--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
wrote:
>
> -- This is so conspicuous among people of Indian (of India)
> origin who speak English, where "wife" is "vife" but "vowel"
> is "wowel". I have much firsthand experience of this, so my
> report is absolutely no exaggeration.
Actually they use the same sound in both instances, which is
a labio-dental approximant with velar co-articulation. As you
would have it above, Indians are capable of pronouncing both
sounds, but for some strange reason are switching them. :^)
English 'v' is labio-dental, but a fricative not an approximant,
while English 'w' is an approximant with velar co-articulation,
but bi-labial not labio-dental. This is why anglophones tend to
perceive the Indian 'v' as being somewhere between their own 'v'
and 'w'.
I watched a comedy skit on T.V. once in which a priest with a
speech defect was performing a wedding, and he pronounced all
of his 'r'-s, not 'v'-s, in the same way!
David