Re: Voice in Icelandic and English

Heill Haukur

From the American Engilsh, that I was taught in linguistics class,
the voiceless phonemes are f, t, p, and s. The voiced equivilents
are v, d, b, and z, respectively. Or

vl/v

f/v
t/d
p/b
s/z
sh/zh (s with small v over it and z with a small v over it - I
can't find the symbols on the character map)

l, m, n and r are also voiced in English, the j is also voiced as
in 'yell'. Remembering that these are phonemes not alphabetic
letters. I think that most of us in America are confusing phonemes
with letters.

Kveðja,
-Arnurdth

--- In norse_course@..., Haukur Thorgeirsson <haukurth@...> wrote:
> Just a thought.
>
> According to the phonetic description of Icelandic I was taught
> voice is phonemic in the following Icelandic sounds:
>
> j
> l
> m
> n
> r
>
> And as far as I can tell with English voice is phonemic in
> the following sounds:
>
> f
> t
> p
> k
> s
> sh
> ch
>
> It would seem that there is no overlap between the two languages!
> Sounds that occur as either voiced or unvoiced in Icelandic exist
> only in one variety in English - and vice versa.
>
> No wonder we're having trouble :-)
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur
>
> --
> Svá æ folkmýgi.