Re: YASPT

Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>:

> At 13:50 9.12.2003, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > > >My mother's West Gautic dialect has it too.
> > >
> > > You mean the distinction or the merger?
> >
> >The distinction.
> >
> >She and my brother once had a delicious argument whether _fem_ "five" and
> >_hem_ "home" rhyme, problem being that they failed to notice she's saying
> >[fEm]
> >and [hem], he's [fEm] and [hEm].
>
> Actually they both have /e/ [e] for me.
Happen to know what they etymologically should have?

An old textbook I used to use back in high school listed _fem_ as a word that
ought to be spelt with "ä", which kind of supports my mother's usage, but that
book's been proven wrong on other points, so I don't trust it particularly
blindly.

                                                            Andreas

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