a differnce, doesn't mean
> there isn't any.
>

=====
Philippe Caquant


Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).

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