Re: nasals and 'a/ - av - au' in place of 'ao' or hooked 'o'

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "xigung" <xigung@...> wrote:

> Well, first of all, I disagree that Norwegian å
> is necessarily nasal. It *can* of course be pronounced
> nasally, but so can other letters too, that aren't
> inherently nasal.

Correct. Have a look at the arrangement of vowels in the description
of the 'vowel-system' - you will notice that there are no inherently
nasal vowels, only nasalized versions of them.

> Good examples of nasal vowels are found for example
> in French. I recall them as nasal especially if
> they are followed by an n. ("London" = Londres)
>
> Another point is that nasalised vowels seem to
> be something that is increasing in Norway.
> I don't recall them from before, but now you
> hear a lot of peple pronouncing å and og nasally.
> But it isn't necessary to pronounce them nasally.

Old Norse has both a nasal and a non-nasal variety of long 'ao'.

> To me nasal seems to mean a constriction in the
> opening between the back part of the tongue and the
> palate, so that the sound is forced upward into
> the nose. However, å may be pronounced simply
> by dropping the jaw and rounding the lips.

Yes. Have a look at Old Norse words printed with 'á' and try to
guess which ones were pronounced nasally - a fun exercise.

> Guttural constrictions are quite unnecessary
> (and wrong in my opinion).
>
> Hooked o was variously written as a/, as av or as au.

See the description of vowels in the 'vowel-system'. I choose not to
include the spelling 'a/-av-au' for hooked 'o' because I felt that
it might create confusion with the diphthing 'au', which could also
be spelled 'a/-av-au' - instead, I discussed the other common ways
of spelling the sound: 'ao' and hooked 'o'. Interestingly enough,
both 'a/-av-au' and 'ao' contain an 'a'-element - revealing.

> But it wasn't a diphtong, but rather an umlaut.

Yes.

> Therefore, one should be able to determine its
> pronounciation if one knows the position of
> tongue, lips and jaw when one pronounces a and u.
> The hooked o is then simply found in an intermediate
> position.
>
> (at least, that is how I have understood it hitherto)

Yes.

Regards,
Konrad.

>
> Xigung