Re: USAGE: French nasal vowels

At 09:58 09/10/1998 -0400, you wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
>>         I must agree with Mathias (I don't even find any difference between
>> 'en' and 'in',
>
>There is none, except of course that "chien" is /SjE~/ and
>"brin" is /bRE~/; in other words, there is a /j/ glide in "chien"
>that is not present in "brin".
>
>> I know it's done in Portuguese, but when I try to speak it, I
>> must spend at least a minute in order to give my mouth the correct
>> articulation).
>
>Sure.  Portuguese has a genuine [i~] which does not exist in
>French; French has only [E~], [O~], and [A~] plus marginally [oe~].
>
>>         It also reminds me of a strange adventure of mine. I realized just
>> some months ago that when I was younger, I made a real difference between
>> 'un' and 'in' (I really made a difference between 'brun' (brown) and 'brin'
>> (I don't know the word in English))
>
>"Sprig".
>
>> but I lost it and now can hear the
>> difference, but have difficulties to say it. Is it a consequence of the
>> evolution of French?
>
>Almost certainly.  The vowel /oe~/ as in "brun" is disappearing
>from the language and will probably be gone in 30-40 years as
>older speakers die off, making "brin" and "brun" exactly the same.
>There are almost no minimal pairs anyhow.  (This may not apply to
>Canadian French, I don't know.)
>
        As far as I know, Canadian French is very different to "French French" as
for pronunciation. As C. French is more conservative than F. French, I
wouldn't be surprised if the pair 'un'/'in' was conserved in Quebec.


>--
>John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
>        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
>        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
>                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)
>
>