Re: The Importance of Length

Hello E-Ching! :)

You wrote:

>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.

Yes, it was a typo. See the marks below.
Am I sure I got it right? ...
Well, that is at least what I learned in school when I was around 6 years old.
And for me it is the most natural thing in the world.
But I cannot document it for you quite yet.
However, if you need documentation
(you are at Harvard, right?) I will certainly be able to
find it for you, since I can always ask the linguists that I know.

But when I think of it, it may indeed sound a bit strange to people used to
work with other languages. For example in Dutch. the rule is opposite.
In Dutch the long vowel is orthographically indicated by writing
a double vowel. Example:

gaan (Dutch "to go") - long vowel
gek ( "crazy") - short vowel.

[Den] Haag (city) - long vowel
hek (fence) - short vowel
hak (heel) - short vowel
haak (hook) - long vowel

There are some exceptions to this rule in Dutch,
e.g. maken (to make) - long vowel.
But here the a is "aan het eind van een lettergreep"
and then the vowels are long. [that's all elementary
that's why I can dash it down quickly]

In Old Norse "lengt" was a terribly important concept.
I am sure there exist many leaned dissertations written about
that topic. In modern Norwegian, length is however much
less important. That's why we have problems pronouncing
Old Norse words correctly, because we do not have the double
consonants combined with long vowels any more. But the combinations
are usually short/long or long/short. (always?)
The ortography has adopted to this and that is why we do not
use specific long vowels in our ortography. i.e. á é í ó ú ý
aren't there any more. Only a e i o u y + diphtongs + æ ø å.
But the long vowels are still in the speech. But we indicate them
by following them by a single consonant.

Keth

>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

Erratum: ^^^^^^ write "consonants" here.

>>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