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Re: German Spelling Reform (fwd)

From:dirk elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...>
Date:Monday, August 9, 1999, 22:37
On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:

> On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, dirk elzinga wrote: > > > Well, it kind of is pronounced. I've noticed definite nasalization of > > the final vowel of Dutch infinitives and plurals in -en. It may not be > > an alveolar nasal as the orthography might suggest, but there is > > something there! > > Depends on the region - in my speech (cultured Noord-Holland) it's > just a shwa, in northern speech it's just the /n/ (realized as [m] > after labials). That is, I say ['lop@], they say ['lopm] with an > almost syllabic /m/. > > I've noticed that our kids (five and almost four) go through periods > of using the -n for emphasis, a habit that they probably picked up > from their grandmother, who is a retired schoolteacher. > > Irina
I suppose it also depends on the generation then. My mother, who is from Amsterdam, has a nasalized schwa or a schwa-n sequence. However, I seem to recall that when I was in the Netherlands as an exchange student, the prevalent pronunciation was as a nasalized schwa. Of course this could have a couple of explanations: 1) being a foreigner (in spite of my name!) people were careful to speak slowly and clearly, which might also include spelling pronunciation; 2) I was in Tilburg, which is a different dialect area from Noord Holland; 3) since most of my interaction was with other university students, the pronunciation of <-en> as nasalized schwa or as schwa-n might be part of an academic speech register. I don't know. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong (very likely!). Dirk -- Dirk Elzinga dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu "All grammars leak." http://www.u.arizona.edu/~elzinga/ -Edward Sapir