Heill Paul,

Indeed, that's something I noticed some time ago. I'm not sure if it works for a British accent, but in Australian "work", "word", "fir" and "furnace" may as well be spelled "wøk" (or perhaps "wök", although the disappearance of the r tends to lengthen the vowel, so ø is better than ö (or should it be œ for the long form?)), "wød", "fø" and "fønace". It seems the missing r produces the fronting necessary to turn a back vowel+r into ø.

BTW, apologies, Sarah, for dropping out of the Böðvarr translation. I've been very busy with my thesis and moving house, as well. I just haven't had time to catch up, but I hope I will be able to catch up soon.

Kveðja,

Dan

Paul Strawson wrote:
Actually, it is possible to pronounce skjótøx as "skyohterks" in most Australian dialects and achieve a fair approximation of the 'ø' sound as we don't pronounce the 'r' in words like "work", "word", "fir" or "furnace". Any other Australian members willing or able to confirm this? I'll leave it strictly up to you academics from now on!
 
Paul
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 12:15 PM
Subject: [norse_course] RE:Work-Werk-W[ue..]rk

Sorry. There's a basic axiom that one must FIRST read a
question - and THEN attempt to answer it.
The question was:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, if I follow what's written below, does this mean skjótøx would be
written (very roughly) as "skyohterks" by a native English speaker or
writer?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The answer is - No - you don't want to do that because Arny doesn't
say "w-er-k" (as you or I would)- I'm saying that he says "w[ue..]rk".
This means that "-er-" does not equate, at all, with "-[ue...]-".

I don't think that anyone would like to see a transliteration of
skjótøx since ø does not correspond with any letter - or group of
letters - in the English language. Also, English, the spelling of
which being obfuscated beyond the comprehension of mortal man, does
not offer us much opportunity for non-ambiguous representations of
words that, we would like to think, have very specific pronunciation.

Still, I've heard of a guy by the name of Goebbels. I also know of a
guy by the name Göring - which is often transliterated into "standard"
English spelling as Goering.  This means that, in German, oe = ö which
is also the sound made in ø. All the same, if one is not AWARE of the
convention - then its not worth much to the reader. With this in mind,
transliteration is of little use and you might as well write out
"skjótøx" for all the good that "skyohteox" would do you. 

Raymond


-----Original Message-----
From: Lewis, Raymond J.
To: 'norse_course@yahoogroups.com'
Sent: 6/13/2003 10:28 AM
Subject: [norse_course] RE:Characters

No - be careful. The representation I gave has to be kept strictly
in context.
Arnold Schwarzenegger says "it doesn't w[ue...]rk that way."
And that [ue...] represented the sound that I'm saying is SOMETHING
like the sound associated with the symbol ø. If you want to use the
word skjótøx, in its written form, within a document for English
speakers, it should be acceptable to use it without any modification
of the symbols as long as you change the font to put it in italics to
indicate its forein origin.
If the SOUND of the thing is troubling you, you should know that the
description is only VERY loosly correct. The English word written as
"work",
is better described by "wrk". But there's no vowel - you
say?  Well, the letter w serves in that capacity. However, Arney
has no sound in his native language that matches up with the u-like
vowel in our double-u. The best he can do is to say "vuerk" and
clip the v-sound off as best he can - which results ends up with that
[ue..] sound. However, here's the depressing part. That [ue..]
sound would be better represented, within the Old Norse language, by
the symbol y. Now, we are really moving into confusing territory -
particularly when we turn to your original question. For this reason,
as well as others - it may not be such a good idea to mess around
with the symbols used.

Raymond

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Strawson
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 6/13/2003 3:26 AM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: An answer for Mark Grass

OK, if I follow what's written below, does this mean skjótøx would be
written (very roughly) as "skyohterks" by a native English speaker or
writer?

Regards,

Paul Strawson


sk = [sk] in [sk]ull
j = [y] in [y]ellow
ó = [ow] in [ow]n
for t and x - use what you are accustomed to in daily English speach.

However, ø is the tough one. Yet, we all know a guy by the name of
Arnold Schwarzenegger and he says a great many things in English that
are clearly spoken with his native accent.  For instance, he says,
"it doesn't work that way" - but it comes out "it doesn't w[ue...]rk
that way". You see, he simply massacres that o in the word "work"
because he

just can't help it!
Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to take that ø in
skjótøx'
and just
smear the hell out of it - as if you, yourself, were Mr. Schwarzenegger.
If
you
can get that - then you would be close enough.

If you don't get it right - who really cares!  Remember how much Arnold
gets
paid
to totally massacre "standard" British/American pronuciation. No dead
vikings will be
rising up from their graves to question you on your pronunciation or
inappropriate
choices.

Raymond

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Grass
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 6/10/2003 4:34 PM
Subject: [norse_course] thanks again

Thanks again everyone. Even though so far all I seem
to have managed is start a rather large argument and
just barely got the pronounciation for a name I would
like. As well as be insulted, called a hick, and had
implied that I oughta know some other language just
because I live in America. Well guess what people.
America's official language is english. I live in the
Northeast and thats all they teach up here. We aren't
taught spanish and we aren't taught german. We don't
learn a pile of languages that noone in the area
speaks. I myself am one of the few people who doesn't
work in a wire mill. I may not be the most educated
bloke on the block but I know enough to know I ain't
gonna find out what I need here. Thanks again though.
Snaebjorn Haakonsson


A Norse funny farm, overrun by smart people.

Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/

To escape from this funny farm try rattling off an e-mail to:

norse_course-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com


Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

-- 
Daniel Bray
dbray@...
School of Studies in Religion A20
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946)