Re: OT: Icelandic help

Very true. Swedes normally hear [@] as any of [2 9 8 3\]
depending on which of those occurs in their dialect, and
English [u:] is often heard as that freak Swedish /8:/
[8_+_w], especially in /ju:/.

As for the Icelandic: I noticed Scotto heard the ð as [v].
No doubt because it is pronounced with lip rounding between
rounded sounds. In Faroese earlier /D/ has generally merged
with [v] or zero more or less along such lines.

But are you sure it is not _þessi gömlu góðu_ with ó
rather than ö?

And yes, Icedlanders normally speak very fast.  I had to say
"Gjerþu svo vel að tala hægara" all the time.  Probably they
didn't believe me because I pronounced it as

[,k_jEs:'vEl a't_ha:l 'hai)ra]

I'm too good a parrot, you see.

2008/5/5 Tristan McLeay <conlang@...>:
> Scotto Hlad wrote:
>  > Silly me, it never occured to me to look at the website
>  > itself. I see the phrase
>  >
>  > ÞESSI GÖMLU GÖÐU
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > which using the Univeristy of Wisconsin online
>  > dictionary is
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > That old good.
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > Looking at my phonetic transcription from before, it
>  > never ceases to amaze me that what I hear and what is
>  > being said can so often be so different particularly
>  > with vowels.
>
>  If it's any consolation American English doesn't have /9/
>  and /Y/ nor anything similar, and in the case of hearing
>  /9/ as /@/, the effect of lip rounding is much the same
>  as the effect of retraction (in AusE/NZE, original [3:]
>  has become more like [2:] as original [u:] has become
>  more like [y:] --- no point in having two strategies to
>  achieve the same ends).
>
>  And in Icelandic, the sounds written with voiced stops
>  are, initially, actually voiceless unaspirated stops
>  (although in English they're very frequently voiceless
>  too, but maybe not in your dialect?).
>
>  --
>  Tristan.
>


--
/ BP

Replies