In talks on video I heard people, possibly from the US, speaking.

It is well known that often the second "t" in "twenty" is dropped,
but I also observed a change in the first vowel. Often an [V] is
used instead of an [E], so it sounds as if written "twunny".
Has anyone else heard something like this?

And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a bit
voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh, gay!".
Has anyone else heard something like this?

- 25 is too expensive, what about 15?
- Oh, gay; twunny.

On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...
> In talks on video I heard people, possibly from the US, speaking.
>
> It is well known that often the second "t" in "twenty" is dropped,
> but I also observed a change in the first vowel. Often an [V] is
> used instead of an [E], so it sounds as if written "twunny".
> Has anyone else heard something like this?

I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A short e or a
schwa.

> And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a bit
> voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh, gay!".
> Has anyone else heard something like this?

I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"

>
> - 25 is too expensive, what about 15?
> - Oh, gay; twunny.

Nope.

Speaking as a Left Coaster.

/dps

--
"What do you think of my cart, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?
Well hung: curricle-hung in fact. Come sit by me and we'll test the
springs."
(Speculative fiction by H.Lacedaemonian.)

On Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:42:31 PM UTC-7, Snidely wrote:
> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...
> > In talks on video I heard people, possibly from the US, speaking.
> >
> > It is well known that often the second "t" in "twenty" is dropped,
> > but I also observed a change in the first vowel. Often an [V] is
> > used instead of an [E], so it sounds as if written "twunny".
> > Has anyone else heard something like this?
>
> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A short e or a
> schwa.

It sounds like a "short u" as in "funny" to me and to the American
Heritage people (second pronunciation). M-W gives the second
pronunciation with a schwa, but that's the same symbol they use
in "funny".

(Stefan can check dictionaries too.)

I would estimate that 90% of Americans pronounce it that way,
including me in casual speech.

> > And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a bit
> > voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh, gay!".
> > Has anyone else heard something like this?
>
> I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"

I've been hearing it from a small fraction of young people for fifteen
years or so. I happen to have a student now who does it. I suspect
that what sounds like a [g] to me is an unaspirated [k].

> > - 25 is too expensive, what about 15?
> > - Oh, gay; twunny.
>
> Nope.

Yep, but remove the comma.

> Speaking as a Left Coaster.

Big Square Stater (New Mexico).

--
Jerry Friedman

On 28/01/24 13:42, Snidely wrote:
> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...
>> In talks on video I heard people, possibly from the US, speaking.
>>
>> It is well known that often the second "t" in "twenty" is dropped,
>> but I also observed a change in the first vowel. Often an [V] is
>> used instead of an [E], so it sounds as if written "twunny". Has
>> anyone else heard something like this?
>
> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A short e or
> a schwa.

In NZ English, both "i" vowels in "fish and chips" are schwas, but for
some reason many Australians hear them as u sounds, and transcribe the
phrase as "fush and chups".

It looks to me as if many people hear a schwa as "u".

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 28/01/24 14:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:42:31 PM UTC-7, Snidely wrote:
>> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...

>>> And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a
>>> bit voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh,
>>> gay!". Has anyone else heard something like this?
>>
>> I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"
>
> I've been hearing it from a small fraction of young people for
> fifteen years or so. I happen to have a student now who does it. I
> suspect that what sounds like a [g] to me is an unaspirated [k].

There are two differences between g and k, the voicing and the
aspiration, but we have a tendency to hear only one of those, and which
one you hear depends on your native language and native dialect. Putting
this another way: there are four possible voicing/aspiration
combinations for the g/k sound, but all languages that I know enough
about only make a two-way distinction. If someone uses one of the
"unused" combinations, it can throw out your hearer's intuition.

