"y" and "r" (Uusisuom)

For the last and final time:

'y' in Uusisuom is pronounced like the 'oo' sound in the word 'bOOt'.
'u' in Uusisuom is pronounced like the 'oo' sound in the word 'fOOt'.

Is that not clear enough for everyone?

If someone here could help me with the phonetic symbols for those two
sounds, I would be most grateful.

PS: Lesson no.4 has already been posted on this list. Any
questions/comments?

PPS: I come from London, and my pronunciation of English is 'standard'.

Best wishes,
Daniel
daniel44@btinternet.com



----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond Brown" <ray.brown@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: "y" and "r"


> At 10:58 am +0100 30/3/01, And Rosta wrote:
> >Ray:
> >> But quite frankly I find the likelihood of mistaking English 'oo' in
'bOOt'
> >> for [y] rather than [u] surprising to say the least.
> >
> >Depends where Daniel's from.
>
> I think not.  Daniel is describing something he is touting as an
> _international_ auxiliary language.  Surely, anyone in their right mind
who
> is doing that is going to use forms which non-native speakers generally
> recognize as 'standard'.  I think few outside of the UK - and, indeed, not
> that many inside the UK - will know how /u/ is pronounced in Lancashire!
>
> If I'm reading a description of a language and it tells me that a sound, X
> (X = uninstantiated variable), is pronounced as X in Italian, it would not
> occur to me to think: "Does s/he mean the way it's pronounced in Lombardy,
> or is the Neapolitan sound or mayb the one they use in Sicily?"  I would
> assume, and I guess most others would, that it'd be the way an educated
> Italian speaking what most text books give as standard Italian.
>
> >In some places (e.g. Lancashire) Eng BOOT is
> >decidedly frontish, while in other places it is centralish but frontish
> >relative to FOOT.
>
> I'm well aware of that.  As you will see in my reply to Matt when he
> suggested that Daniel was thinking in terms of (Lowland) Scots, I'm also
> aware that high rounded font & central pronunciations are used for /u/ in
> the Scottish lowlands - and also, of course, in northern Ireland.  But it
> seems bizarre to me to describe a would-be universal language on a list
> with readers from around the world in terms of some regional British
> variant of English
>
> >Certainly John's earlier declaration that BOOT is [u]
> >in English seems rather americocentric (unlike J himself, of course).
>
> I hardly think so - it the standard RP sound also and, indeed, is IME
> normal thoughout Wales and southern England.
>
> In any case, it would seem that Daniel considers /U/ to be closer to
> Finnish /y/.   What British regional accent is that??
>
> Ray.
>
>
>
>
> =========================================
> A mind which thinks at its own expense
> will always interfere with language.
>                    [J.G. Hamann 1760]
> =========================================
>

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