Re: My conlang Némalo
| From: | Joe <joe@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, June 8, 2004, 7:47 |
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Stephen Mulraney wrote:
>
>> W: like Dutch, German, Frisian
>>
>>
> I don't know what this sound is in Dutch or Frisian, but maybe you mean
> /v/. On the other hand, is German <w> actually /w/? Is it bilabilal /B/
> maybe? [I've been wondering about this for a while, in an attempt to
> figure out why Germans have the accent they do in English, when it comes
> to pronouncing English <w> and <v>, and why it's so rare to find a
> German without this accent feature]
>
Germans have no /w/. <w> is /v/(and <v> is /f/). It's often quite hard
to pronounce a letter you don't have. Hence Germans find it hard to
pronounce [T], [D], and [w](just as some English-speakers find it hard
to pronounce [x]. I was once watching a travel programme where someone
tried to simulate [x] by shouting when he got to it, and inserting an [h].)
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