I've noticed this very much from Chinese people speaking English. Native
English speakers hear the voicing, but for the same word Chinese
speakers will hear the aspiration, which can lead to confusion.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Peter Moylan wrote:

>> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A short e or
>> a schwa.
>
> In NZ English, both "i" vowels in "fish and chips" are schwas, but for
> some reason many Australians hear them as u sounds, and transcribe the
> phrase as "fush and chups".
>
> It looks to me as if many people hear a schwa as "u".

In the town where I used to live and work, the number five was
pronounced in a special way by many pupils. The word is "fem" with the
vowel of "help", but some pupils said "føm" with a vowel near the one in
"burst". It seems to me that this is a similar change.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Peter Moylan hat am 28.01.2024 um 08:09 geschrieben:
> On 28/01/24 14:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> On Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:42:31 PM UTC-7, Snidely wrote:
>>> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...
>
>>>> And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a
>>>> bit voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh,
>>>> gay!". Has anyone else heard something like this?
>>>
>>> I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"
>>
>> I've been hearing it from a small fraction of young people for
>> fifteen years or so. I happen to have a student now who does it. I
>> suspect that what sounds like a [g] to me is an unaspirated [k].
>
> There are two differences between g and k, the voicing and the
> aspiration, but we have a tendency to hear only one of those, and which
> one you hear depends on your native language and native dialect. Putting
> this another way: there are four possible voicing/aspiration
> combinations for the g/k sound, but all languages that I know enough
> about only make a two-way distinction. If someone uses one of the
> "unused" combinations, it can throw out your hearer's intuition.
>
> I've noticed this very much from Chinese people speaking English. Native
> English speakers hear the voicing, but for the same word Chinese
> speakers will hear the aspiration, which can lead to confusion.

As a good native English speaker you overlooked the gemination, also
called consonant lengthening.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemination>

As a native Italian speaker, I know g/k/gg/kk, but I had to learn the
hard way the importance of aspiration at the beginning of many German words.

During my very limited contact with Korean I discovered that the
voiced/unvoiced distinction is rather irrelevant to native Koreans, even
after 20 years in the US (anectodical evidence only), but they use
different letters to write unaspirated/aspirated/lengthened. Or so it
looked to me. The Wikipedia article I quoted offers a different
explanation for Korean at the end. (If I understand it right, they
suggest lenis/aspirated/fortis). Please ask a native Korean speaker you
can rely on.

No consonant lengthening in Irish, if I read carefully enough
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_phonology>. This article could be
helpful in your Irish studies.

On 28/01/24 20:36, Silvano wrote:

> As a good native English speaker you overlooked the gemination, also
> called consonant lengthening.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemination>
>
> As a native Italian speaker, I know g/k/gg/kk, but I had to learn the
> hard way the importance of aspiration at the beginning of many German
> words.

Good point. English does have some examples of gemination, but not many,
and native speakers are only marginally aware that they are doing it. A
good example where the gemination is conscious is in the word "solely".

> No consonant lengthening in Irish, if I read carefully enough
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_phonology>. This article could
> be helpful in your Irish studies.

Thanks for the pointer. I believe Old Irish had some geminate
consonants, but that feature has since disappeared.

An important feature of Irish pronunciation, mentioned in the article
you pointed to, is that all (most?) consonants come in two versions,
called broad and slender. In some cases, particularly 's' and 'mh', the
difference is obvious, but for most consonants I'll never get it right
because there's nothing comparable in English. When I had a similar
problem with French vowels, many years ago, I fixed it in a language lab
with equipment that played back a comparison between my pronunciation
and native speaker pronunciation -- that worked very well at the time --
but in the case of Irish I don't have the right equipment, and of course
I don't have any contact with native speakers.

Another important feature, not mentioned in that article, is that
consonants can be altered by two processes called lenition and eclipsis.
These are radical changes. Lenition is indicated in spelling by a
following 'h'. (As in Italian, 'h' is a modifier rather than a consonant
in its own right -- although as an Italian you might not see it that
way.) For example, 'm' is similar to an English 'm', but 'mh' sounds
more like [w] or [v], depending on whether it's broad or slender. (I
realise those as bilabials, but I think the native realisation varies
from one dialect to another.) Example: "mother" is "máthair" [mah@r],
but "my mother is "mo mháthair" [mA. wah@r]. In this case the m and mh
are broad because they're followed by a broad vowel.

