Re: OT: Dutch pronunciation questions

 --- Irina wrote:

> > 1. The diphthong ij/ei. Textbooks always say this is /ej/ (or usually
> > say something along the lines of "like ay in day") but it never
> > sounds like that to me; to my ear it sounds more like /æj/ (sorry,
> > don't know X-SAMPA; I hope the characters come out).
>
> I say [Ej]...
So do I. No difference BTW between ij and ei.

> > I heard or read
> > once that some people now even say /aj/.
>
> ...but my daughters, six and eight, say [Aj], as do many of their
> teachers (women in their mid-twenties). It's shifting, as it has
> already in Danish. I've given up correcting them, but I still make fun
> of them.
[Aj] is something that exists only in dialects, I think. In my home dialect
(Westfries, has nothing to do with Frisian) you can even hear [Oj].
But in Standard Dutch it is supposed to be pronounced [Ej]. So, Irina, blame
yourself for raising your children in Deventer ;)
By the way, in Belgium the pronunciation [E] is quite common.


> Almost all Dutch vowels, especially long(ish) ones, have some measure of
> diphthongization. Depending on the flavour of the vowel it goes to /j/,
> /w/ or /@/ (shwa). The way "eu" tastes to me is most like German ö
> shading to /w/ at the end.
Agreed.

> > Are there regional differences in how it is pronounced?
>
> Doubtlessly, but I've never thought about regional differences in
> *that*.
Never read "Haagse Harry"? It is consequently written in a transcription
of the kind of slang you can hear in Den Haag.
|eu| usually changes into |ui| [Ey].

> > 3. This devoicing of /z/ to /s/. All the Dutch speakers I've heard
> > have pronounced z as /z/. [...] I was wondering how widespread this
> > devoicing is. Someone (I think Maarten, perhaps?) said that in his
> > speech /z/>/s/ intervocalically; does that mean that /z/ remains /z/
> > word-initially? Or does /z/>/s/ everywhere? Or does it vary from
> > region to region?
I say that devoicing of |z| to |s| is a typical city thing. You can hear
it in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht. It happens on every
position in the word, also at the beginning of it.
It's even worse: instead of being a beautiful sharp [s], it is usually
deformed into some sort of [sj]...

Jan

=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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