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

Henrik Theiling wrote:

>Hi!
>
>Joe <joe@...> writes:
>
>
>>Paul Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>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.
>>>
>>>
>>I go for [SvA:], because it looks German.
>>
>>
>
>However, many modern dialects of German don't distinguish [a] and [A]
>(anymore?) -- the two collapse in the middle.  I regularly write that
>vowel as simply [a], but I suppose it should be [a_"] to be very
>precise.
>
>
Well, yes - my German is no doubt imperfect. Also, [a] isn't in my
dialect, so when it's in the middle of English speech, it gets
Anglicised (even more).

>And for some strange reason, I have a short vowel there, I don't know
>why.  So I have [Sva_"] in German.  This is close to modern Hebrew. :-)
>
>
>
Is a short vowel unexpected, then?  I just want to reassure myself that
my German isn't too bad. ;p