Re: The Portuguese sound /a~w/ (ão)

From: tgpedersen
Message: 48775
Date: 2007-05-29

> --- "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> > Is there another language with nasal diphthongs like
> > Portuguese?
> >
> > examples:
> > lea~o /lea~w/ "lion"
> > leo~es/leo~ys/ "lions"
> > ma~e /ma~y/ "mother"
> >
> >
> >

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> Some forms of Spanish have them --e.g. some Caribbean
> regional and class accents where final /n/ first
> becomes velar and then disappears nasalizing the
> preceding vowels
> Gaelic and Basque final palatal nasals problably
> nasalize preceding vowels but I'm not a phonetics
> expert
>
Several Danish dialects according to Brøndum-Nielsen, esp Fyn +
Lolland-Falster:
"
Dental n (ODa. nn, nd, tn) is lost with nasalization of preceding
vowel (in general in the whole area), in EF and SF developing a
j-sound in monosyllables ...
EF må~?j, mã?j ..., SF må~:j, WF mÕ? "man" [standard mand /män?/],
EF vå~?j, vã?j, SF vå~:j, WF vÕ? "water" [standard vand /vän?/],
EF dø~?j, SF dø~j, WF dø~?j "mire, mud" [standard dynd /døn?/],
kæ~: "know; knew" [standard kende /ken&/, kendte /kend.&/],
EF dæ~?j, SF dæ~j, WF dæ~? "the; that; it" m. [standard den /den?/]
After u, n is preserved in EF and SF:
EF mu~n?, SF mu~n, (WF mu~?) "mouth" [standard mund /mån?/],
EF bu~n?, SF bu~n, (WF bu~?) "bottom" [standard bund /bån?/],
...
"
but also in part in southeast and western Sjælland, Himmerland in
Jutland, in Hads herred south of Århus and Vensyssel further with -n >
-j (-Vn > -V~j).

My phonetics teacher, Eli Fischer-Jørgensen, who came from northwest
Fyn herself, used to say that there was no reason to look to French
for nasal vowels, since they only had four of them.


Torsten