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USAGE: [e] vs. [E] (was Re: Two questions about Esperanto)

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 15:19
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 10:13:12 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 11:33:25PM -0400, Ph. D. wrote: > > Allow me to quote Richardson in _Learning_and_Using_the_International > > _Language_: > > > > To get the sound of "e" really right, do this: Place two fingers lightly > > across your mouth . . . and say "they" very carefully. Feel how the > > lips and jaw shift position midway through the "ey" sound. That's > > because in English, the sound of "ey" is really made up of two sounds: > > "eh" followed by "ee". Now practice saying just the "eh" without > > sliding into the "ee" sound. That is how you pronounce "e" correctly > > in Esperanto. > > And that is a description of the sound spelled in X-SAMPA as [e].
Hm? The sound I'd render in English as "eh" is X-SAMPA [E] (though it can be [e] in SAMPA-for-English IIRC). The "long a" diphthong is [EI] for me, or possibly [Ei] or [Ej], i.e. its first component is [E], not [e].
> [e] does > *not* mean "the English long-a sound". It means "the English long-a > sound without the glide"
Not for this English speaker. [Ej] is what usually comes out when a generic Anglophone tries to pronounce [e], but I consider neither component of this diphthong to be [e]. I believe speakers of Scottish English use [e] for this phoneme, though.
> or "the Spanish e-sound" - both of which are > different from [E], which is the English short-e sound.
I thought that "the Spanish e-sound" was also [E]. How would you transcribe it? How about French |ê| in |bête| or |nette| - [E] or not? Cheers, -- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Replies

Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@...>
Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>