(My transcriptions here are only approximate. Kirshenbaum IPA is good
for English, and I'm used to it, but it's hard to make it accurate for
other languages.)

Eclipsis, which happens only at the beginning of a word, is the complete
replacement of the initial consonant by a different consonant. (Luckily,
there is a pattern to this. For example, 'c' is only ever eclipsed by
'g'. At least, that's my impression so far.) The spelling convention is
that the eclipsed consonant continues to be written, but is silent. For
example, "Belfast" is "Béal Feirste", but "in Belfast" is "i mBéal
Feirste", where the B is silent.

Certain short words trigger lenition or eclipsis in the following word,
as "i" did in that example, but there's no way of knowing which words
will do it except case-by-case memorisation. Details like this leave me
wondering how native speakers of Irish ever learnt to speak their own
language.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 28/01/24 19:56, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>>> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A short e
>>> or a schwa.
>>
>> In NZ English, both "i" vowels in "fish and chips" are schwas, but
>> for some reason many Australians hear them as u sounds, and
>> transcribe the phrase as "fush and chups".
>>
>> It looks to me as if many people hear a schwa as "u".
>
> In the town where I used to live and work, the number five was
> pronounced in a special way by many pupils. The word is "fem" with
> the vowel of "help", but some pupils said "føm" with a vowel near the
> one in "burst". It seems to me that this is a similar change.

Interesting example, because it reflects something that also occurs in
English. In BrE and AusE the word "burst" uses what we call the "er"
vowel. In Kirshenbaum IPA it's written as [V"], which suggests that Evan
Kirshenbaum perceived it as a modified "up" vowel. But most American
writers call it a lengthened schwa.

I believe that AmE, or at least some dialects of AmE, does use that "er"
vowel, but it's just not perceived as being different from a schwa.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Peter Moylan hat am 28.01.2024 um 11:49 geschrieben:
> On 28/01/24 20:36, Silvano wrote:
>
> Another important feature, not mentioned in that article, is that
> consonants can be altered by two processes called lenition and eclipsis.
> These are radical changes. Lenition is indicated in spelling by a
> following 'h'. (As in Italian, 'h' is a modifier rather than a consonant
> in its own right -- although as an Italian you might not see it that
> way.)

On the contrary, you're quite right. In Italian, hotel and Otello (as we
write it) begin with exactly the same pronunciation.

> Certain short words trigger lenition or eclipsis in the following word,
> as "i" did in that example, but there's no way of knowing which words
> will do it except case-by-case memorisation. Details like this leave me
> wondering how native speakers of Irish ever learnt to speak their own
> language.

I don't know, but I know for sure that every baby (possibly with the
exception of deaf people) learns to speak their own native language
within a few years.

On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 12:09:26 AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 28/01/24 14:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:42:31 PM UTC-7, Snidely wrote:
> >> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...
> >>> And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a
> >>> bit voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh,
> >>> gay!". Has anyone else heard something like this?
> >>
> >> I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"
> >
> > I've been hearing it from a small fraction of young people for
> > fifteen years or so. I happen to have a student now who does it. I
> > suspect that what sounds like a [g] to me is an unaspirated [k].
>
> There are two differences between g and k, the voicing and the
> aspiration, but we have a tendency to hear only one of those, and which
> one you hear depends on your native language and native dialect. Putting
> this another way: there are four possible voicing/aspiration
> combinations for the g/k sound, but all languages that I know enough
> about only make a two-way distinction. If someone uses one of the
> "unused" combinations, it can throw out your hearer's intuition.
....

I think the Indo-Aryan languages have a four-way distinction, though
the Wikiparticle on Hindi says the supposedly aspirated voiced stops
are actually "murmured".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Consonants

That still leaves lots of Indo-Aryan languages. Maybe our Indian
contributors can enlighten us.

