Re: CHAT: A slightly less forbidden experiment?
| From: | Grandsire, C.A. <grandsir@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, December 7, 1999, 7:43 |
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Irina Rempt wrote:
>
> On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> > I've had an idea:
> > An interesting parallel experiment might be to encourage them to
> > con-script, (they write down the squiggles and provide a
> > pronounciation, and you provide a romanisation)
>
> They're already doing that; one of my treasures is a very detailed
> drawing of a hand with curly streamers flowing from the fingers, made
> by Naomi to mean the letter 'g' (pronounced as in "go").
>
Interesting. Con-calligraphy? :)
> > or to teach them
> > characters or digraphs beyond those in Dutch (IPA symbols?) to
> > express any phones that occur in their songs/words that are outside
> > of junior-school Dutch.
>
> I've already taught Naomi the barred-l - the voiceless lateral
> fricative keeps coming up in her invented words.
>
Gosh! I'm still fighting to master this sound! Whatever I do, my vocal
chords can't help but vibrate! I think I managed pronouncing it once,
but I cannot anymore. :( Well, it took me more than ten years to
recognize the sound /I/ and to manage to consciously produce it (now I
can, but I often have to do it twice or three times when I use it with a
word, in my pronunciation it varies often between /i/ and /e/ :( ).
Sometimes I wish I was as young as your daughters. At least at that age
I could learn other sounds more easily than now. <sigh>
> > Actually, do their songs/words contain phones that aren't part of
> > Dutch?
>
> Yes; they're exposed to Turkish as well as Dutch at school (though
> not enough to their taste; they're peeved that only the Turkish kids
> are allowed Turkish lessons :-) so the fact that people "talk with
> different sounds" is nothing unusual.
>
Turkish kids can have Turkish lessons in a Dutch school? Wow! I think
I'll never see such a thing in France for the Arabic kids before a long
time! (anyway, it's against the language policy of France, which is:
French and only French).
> > The con-scripting idea might actually be very, very interesting
> > from all kinds of viewpoints, provided they have some idea of what
> > writing is for, even if they're not fully adept at "real" writing
> > yet.
>
> All three grasped the meaning of reading and writing at a very early
> age - the youngest started putting down squiggles and calling them
> 'letters' when she was about two and a half.
>
> > I recall that you posted to the list before about the "coat &
> > shoes" thing. Wasn't it etymologised to a kind of compound of
> > "shoe" and "coat"? I like the existence of a verb "to have an
> > elephant", by the way, and may have to borrow it :-)
>
> Yes, they could reliably analyse it into "coat" and "shoe" and it
> showed interesting assimilation (can't find it right now, it's
> probably in storage for when we move house in February).
>
> You're welcome to the elephant verb - they'll be thrilled and
> honoured!
>
I like the elephant verb too. How did they come to use it? Do you have
many elephants in Deventer? :)
--
Christophe Grandsire
Philips Research Laboratories -- Building WB 145
Prof. Holstlaan 4
5656 AA Eindhoven
The Netherlands
Phone: +31-40-27-45006
E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com