This explains a lot.

I am not a linguist, so your terminology is new to me. I shall now use IPA
standards.

As was mentioned before, American school systems do not teach English using
linguistic concepts, and unless one were to enter a degree program, there
would never be a need to know them.

I appreciate the clarification and the new information.

-Lazarus

----- Original Message -----
From: "icelandstone" <chad@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 12:52 AM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: quick question on 1 norse word


> OK, OK.
>
> This is getting sort of strained.
>
> 'ár' as pronounced in Iceland today is /aur/. These are the standard
> IPA symbols and should be taken as such, except that the /r/ is
> devoiced. The orthographical convention 'á' is a true diphthong and
> should be regarded as such. The orthographical convention 'é' is NOT
> a diphthong but rather a modern way of writing the sounds /jE/
> (with /j/ being the palatal approximate (or 'framgómmælt hliðarhljóð'
> in Icelandic phonological terminology) and /E/ being the open-mid
> front lax vowel). This sound was written in Icelandic as 'je' for
> many years up until the spelling reforms of the early part of this
> century, cf. 'jeg er hjer' in older texts for modern 'ég er
> hér'. 'Ár' has not been pronounced with the /j/ glide since before
> Scandinavian broke off from Common Germanic, as can be seen in
> Danish/Norwegian 'år'. /jE/ as in the first person singular
> pronoun 'ég' only began to be pronounced with the glide a few
> centuries ago, cf. 'ek' in the fornkvæði or runic 'ek hlewegastiR'.
>
> The use of orthographic 'y' should never be used to describe the /j/
> glide in languages other than English. This is one of only a handful
> of languages using it for this purpose (French and Spanish being the
> others) and provides only confusion for the people seeing it. It
> cannot possibly be difficult for people to learn to use /j/ for this
> purpose. IPA exists for a reason, and is relatively simple to use,
> especially in broad transcriptions (those using / / and not [ ]).
>
> Best,
>
> Chad
>
>
>
>
> --- In norse_course@..., "Lazarus" <lazarus@...> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Selvarv Stigard" <selvarv@...>
> >
> > > I think Lazarus is trying to explain to other English-speakers,
> that
> > > Á sounds like "YA" and É sounds like "YE", which in standard
> American
> > > English would be considered to be a consonant and a vowel, not a
> > > diphthong. However, to my understanding, this is not quite
> right - É
> > > does sound like "YE" to us, but Á sounds more like "AW" - "ár"
> > > doesn't sound how "yar" would be said in English, but how "awr"
> would
> > > be said.
> > >
> > > -Selv
> >
> > Thank you. Yes, this is what I was saying.
> >
> > But to my Mid-Western accent, 'AW' doesn't sound anything like 'Á'
> and my
> > trying to pronounce it so would be incorrect.
> >
> > To illustrate:
> >
> > The Icelandic word "ár" to me sounds exactly like the Mid-Western
> word
> > "hour" with slightly rounded lips.
> >
> > When I listen to 'Á', I equate it with the vowel sounded
> in 'found', 'ouch',
> > 'plow' and 'kow-tow'.
> > The vowel sounded in 'paw', 'claw', 'saw' and 'pawn' does not sound
> to me
> > that way I've heard "ár" spoken. But then, I might have been
> hearing a
> > colloquialism that doesn't apply.
> >
> > I was not saying Old Norse "ár" sounded like "yar" but like
> slightly like
> > "yowr" (see above) though I think I can imagine it like "yawr" as
> sort of
> > like "yawn" or "y'all".
> >
> > -Lazarus
>
>
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
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