--
Jerry Friedman

On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 3:49:50 AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 28/01/24 20:36, Silvano wrote:
>
> > As a good native English speaker you overlooked the gemination, also
> > called consonant lengthening.
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemination>
> >
> > As a native Italian speaker, I know g/k/gg/kk, but I had to learn the
> > hard way the importance of aspiration at the beginning of many German
> > words.
> Good point. English does have some examples of gemination, but not many,
> and native speakers are only marginally aware that they are doing it. A
> good example where the gemination is conscious is in the word "solely".
....

They say it happens only at morpheme boundaries. A classic minimal pair
is "unaimed" and "unnamed".

--
Jerry Friedman

Peter Moylan wrote:

> Certain short words trigger lenition or eclipsis in the following word,
> as "i" did in that example, but there's no way of knowing which words
> will do it except case-by-case memorisation. Details like this leave me
> wondering how native speakers of Irish ever learnt to speak their own
> language.

The same way we all learn our first language. But some languages are
harder to learn than others - that is for people themselves. Danish is
one example.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Silvano wrote:

> I don't know, but I know for sure that every baby (possibly with the
> exception of deaf people) learns to speak their own native language
> within a few years.

But not equally fast. I can't find the article I once read, but it said
that at the age where Danish children know 80 words, Swedish children
know 120 words, and in another European country which I have forgotten,
they know 200.

That is the price we pay for our sloppy pronunciation.

--
Bertel, Denmark

On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 16:20:12 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen
<gadekryds@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

>Silvano wrote:
>
>> I don't know, but I know for sure that every baby (possibly with the
>> exception of deaf people) learns to speak their own native language
>> within a few years.
>
>But not equally fast. I can't find the article I once read, but it said
>that at the age where Danish children know 80 words, Swedish children
>know 120 words, and in another European country which I have forgotten,
>they know 200.
>
>That is the price we pay for our sloppy pronunciation.

I don't know if it referred to 5 and10 words, or as many
as 80 and 120 words, but I recall reading that babies who
are taught 'signing' learn signed-words faster than verbal
words -- compared to other babies, or compared to what
they learn if they are not deaf.

--
Rich Ulrich

On Sunday, Rich Ulrich exclaimed wildly:
> On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 16:20:12 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen
> <gadekryds@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>> Silvano wrote:
>>
>>> I don't know, but I know for sure that every baby (possibly with the
>>> exception of deaf people) learns to speak their own native language
>>> within a few years.
>>
>> But not equally fast. I can't find the article I once read, but it said
>> that at the age where Danish children know 80 words, Swedish children
>> know 120 words, and in another European country which I have forgotten,
>> they know 200.
>>
>> That is the price we pay for our sloppy pronunciation.
>
> I don't know if it referred to 5 and10 words, or as many
> as 80 and 120 words, but I recall reading that babies who
> are taught 'signing' learn signed-words faster than verbal
> words -- compared to other babies, or compared to what
> they learn if they are not deaf.

This may have to do with brain region allocation; in general, speech
and vision compete. Some of this is uncovered by studying
frontotemporal dementia. FTD is rare, and even rarer is when FTD
unleashes the inner artist. Most often, the left temporal component
reduces speech capability but it also affects the frontal lobes, which
is where control circuits can put the brakes on another region. FTD
patients often lose inhibitions against socially inappropriate
behavior, but for the artistic release patients, it appears the
combined losses disinhibit the dorsomedial occipital lobe, associated
with visual association.

In the deaf children, the left temporal region probably is less
allocated, and has lower inhibition of the DMO lobe. I am, of course,
speculating hear, but we know that in people who become deaf or blind,
the brain wiring changes its balance, and that in some brain damage
from injury the brain reassigns some regions to restore an important
function, so my speculation is not wildly contra what is known about
brain function. Someone has probably done functional tomography
comparing the deaf-and-signing children with
normal-hearing-and-speaking children, so you may be able to turn up a
paper confirming or refuting my speculation.

