Re: German Spelling Reform (fwd)

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