--- In cybalist@..., guto rhys <gutorhys@...> wrote:
>
> A German / Spanish historian friend of mine (the son of a Spaniard
who fled Francoist Spain to Germany and married a German woman) said
that one of the ways Germans tried to identify spies who had learnt
German perfectly was by causing them unxpected pain and seeing if
they said 'aw' or 'ai'. Or something similar. 'Ai' being used in
Spain and France, 'aw' /'ouch' in UK and Éire - what is used in other
areas?
Germans go "Aua", Danes say av! (aU?).
I have come accross other examples which are specific to certain
words which I can't remember now - I'll see if I can dig them up from
my memory or a book. One related example, possibly anecdotal (I am
aware that these fields provide ample space for anecdotes), is of a
German (pro-allies) spy being parachuted into France and ordering a
café au lait and being identified as a spy consequently - rationed
milk not being used in coffee - only dried milk or something similar.
Cultural rather than linguistic. This story is only vaguely
remembered.
Had he been English, he would be more likely to have given himself
away by saying /kafeIoUleI/ for /kafeole/. Native English speakers
can't seem to get rid of the glide. Even their dictionaries insist
that what I hear as eI, oU is really a:, o:.
Perhaps the one general rule is that if two phonemes in a foreign
languages are shibbolethic allophones in your own, you will
persistently choose one over the other, according to your own social
self-image, also in the foreign language. I don't (can't or won't)
distinguish between the vowels of "hot" and "hut" in English, since
they are respectively "low" and "high" Copenhagen varieties of /o/ in
Danish (I probably could if I took the time and energy to do it, but
somehow it doesn't "feel right".) Similarly I think that the choice
between glide and non-glide varieties in English is a choice between
standard English on the one hand and Irish and Scottish pronunciation
on the other. From my experience it seems to cause especially the
English mental anguish to "straighten" their glides, even when they
speak foreign. Perhaps you're hitting some ancient conflict deeply
buried in the collective past?
>
> Guto
>
>
Torsten