Relevant references from Scientific American, so you aren't limited to
my fumbling summary:
<URL:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-rare-form-of-dementia-can-unleash-creativity/>
<URL:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hearing-aids-may-lower-risk-of-cognitive-decline-and-dementia/>
I was able to read the first one online without signing in, but the
second one raised a paywall. I don't know if that was a "one free" or
if the first one is always free (SA does that with some articles).

If you prerfer to go to a library, it's the September 2023 issue, which
also has an article on criminal law and dementia ("The Dementia
Defense"), how LLM AI knows things it wasn't taught, and about giantism
in dinosaurs.

If you g-search "frontal lobe creativity", a lot of links turn to
psychology sources about how it works, and to links that try to teach
how to unleash your creativity.

/dps

--
Courage is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway.
Stupidity is the same.
And that's why life is hard.
-- the World Wide Web

On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 4:00:16 AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 28/01/24 19:56, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > Peter Moylan wrote:
> >
> >>> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A short e
> >>> or a schwa.
> >>
> >> In NZ English, both "i" vowels in "fish and chips" are schwas, but
> >> for some reason many Australians hear them as u sounds, and
> >> transcribe the phrase as "fush and chups".
> >>
> >> It looks to me as if many people hear a schwa as "u".
> >
> > In the town where I used to live and work, the number five was
> > pronounced in a special way by many pupils. The word is "fem" with
> > the vowel of "help", but some pupils said "føm" with a vowel near the
> > one in "burst". It seems to me that this is a similar change.
>
> Interesting example, because it reflects something that also occurs in
> English. In BrE and AusE the word "burst" uses what we call the "er"
> vowel. In Kirshenbaum IPA it's written as [V"], which suggests that Evan
> Kirshenbaum perceived it as a modified "up" vowel.

I think that in general, he wasn't going by his perceptions but trying to
provide an ASCII equivalent for how IPA is used to transcribe English.
The NURSE vowel is often transcribed ɜː (looks like 3:). For some
reason he wanted to use only A-Z for phones (maybe he was getting
them from the phone book), so what should he use? On a vowel
quadrilateral

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram#IPA_vowel_diagram_with_added_material

NURSE is only one link away from STRUT. ASCII IPA uses " to indicate
centralization, so V" was a reasonable choice. I think that if he'd written
it as a modified DRESS vowel or a modified schwa, he'd have had to
add a diacritical mark for "fronted" and one for "rounded".

I'm just speculating on his thoughts, though.

Is the RP "up" vowel really rounded?

> But most American
> writers call it a lengthened schwa.
>
> I believe that AmE, or at least some dialects of AmE, does use that "er"
> vowel, but it's just not perceived as being different from a schwa.

Certainly not by me.

--
Jerry Friedman

On 29/01/24 15:05, Jerry Friedman wrote:

>> In Kirshenbaum IPA it's written as [V"], which suggests that Evan
>> >Kirshenbaum perceived it as a modified "up" vowel.

> I think that in general, he wasn't going by his perceptions but trying to
> provide an ASCII equivalent for how IPA is used to transcribe English.
> The NURSE vowel is often transcribed ɜː (looks like 3:). For some
> reason he wanted to use only A-Z for phones (maybe he was getting
> them from the phone book)

:-)

or perhaps 3:)

