Re: OT: Slightly OT: French as a second language

On 22 Nov, Josh Roth wrote:

> In a message dated 11/21/01 5:14:01 PM, dnsulani@ZAHAV.NET.IL writes:
> [snip]
> >Not to mention all the word _initial_  /h/'s that don't get pronounced
> >in
> >Israeli Hebrew! Or the final "alephs", or final " 'ayin"s that most
people
> >here don't pronounce! It probably _does_ make sense, using to the
> >pronounciation that existed at the time the spelling (of which dialect?)
> >was codified.
>
> Is it just initial /h/? What about medial? Final "he" not being pronounced
> doesn't bother me, since that was never pronounced anyway (except when it
has
> a dagesh), but just used to indicate the feminine /a/ ending. The other
cases
> bother me though ... both the Ashkenazic and the Sephardic pronunciations
> traditionally included /h/ right? Then again ... there have been many
> immigrants who spoke Spanish and Russian, neither of which has /h/...
    AFAIK, Russian doen't allow word-initial [h]. When confronted with
such a word, a Russian speaker usually substitutes [g] (or, IIRC, sometimes
[x])
for the initial [h].
    When they learn Hebrew, they also do this: for example, "ha-more"
(= the teacher) would come out [gamore], whereas native Israelis would
say something closer to [amore], dropping the initial [h].
It's very curious: one would expect that, hearing no initial [h], no initial
/h/ phoneme need be inferred and no [g] for [h] substitution need be made.
Yet, they _do_ make that substitution. It would appear that they are
analyzing the language's phonemes according to the _written_ form of the
words!
    Perhaps, as they learn the lang, they are concentrating more on the
written form
than on the spoken form.
    I have seen kids (native Hebrew speakers) in the lower grades,
after an intense reading session, continue to make "reading mistakes"
in their _spoken_  lang, even though
they ordinarily speak perfectly, without mistakes. It's as if they're
reading their
thoughts from some internal cue-card! This effect gradually wears off,
though,
and they usually return to their normal speech competency. Weird!
    I'm not sure what Spanish speakers do with word-initial /h/. IIRC, they
are likely to substitute [x] for [h], but don't quote me on this.
I'll have to go out and carefully listen to them. [Ahh, an excuse for
field-work! :-) ]
I do know that Spanish speakers tend to drop word-final consonants,
no matter what they are.
    A Hebrew speaker with a strong Spanish accent can be very difficult to
understand, at least for me.


Dan Sulani
------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.