(Surely you didn't think every language managed its vowels like
English?
Surely not. Being essentially entirely self-educated in linguistics and
writing systems, as well as being a dilettante, there are gaping holes in
my knowledge, so your asking is quite appropriate.
... Bearing in mind that English is just about unique among
Latin-script languages in its use of the vowel-letters: the Great Vowel
Shift affected only it).
Is that why English vowels are so different?
Some years back, my sister (also a native Engl. speaker) was studying
Italian intensively, and our parting greeting to each other was "take
care", but spoken approximately according to Italian rules of
pronunciation.
Regards,
--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
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