>>szarka ['sOrkO] with [O] as in BE <lot, not, hot>.
>
>I'd been meaning to ask you about your use of [O] here,
>since practically every source I have gives [A.], which is
>also what I've heard on the few occasions when I've been
>exposed to the language.
In standard Hungarian, <a> [O] is almost 100% the same
as the vowel which is transscribed either with the
inverted c or with the inverted italic a in IPA for BE.
I insist on BE, since in most of AE <lot, not, hot> would
be closer to [la:t, na:t, ha:t], which in turn, if
written in... Hungarian, would give <lát, nát, hát>, and
by no means <lat, nat, hat> [incidentally: lát "he/she
sees/is seing"; hát "1. back(side); 2. well! why!";
hat "six"]
The rule is simple and strict at the same time:
whenever you see <a> the pronunciation will be [O] or, in
IPA, [inverted-c] or [inverted-italic-a]. Whenever you
see <á> (accent égu), it'll be [a:], with an [a] as long
as in German Bundesbaaaaaaaaahn, Autobaaaaaahn or in BE
aaaaaaafter.
As for the relationship Rum. ['tzark&] and Hung. ['sOrkO],
I don't know whether it is or it isn't important for the
Romanian language whether the loanword in its original
Hungarian variant has an [a:] or an [O]. I don't know
the rule (I can't make a list with all the cases at
this moment :-)). But methinks it works: [O] > [a]
(a further example is marha ['mOrhO] "cattle" > regional
Rum. marhã ['marh&]).
>But I think that you've just explained the difference:
>I'd use [A.] for the vowel of RP-like <lot, not, hot>,
>though I've heard higher, closer variants on occasion.
Hungarians themselves also have variants, although the
differentiations by far aren't as numerous and...
various as, say, in German (esp. in dialects such as
Bavarian+Austrian, Saxon (of Dresden-Halle-Leipzig) and
Low German (esp. in places such as the regions of
Hamburg, Bremen). Curious variants are also to be heard
in the Hungarian subdialect of the dwindling populace
of western Moldavia (these perhaps because of the in-
fluence of the dominant Romanian language).
As for Romanian (I mean the so-called DacoRomanian
dialect), it is -IMHO- important to know that only
the central, western and south-western (to a lesser
extent the eastern (Moldavian)) native-speakers also
have the [O] vowel. In the southern and south-eastern
regions (Oltenia and Muntenia + Bucharest) this vowel
is not existent (or it has been replaced by the
diphtong [oa; wa] long ago, perhaps in the middle
ages. The same relationship is valid, incl. geogr'lly,
in the case of [æ] versus [ea] as a diphtong.
>Brian
George