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 29/01/24 15:05, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 4:00:16 AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 28/01/24 19:56, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A
>>>>> short e or a schwa.
>>>>
>>>> In NZ English, both "i" vowels in "fish and chips" are schwas,
>>>> but for some reason many Australians hear them as u sounds,
>>>> and transcribe the phrase as "fush and chups".
>>>>
>>>> It looks to me as if many people hear a schwa as "u".
>>>
>>> In the town where I used to live and work, the number five was
>>> pronounced in a special way by many pupils. The word is "fem"
>>> with the vowel of "help", but some pupils said "føm" with a vowel
>>> near the one in "burst". It seems to me that this is a similar
>>> change.
>>
>> Interesting example, because it reflects something that also occurs
>> in English. In BrE and AusE the word "burst" uses what we call the
>> "er" vowel. In Kirshenbaum IPA it's written as [V"], which suggests
>> that Evan Kirshenbaum perceived it as a modified "up" vowel.
>
> I think that in general, he wasn't going by his perceptions but
> trying to provide an ASCII equivalent for how IPA is used to
> transcribe English. The NURSE vowel is often transcribed ɜː (looks
> like 3:). For some reason he wanted to use only A-Z for phones
> (maybe he was getting them from the phone book), so what should he
> use? On a vowel quadrilateral
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram#IPA_vowel_diagram_with_added_material
>
> NURSE is only one link away from STRUT. ASCII IPA uses " to
> indicate centralization, so V" was a reasonable choice. I think that
> if he'd written it as a modified DRESS vowel or a modified schwa,
> he'd have had to add a diacritical mark for "fronted" and one for
> "rounded".
>
> I'm just speculating on his thoughts, though.
>
> Is the RP "up" vowel really rounded?

Certainly the AusE one isn't. I think there are parts of England where
"up" has a rounded vowel, but then it's a different vowel, and not the
one we're talking about.

But why the question? Evan's notation uses a period to show rounding.
I've heard that some dialects have a rounded NURSE, but that's probably
only in some small regions.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 9:29:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 29/01/24 15:05, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 4:00:16 AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >> On 28/01/24 19:56, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> >>> Peter Moylan wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>> I don't think I hear a u sound (short u to Americans). A
> >>>>> short e or a schwa.
> >>>>
> >>>> In NZ English, both "i" vowels in "fish and chips" are schwas,
> >>>> but for some reason many Australians hear them as u sounds,
> >>>> and transcribe the phrase as "fush and chups".
> >>>>
> >>>> It looks to me as if many people hear a schwa as "u".
> >>>
> >>> In the town where I used to live and work, the number five was
> >>> pronounced in a special way by many pupils. The word is "fem"
> >>> with the vowel of "help", but some pupils said "føm" with a vowel
> >>> near the one in "burst". It seems to me that this is a similar
> >>> change.
> >>
> >> Interesting example, because it reflects something that also occurs
> >> in English. In BrE and AusE the word "burst" uses what we call the
> >> "er" vowel. In Kirshenbaum IPA it's written as [V"], which suggests
> >> that Evan Kirshenbaum perceived it as a modified "up" vowel.
> >
> > I think that in general, he wasn't going by his perceptions but
> > trying to provide an ASCII equivalent for how IPA is used to
> > transcribe English. The NURSE vowel is often transcribed ɜː (looks
> > like 3:). For some reason he wanted to use only A-Z for phones
> > (maybe he was getting them from the phone book), so what should he
> > use? On a vowel quadrilateral
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram#IPA_vowel_diagram_with_added_material
> >
> > NURSE is only one link away from STRUT. ASCII IPA uses " to
> > indicate centralization, so V" was a reasonable choice. I think that
> > if he'd written it as a modified DRESS vowel or a modified schwa,
> > he'd have had to add a diacritical mark for "fronted" and one for
> > "rounded".
> >
> > I'm just speculating on his thoughts, though.
> >
> > Is the RP "up" vowel really rounded?
> Certainly the AusE one isn't. I think there are parts of England where
> "up" has a rounded vowel, but then it's a different vowel, and not the
> one we're talking about.
>
> But why the question? Evan's notation uses a period to show rounding.
> I've heard that some dialects have a rounded NURSE, but that's probably
> only in some small regions.

