Re: YAEPT: OMFG I'm a mutant!!! (was Re: Advanced English to become official!)

On Apr 4, 2005, at 1:19 AM, Paul Bennett wrote:
> I seem to be at odds with the entire English-speaking world. Not only
> do I
> distinguish /i\/ from /@/ (which apparently is unheard of in both
> American
> and British dictionaries, but to my ear as clear as a bell in actual
> speech on both sides of the pond), but I clearly have [V] for /V/, and
> never [@]. A stressed /@/ in my lect is pronounced as whatever vowel it
> was reduced from, which is almost universally reconstructable based on
> English's lovely morphoetymological spelling, and a small measure of
> knowledge of etymology.
I distinguish /i\/~/I/ (as in "pIn", "-tiOn") from /@/~/V/ (as in
"About", "histOry"); the latter feels a little different than stressed
/V/ ("gut", "bug"), but not much.

> On this subject (honestly, there's a connection if you dig for it),
> what
> is the Hebrew pronunciation of the word anglicised |schwa|, or for that
> matter the approved pronunciation in English speaking linguistics
> circles?
> I flit between /Sv@/ and /SwA/, and several others.
> Paul
Modern Israeli Hebrew: /Sva/
(or /Se'va/ if you have a thick Mizrahhi accent)
The way it's written indicates a hypothetical Classical Tiberian Hebrew
pronunciation of [S@vO:] (or [S@wO:]); you can add the orthographic
final |alef| /?/ to the end if you want, but final alefs are generally
silent.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "...i gave you love / you gave me fire
   i took you in / you took me higher
   if i wasn't what you wanted
   then tell me what it was..."
     ~ cailyn's song #2 ("all of me") by jms