Re: Aroha from Honoruru....

Carsten, 

That was a very intersteing post indeed. I think you may referring to the
term “rhyming ensemble”, a collection of similar, though phonemically
distinct sounds that may rhyme under certain circumstances.

   While you are absolutely right that Standard German <e> and <ö>, as well
as <i> and <ü> may rhyme, I don’t think that dialect can be completely ruled
out of the discussion, at least where the origin of this rhyming ensemble is
concerned. In Goethe’s time there was no standard pronunciation of German,
so that regional, even standard, speech (if it occurred at all), was heavily
influenced by the phonology of the regional dialect, much more so than
today. Compare Goethe’s typically Hessian rhyme: 

“neige, neige, du Schmerzensreiche”, which in Standard Stage German is:

[‘naeg@ ‘naeg@ du: ,SmERts@ns’raeC@]

whereas in Frankfurt they would have said, and still do:

[‘na:eZ@ ‘na:eZ@ du: ,SmEtsns’ra:eZ@]

Because the larger Part of the southern German speech area, as well as the
eastern central German speech area undergo unrounding of the front rounded
vowels the establishment of this rhyming ensemble is not surprising. It had
become traditionalised already at the point when front rounded vowels were
re-introduced to standard speech (mainly through northern influence, by a
large part of the urban population undergoing a language shift from Low
German to Standard German). Note that many Low German dialect preserve front
rounded vowels to this day. 

 

So, we’re all right in the sense that, yes, Standard German has a tradition
of rhyming rounded vowels with their front counterparts despite their
contrasting, but I believe this tradition to be very much rooted in dialect
realisations of the etyma in question. 

Dan

 

 

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From: "Carsten Becker" carbeck@GOOGLEMAIL.COM

Date: Sun Apr 30, 2006 1:44pm(PDT) 

Subject: 

 

"Hi!

On 13 October 1997, 23:33 (+0100), George E. Harding wrote:

> Hell if I know.  I was merely referring to the
> _stereotypical_, not linguistic confusion.  Remember, I'm
> still working on how Goethe rhymed _Buehne_ with _Biene_,
> and how Heine did the same with _Weh_ and _Hoeh'_.
 

Bühne /"by:n@/   Weh /ve:/

Biene /"bi:n@/   Höh' /h2:/

 

(To those that do not have the archives of that time at hand: The situation
was that George wondered about why German "Bühne" (stage) and "Biene" (bee)
respectively "Weh" (woe) and "Höh'" (height) apparently rhyme. Several list
members tryed to explain this but the wrong conclusion was made that this is
due to dialect and might not work in the standard language. James F. Bisso
was right about the vowels being pairs [i] ~ [y], [e] ~ [2] however.)

 

The first one is a consonance (same consonants, different vowels), for what
it's worth, despite of graphological differences. However, as James Bisso
said, the rhyme between "Bühne" and "Biene" and "Weh" and "Höh'" is based on
features both vowels have in common: [i] = tense close front *unrounded*,
[y] = tense close front *rounded*; [e] = tense close-mid front *unrounded*,
[2] = tense close-mid front *rounded* -- that's all. I've read that Goethe
had a Frankfurt accent, and since Heine comes from somewhere around Gießen,
his dialect should have been similar to Goethe's a Sothern Hessian one.
Nevertheless this does not matter here since the two examples given should
also rhyme in the standard language. I'm certain there is a name for this,
but I don't know it. Does this kind of rhyme not exist in English? Is it due
to English lacking phonemic front-rounded vowels?

Carsten"