Never mind, I misread the chart. ɜ and the three vowels in English Evan
could have based his symbol on are all unrounded. So I don't know why
he picked STRUT rather than DRESS--but he had to pick one. To write
it as a modified schwa he'd have needed a symbol for fronting. (He could
also have picked some unused letter, probably capital.)

--
Jerry Friedman

Rich Ulrich wrote:

>>But not equally fast. I can't find the article I once read, but it said
>>that at the age where Danish children know 80 words, Swedish children
>>know 120 words, and in another European country which I have forgotten,
>>they know 200.
>>
>>That is the price we pay for our sloppy pronunciation.
>
> I don't know if it referred to 5 and10 words, or as many
> as 80 and 120 words, but I recall reading that babies who
> are taught 'signing' learn signed-words faster than verbal
> words -- compared to other babies, or compared to what
> they learn if they are not deaf.

I have read the same, and my youngest daughter practised it with her
second child. The mouth control comes later than the general muscle
control, so babies can sign before they physically can talk, and that is
what gives signing babies an advantage. They simply start learning
sooner.

--
Bertel, Denmark

* Jerry Friedman <edfd20da-03e5-48e1-a4d1-c582763add5an@googlegroups.com> :
Wrote on Sun, 28 Jan 2024 06:31:03 -0800 (PST):
> On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 12:09:26?AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 28/01/24 14:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> > On Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:42:31?PM UTC-7, Snidely wrote:
>> >> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...

[twenny? I wonder if Stefan has never heard "three fiddy" ]

>> >>> And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a
>> >>> bit voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh,
>> >>> gay!". Has anyone else heard something like this?
>> >>
>> >> I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"
>> >
>> > I've been hearing it from a small fraction of young people for
>> > fifteen years or so. I happen to have a student now who does it. I
>> > suspect that what sounds like a [g] to me is an unaspirated [k].
>>
>> There are two differences between g and k, the voicing and the
>> aspiration, but we have a tendency to hear only one of those, and which
>> one you hear depends on your native language and native dialect. Putting
>> this another way: there are four possible voicing/aspiration
>> combinations for the g/k sound, but all languages that I know enough
>> about only make a two-way distinction. If someone uses one of the
>> "unused" combinations, it can throw out your hearer's intuition.
> ...
>
> I think the Indo-Aryan languages have a four-way distinction, though
> the Wikiparticle on Hindi says the supposedly aspirated voiced stops
> are actually "murmured".
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Consonants
>
> That still leaves lots of Indo-Aryan languages. Maybe our Indian
> contributors can enlighten us.

Dingbat who will fill in on the alveolars seems to be missing, But I
don't recognize "Hindustani" --- which looks like a 19th century
abstraction and again I'm dubious like when you posted
https://web.stanford.edu/dept/linguistics/languages/hindi/Default.htm
last year, am probably blind (deaf) to nuance you are looking for and
dont follow the idea behind characterising a murmur.

Hindi and Urdu are distinct and I cannot see how they can be classed
together as a Lingua Franca. Hindi and Urdu sound different to me
precisely because of the different way the speakers treat their
consonants, and the same is true of other north indian lanaguages.
"Tughlak" is one word that brings out the g/k stops in one word, the and
stops in words like these (borrowed) are often exaggerated for effect
(by the hindi speaker say perhaps to imitate the urdu speaker)

I learnt the rules of sandhi when being taught to recite classical and
vedic sanskrit, and could generally identify the doubling patterns (n
etc.) when I come across them in the Indian languages I encounter -
north or south. (the laxness of distinction in my own diction with is
in the the aspirated palatals c and j)

In article <up7d0o$b8o2$1@dont-email.me>,
gadekryds@lundhansen.dk says...
>
> Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
> >>But not equally fast. I can't find the article I once read, but it said
> >>that at the age where Danish children know 80 words, Swedish children
> >>know 120 words, and in another European country which I have forgotten,
> >>they know 200.
> >>
> >>That is the price we pay for our sloppy pronunciation.
> >
> > I don't know if it referred to 5 and10 words, or as many
> > as 80 and 120 words, but I recall reading that babies who
> > are taught 'signing' learn signed-words faster than verbal
> > words -- compared to other babies, or compared to what
> > they learn if they are not deaf.
>
> I have read the same, and my youngest daughter practised it with her
> second child. The mouth control comes later than the general muscle
> control, so babies can sign before they physically can talk, and that is
> what gives signing babies an advantage. They simply start learning
> sooner.

