USAGE: French nasal vowels

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.)

--
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)