Re: THEORY: [i:]=[ij]? (was Re: Pronouncing "Boreanesia")

Dirk:
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Eric Christopherson wrote:
[...]
> > P.S. Another thing that really annoys me about this textbook, and others I
> > have seen, is that it uses the transcription /y/ for IPA /j/, and a few
> > other silly things that aren't the same as IPA. On top of that, my professor
> > calls *that* transcription system "the international phonetic alphabet"
> > which it is not, AFAICS (as far as I can see). *Fume!*
[...]
> Lest I sound too harsh, I should add that I'd take the lot of you
> (CONLANG subscribers) over the slack-jawed troglodytes that I usually
> have in my classes. (Wouldn't you all like to transfer to the
> University of Utah? :-) It's refreshing to see students (undergrads
> and HS in particular) who are engaged and interested in linguistics.
> You are a rare breed, indeed!
>
> Your instructor is definitely wrong in referring to this usage of <y>
> as part of the alphabet of the IPA, if that is indeed what he meant. I
> try to be very careful to distinguish between "international phonetic
> alphabet" and "the alphabet of the IPA (International Phonetic
> Association)"; the two phrases are not synonymous, but not everyone
> observes the distinction.
While Dirk is of course right that Eric's instructor is wrong (and
would have me fuming too), in defence of Eric's instructor it should
be remembered that the probability is that Eric's classmates are
comparable to Dirk's slack jawed troglodytes [which, based on my own
experience in teaching, should be glossed as "ordinary people,
common-or-garden average students"], and the instructor may be
striving to keep things simple even at the cost of being a bit wrong.
The average teacher of Lx, who does not have a class full of students
of the calibre of Conlang subscribers, has to choose between giving
priority to teaching the students *something*, even if it is wrong,
(which is good for students' morale), or giving priority to trying to
teach only what is reasonably right, even if as a consequence some
students fail to learn anything. Among Lx teachers I know, I'm
relatively unusual in inclining towards the latter strategy,
believing that it is better to know that you don't know something
than to think you know something (but which is in fact wrong).

--And.