Re: Kyrgyz was Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang)

Christophe wrote:

> En réponse à Daniel Andreasson Vpc-Work <daniel.andreasson@...>:
> >
> > In my French speech (which admittedly isn't very good
> > grammatically/vocabularywise, but pretty okay pronunciationwise) I have
> > 'matin' /mat&~/, 'un' /&~/,
>
Like John Cowan, that's also how I hear them.  50 years ago, when I last had
to deal with spoken French, the vowel of "un" was supposed to be IIRC [Y~]
or perhaps [ö~] (nasal o-uml., don't know the SAMPA),-- truly a bugbear for
English speakers-- but I'm aware that has changed and that the nasalized
version of "u" has become lowered and unrounded > [E~].

Most  grammars I think claim that "presse" and "prince" are a precise
minimal pair, so it ought to be [E~] in both.  I can certainly produce [E~]
vs. [&~] but it takes thought.....  In fact, IIRC, Christophe himself once
mentioned that [E~] is being lowered to [&~] nowadays, for some speakers--
but I may be mis-remembering.

> > 'bon' /bO~/ and 'blanc' /blA~/.
> >
I used to confuse those, both either [O~] or [A~] ([Q~]?), until I was
embarassingly corrected, before an entire class, by an African francophone
when I asserted that fondu :: vendu were a minimal pair for f/v.  I still
have trouble hearing the vowel difference, but by golly, I now know it's
there!!

>  Or is the Frenchmen's pronunciation
> > of /a/ a bit more back than IPA would like to admit?
>
> [a~] is indeed slightly backer than [a] proper, but doesn't even cross the
> central zone. so [A~] is certainly *not* a correct way to pronounce it.
Judging by my recent visit to the UCLA? IPA site, I'd say that Fr. /a~/ is
indeed quite close to [A~]; but then, I don't hear all that much French
these days.....