From: konrad_oddsson
Message: 2882
Date: 2003-03-31
> Well, first of all, I disagree that Norwegian åCorrect. Have a look at the arrangement of vowels in the description
> is necessarily nasal. It *can* of course be pronounced
> nasally, but so can other letters too, that aren't
> inherently nasal.
> Good examples of nasal vowels are found for exampleOld Norse has both a nasal and a non-nasal variety of long 'ao'.
> 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.
> To me nasal seems to mean a constriction in theYes. Have a look at Old Norse words printed with 'á' and try to
> 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.
> Guttural constrictions are quite unnecessarySee the description of vowels in the 'vowel-system'. I choose not to
> (and wrong in my opinion).
>
> Hooked o was variously written as a/, as av or as au.
> But it wasn't a diphtong, but rather an umlaut.Yes.
> Therefore, one should be able to determine itsYes.
> 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)
>
> Xigung