My granddaughter went to "baby signing" class,round
about 6 months, and eagerly acquired the sign for "Don't"
which she made strong use of long before she could say any
words at all.

Janet

On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 11:33:15 PM UTC-7, Madhu wrote:
> * Jerry Friedman <edfd20da-03e5-48e1...@googlegroups.com> :
> Wrote on Sun, 28 Jan 2024 06:31:03 -0800 (PST):
> > On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 12:09:26?AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >> On 28/01/24 14:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >> > On Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:42:31?PM UTC-7, Snidely wrote:
> >> >> On Saturday or thereabouts, Stefan Ram asked ...
> [twenny? I wonder if Stefan has never heard "three fiddy" ]
> >> >>> And then, there is a fast way to say "ok", where the "k" is a
> >> >>> bit voiced, so it sounds as if someone is quickly saying "Oh,
> >> >>> gay!". Has anyone else heard something like this?
> >> >>
> >> >> I don't think I've ever heard that. I often hear and use "Kay!"
> >> >
> >> > I've been hearing it from a small fraction of young people for
> >> > fifteen years or so. I happen to have a student now who does it. I
> >> > suspect that what sounds like a [g] to me is an unaspirated [k].
> >>
> >> There are two differences between g and k, the voicing and the
> >> aspiration, but we have a tendency to hear only one of those, and which
> >> one you hear depends on your native language and native dialect. Putting
> >> this another way: there are four possible voicing/aspiration
> >> combinations for the g/k sound, but all languages that I know enough
> >> about only make a two-way distinction. If someone uses one of the
> >> "unused" combinations, it can throw out your hearer's intuition.
> > ...
> >
> > I think the Indo-Aryan languages have a four-way distinction, though
> > the Wikiparticle on Hindi says the supposedly aspirated voiced stops
> > are actually "murmured".
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Consonants
> >
> > That still leaves lots of Indo-Aryan languages. Maybe our Indian
> > contributors can enlighten us.
>
> Dingbat who will fill in on the alveolars seems to be missing, But I
> don't recognize "Hindustani" --- which looks like a 19th century
> abstraction and again I'm dubious like when you posted
> https://web.stanford.edu/dept/linguistics/languages/hindi/Default.htm
> last year, am probably blind (deaf) to nuance you are looking for and
> dont follow the idea behind characterising a murmur.

It's apparently a "breathy" or "whispery" way of making the sound. See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathy_voice

for technical and controversial details. I hope it's more useful to you
than it is to me.

> Hindi and Urdu are distinct and I cannot see how they can be classed
> together as a Lingua Franca. Hindi and Urdu sound different to me
> precisely because of the different way the speakers treat their
> consonants, and the same is true of other north indian lanaguages.

The claim (in Wikipedia, for example) is that Hindi and Urdu are mutually
intelligible. I have no opinion on that.

> "Tughlak" is one word that brings out the g/k stops in one word, the and
> stops in words like these (borrowed) are often exaggerated for effect
> (by the hindi speaker say perhaps to imitate the urdu speaker)

So does either have all four combinations of voiced or unvoiced and
aspirated or unaspirated? Or does that depend on the nuance of
aspirated versus "murmured"?

> I learnt the rules of sandhi when being taught to recite classical and
> vedic sanskrit, and could generally identify the doubling patterns (n
> etc.) when I come across them in the Indian languages I encounter -
> north or south. (the laxness of distinction in my own diction with is
> in the the aspirated palatals c and j)

That sounds difficult.

--
Jerry Friedman