Heil allt!

This is an interesting phenomenon, and one that causes English speakers no end of
strife when learning new languages. The problem arises from changes in vowels in
the historical development of English. Old English used to have that primary
distinction between long and short vowels based on quantity, but in the development
towards Modern English, this distinction changed to one of quality. For example, OE
'á' became the modern 'oo' sound (se máne > moon; tvá > two), which is actually two
steps, first from a long (quantity) 'a' sound, then a long (quantity) 'o' sound,
then to a long (quantity) 'u' sound (although in this case, the distinction remains
one of quantity, there is also a change of quality as well). The difference between
'can' and 'cane' shows the development of long 'æ' (ash), which has produced a
sound more or less similar to ON 'ei'. Note this is also a diphthong (a combination
of vowels), a change in quality rather than quantity. Other examples are: OE 'ú' >
'ou' in spelling, but 'au' in pronunciation (ie. OE cú > ModE cow; OE þú > ME thou,
etc.); OE 'í' > 'i' in spelling, but 'ai' in pronunciation (ie. OE 'íc' > ModE 'I';
OE mín > ModE mine), and so forth. Thus, what used to be a distinction based on
vowel quantity is now based on vowel quality, and this is what we get taught in
school as long vowels, which doesn't work with any other language. That being said,
there are quantitative distinctions in English vowels, but these are not what we
get taught are long vowels (nor does spelling necessarily demonstrate regular
patterns for them, nor is there necessarily any grammatical relation between them -
ie. 'rid' vs. 'read' or 'reed'; 'rod' vs. 'road'; and the old favourite 'book' vs.
'boot').

Interestingly, Icelandic has undergone a similar process, but in a much more
limited way. For example, OI 'á' and 'é' have gone from being pure vowels in the
medieval period to 'au' and 'ie' (in pronunciation, they are still spelled the
same) in the modern language.

Hope this clears up some of the confusion!

Dan

Louis Erickson wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 tsdoughty@... wrote:
>
> > > To me, however, the vowel in 'boot' is clearly _longer_ (different in
> > >quantity) from the one in 'book'. Native English speakers don't seem to
> > >notice that difference - yet, to my ears at least, they produce it
> > >accurately every time they utter the words.
> >
> > Wow, you nailed the other _big_ thing that's made it very hard to master
> > pronunciation of ON/Icelandic! In English we are never taught the concept of
> > long vs. short vowels in terms of quantity. Every schoolchild when learning
> > to read is taught "long" vowels (cane) vs. "short" vowels (can), but in this
> > case it's a misuse of the terms, since it really means two totally different
> > vowels. We are actually unaware, as you point out, that the vowels take
> > longer to sound. And when I read that in many languages one has to pronounce
> > the vowels for a longer or shorter period of time, I was mystified. It took
> > me years to understand that concept, let alone hear the difference.
>
> Interesting; this is a difference that I haven't heard clerly. Do you
> know of anywhere that tries to explain it well?
>
> --
> Louis Erickson - wwonko@... - http://www.rdwarf.com/~wwonko/
>
> Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
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>
> - Keth
>
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--
Daniel Bray
dbray@...
School of Studies in Religion A20
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia

"The smarter someone's suit, the dirtier their soul," - Imogen Edwards-Jones