Keth, are you sure you got this right? I'm hoping Haukur and Oskar will
comment on this, but you seem to be saying that in Norwegian a vowel is
pronounced short if it's before a double consonant (not vowel, I assume
that was a typo). This is not the impression of reconstructed Old Norse
that I got from Haukur/Oskar's message. I thought they were telling us
that a vowel can be long or short whether or not the consonant after it is
double or single.

Haukur, I think Oskar was trying to explain to me once that pre-aspiration
(/t:/ as /ht/) is the modern way of doing long consonants - is that
right? My impression of long consonants like [t:] from Japanese is that
we're supposed to keep our tongue in the stopped position for longer, not
make two stops. But maybe that's not how it works in Old Norse, because I
have trouble seeing how one could hear that the tongue was staying in the
"t" position for longer, unless the stop was always released in Old Norse ... ?

E-Ching


At 11:32 PM 2/9/2001 +0200, Keth wrote:

>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
>
>
>
>
>Sumir hafa kvæði...
>...aðrir spakmæli.
>
>- Keth
>
>Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
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