Heill Haukur!

In Norway too, the length of the vowel is determined by
the number of vowels following. I didn't know
it was that way in MI too.

Example:

brønn - the ø is short, because of the double n following it.
brun - the u is long because it is not followed by a double consonant.
bratt - short a
prat - long a.
kratt - short a
krater - lonng a.

What strikes me when I hear Norwegians singing Norwegian songs,
is that 1) I can understand the words - as clearly as if it was read
from a book. 2) What I hear isn't distorted in any way.
The words always match the music. After all, they were made for each other :)

However, if American singers (example: soprano) sing Norwegian
songs (e.g. Grieg), I often just hear a beautiful song, but it
isn't clear what story the words are telling.

>The length of vowels and consonants
>is important and should not be ignored.
>I will illustrate with an example.
>
>In modern Icelandic we distinguish between
>a and á in the following manner. The first is
>always pronounced [a] or [a:] and the second is
>always pronounced [au] or [au:]. The : denotes a
>lengthening of the sound - in MI a vowel is
>long if there is only one consonant following
>it, otherwise it is short.

So the language has compensated for the loss of the significance
of length. It wanted to keep the number of phonemes unchanged,
and had to make some of the vowels into diphtongs for that reason.

>In the theoretical reconstructed pronunciation
>of ON the difference between a and á is not in
>quality (type of sound) but in quantity (length
>of sound). Thus a is always pronounced [a]
>(never [a:]) and á is always pronounced [a:]
>(never [a]). The length of the vowel does not
>depend on the number of following consonants.
>
>Below I have listed four different words with
>four different meanings. They should all be
>clearly distinguished in pronunciation, whether
>modern or reconstructed.
>
>Word RP MI Meaning
>
>satt [sat:] [saht] true
>sátt [sa:t:] [sauht] content
>sat [sat] [sa:t] sat
>sát [sa:t] [sau:t] sitting
>
>Can you do it?

Well, I have difficulties with the double consonants
because I have a tendency to pronounce them twice.
If "t" is pronounced "teh", then "tt" becomes pronounced
a little bit like "teh-teh".
For me the "t" is always short, because it is a little
like spitting - not exactly in sound, but in the abruptness
of the tongues motion.

But maybe the double t should be more like the hissing of
a ballon or a car tyre running out???
Með kveðju,
Ketill