----- Original Message -----
From: "Danny Wier" <dawier@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: OT: baloney and cheese
> From: "Sarah Marie Parker-Allen" <lloannna@...>
>
> > Question: here (and in most of the places I've lived) there's a
difference
> > between the "a" sound in Iran and Iraq. The first sounds like the a in
> > "all" and the second like the a in "back" (which is why it's not really
> hard
> > for me now to remember the differences between them; it's not like they
> > really sound very much alike). I was just thinking that if the two
sounds
> > were really the same, it'd be even harder to tell the difference in
> everyday
> > speech.
>
> Both "a"-sounds are close to [A], because vowels next to /q/ in Arabic are
> backed, at least in Iraqi Arabic. Qatar is pronounced like Kotter for the
> same reasons.
>
> Vowels next to emphatic consonants lower or back in quality, which helps
to
> distinguish them from non-emphatics. In Modern Aramaic, if there's one
> emphatic in the word, the whole word becomes emphatic!
>
I pronounce Iran [Iran] and Iraq [Irak]. Qatar is [k@tA:].