Re: Questions and Impressions of Basque

--- Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

> > My wife (Ukrainian) says 'Gitler', and 'Gyugo',
> for
> > Hugo (Victor) (and 'Gavr' for the French port of
> Le
> > Havre).
>
> 'Gyugo'? Why not simply 'Yugo'?
Because there is an initial H (and more, its is a "h
aspire'"), therefore it must be a G :-)

>
> Unfortunately, to my ears, German and Swedish has
> each two quite distinct 'i'
> sounds, as does English. The vowels in the initial
> syllables of _Ihre_ and
> _Irre_ differ as much by quality as by quantity
> ([i:] vs [I]; approximately the
> same as English "feel" vs "fill"). If the Russian
> vowel is closer to the vowel
> of _Irre_, the connection doesn't really work at
> all.
I think I must have bad ears. To me, the difference
between "Irre" and "Ihre" is that the first one is
short and the secund one is long. I never bothered for
any other difference and never had the slightest
trouble (also, I learned German for 8 years at school
and nobody ever told me that there might be different
"i"s in German, except for length).

Of course, with English, everything is different.



=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


		
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