Re: Tudrus

>>Better yet, [seɐ], with turned-a.
>
>Arggh. Make that [zeɐ].

Provided that Unicode (UTF-8) char. encoding is active (chosen). :)

****R Now that Arnie not governor anymore, maybe he can join in and be the "wordinator" --your examples of Austro-Bavarian sound just like his attempts to speak English.

OTOH, both transcriptions are valid! [seɐ] and [zeɐ]. The latter
is the High German (received) pronunciation. But in many (if not
most) dialects, the former is in use! Esp. in southern dialects,
there are innumerable people, even teacher of languages, who are
amazed if you tell them that initial s- followed by a vowel is
pronounced [z], at least in Hochdeutsch. "Nah" or "Nee", they'll
say, "das is' nich wahr!" :)

So, in High German writting, in order to show this kind of
pronunciation, one should write: ßehr, ßie, ßich, ßonne, ßuchen,
ßiegfried, ßilke, ßardinien, ßappalot/ßapperlot, ßaumagen,
ßolingen, ßeife, ßuper etc. :-) (Actually, there's virtually
no pronunciation ['zu(:)-p<schwa>], always ['su(:)-...].)

Especially in the Bavarian, Franconian and Suebian dialects
initial <s> followed by a vowel is always [s]. The pronunciation
[z] is perceived as influenced either by High German or as
a "sign" that that person is a northerner, from "Prussia" (as
a general, vague term; Austrians would call such people "Piefke").
Of course, [z] almost always goes hand in hand with other
peculiarities that are seen (heard) as "foreign" in those vast
dialectal areas.

In fact, it is difficult to put in written form that what's real
pronunciation - either the narrow transcription of High German,
and of dialects + subdialects, if one doesn't use IPA characters.

Here a sample of discussions at bav.wikipedia pertaining to

http://bar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stammtisch/Archiv/2007-1

writing in Bavarian, and some problems evolving due to the
fact that there are several sub"types" of Bavarian, both in
Bavaria and in Austria. Wikipedia people managed to arrive at
a kind of common rendering, but most contributors aren't ac-
customed to that, and most of them have individual "styles"
(most of them awkward). With the ubiquitous higly frequent
inversions of PTK vs BDG which doesn't signify anything, since
in most cases where BDG are written instead of Hochdeutsch
PTK the pronunciation keeps staying [ptk].

E.g. the written variants Schbezi, Schbui instead of Schpezi
and Schpui are unwarranted. Even <sch>. Because the
pronunciation is [Spetsi] and [Spuj], and writing them Spezi
and Spui (or Spuj) will do (nobody would read it otherwise
than Schpezi, Schpui - except for some areas around Hamburg
and in Schleswig-Holstein: <ßp> [sp].

Other (prominent) examples: Schwarzenegger; this <-gg-> is a
spelling chiefly used in Austria for Schwarzenecker; the
pronunciation is [k], not [g], in spite of writing <gg>. The
same applies to another famous name: Honecker; the "complete"
High German spelling would be (and *is* thousandfold) Hohenecker.
But it also has the varian Ho(h)(e)negger. (The same spellings
exist for most names based on <something>+eck(er).

NB: Most native speakers pronounce Flagge "flag" ['flakke]!
(Some pronunciations based on certain dialects, e.g. that in
Hesse, are even more outstanding in this respect.)

George