Re: [tied] Re: Pronunciation of "r" - again?

From: Andrew Jarrette
Message: 41269
Date: 2005-10-11



glen gordon <glengordon01@...> wrote:


> But all other Indo-European languages changed the
> sound /w/ in initial position.

That's a bold absolute, dontchathink? Beware of
absolute statements off the cuff.

 

Okay, I'm learning how to write in this group.  I realize now that just about everything I think and submit to this group is an erroneous statement with overgeneralization, even though I'm not aware of it when I am writing it.  I realize that I must couch everything I say with qualifications and restrictions and particularities (as though I should know all possible knowledge about all languages - no offense intended).  Well, my only apology is that I am not as experienced nor as knowledgeable as most of the regular members who write frequently on this site - yet as you can see I still have opinions, inaccurately informed as they might be.  At least by your corrections you fellows are educating me.

But I really can't think of a standard language in the Indo-European family other than English that preserves /w/ unchanged in initial position (excluding mutated /gw/>/w/ in Welsh), that's why I made that bold emotional statement.

To add to the ante, I am certain that my grandmother
pronounced "w-" as /w/ when she spoke Swedish, not
/v/. I don't know whether this is because that was
the thing to do if you were a Minnesota Swede or
whether she picked up this habit from her own parents
who migrated to the US from Stockholm around 1900.

 

Interesting.  But I suspect that as education and standardization continues to increase worldwide, such significant divergences from the standard pronunciation are probably decreasing over time. 

Andrew



      
           
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com