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Re: rhotic miscellany (was: Advanced English + Babel text)

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Saturday, November 6, 2004, 2:43
Ray Brown wrote:

> Exactly! Both French & English spellings basically reflect how the > language was spoken some 7 or 800 hundred years ago. But the preservation > of older spellings has in its turn affected pronunciation. For example, in > English "waistcoat" had become pronounced 'weskit', but the Victorian > bourgeoisie that this too vulgar so the spelling pronunciation no prevails. > When I was young (chronologically) everyone called a _tortoise_ a "tortus" > - now I often hear ['tO:tOjz} - ach!
All this talk of waistcoats and tortoises reminds me of Lewis Carroll for some reason :-).
> I imagine in fact that if a sound is at all humanly possible some language > somewhere in the world will have it.
Any langs with voiced or voiceless whistles?

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Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>