Re: Umlaut

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 11:31:15PM +0200, Christian Thalmann wrote:
> That's not quite correct. Ä is [E:] and [E], ö is [2:] and [9],
> ü is [y:] and [Y].  Thus ö and ü have kept their height stable,
> suffering from some centralisation only when short.
Hm.  The way my German teacher pronounced it, ä was definitely
[e:] rather than [E:].

> German a is not [A] (that would be Swiss accent), it's closer
> to [a].
Hm.  I seem to be making that mistake a lot lately.

> Thus, fronting alone would have no effect.
Good point.  Though even if it were [A], the front/back distinction
([A]/[a]) isn't very pronounced for low vowels.

> BTW, in modern High German, [E:] is usually rendered as [e:],
> but that a much more recent development.
Ah!  Well, that'd explain Herr Kräven's pronunciation. :)

> Then again, modern High German has refined all its vowels to sound
> more posh and high-brow.
?  I don't really have any associations between particular vowel sounds
and "poshness" or "high-browness". :)

> For example, short /I/ often comes out slightly rounded, sometimes bordering
> on [Y].
Yeah, see, more pronounced rounding definitely doesn't connote "posh" for me.
What's the criterion there?  Posh == more Frenchlike? :)

> I remember a boy in a TV commercial for toilet air fresheners
> going to extremes:
> "Ein Klück, und alles üst früsch!"
Heh.  Maybe his goal is to be prepared for a kiss at a moment's notice? :)

> The consistency is simply a trend towards high front vowels,
> being triggered by endings containing i or e:  Hand -> Hände,
> Dame -> dämlich.  ):-D
Yes, I was just confused by my misunderstanding of the phonemes, since
it seemed like in one case the umlauted vowel was lower.

Danke schön für deine Hilfe.
(or something like that. :))

-Markus