I'm not getting your argument - you said:
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My point is that the Sequentia pronunciation is ALSO not
remotely a good example of what other people have been
talking about. Randomly pronouncing what should be the
same phone in different ways is not some "difference of
opinion" or "dialect variation". It's just plain wrong;
much like my recording of the warmonger's speech.
---------------------------------------------------------
Are you saying that you randomly pronounced identical
letters in different ways within your speach - if so -
I did not catch that. It appeared to me that you were
doing two things:
1) utilizing uniform pronounciation and
2) pronouncing all letters.
I'm I mistaken?
Finally, what you're saying about Sequentia is confusing - so -
.
.
.
Going back - way back in time ...
.
.
.
In
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norse_course/message/694
you wrote:
They made no noticeable distinction between short and long sounds;
"gúnnarr" and "gunar" would have sounded the same.
They made no distinction between ø and ö.
None that I could hear between ey and ei.
None that I could hear between æ and e.
But the thing that really sounded like a mutilation of the language was
the pronunciation of 'r'. An innocent little word like "er" was often
stretched to no end "ERRRRRRRRRRRRRR".
AND
In
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norse_course/message/693
Oskar wrote:
Their pronunciation was in some sense not so bad; they generally
practiced the reconstructed pronunciation scheme (perhaps by
mistake?), but totally overpronounced the 'r' sound (so that a humble
unstressed "er" might go [err]). Their vowel qualities weren't always
consistent between singers, so that some of them pronounced vowels
with modern values. The worst thing was, they made no distinction of
length in any sound, neither vowel nor consonant; in defence, one
might say that their style of singing did not offer any possibility
of length-distinction. That is true, but hardly an excuse; by
choosing this inappropriate style of singing, they painted themselves
into a corner, limiting their ability to pronounce the meaningful
length distinctions.
The only thing I'm seeing in these snippets are that Oskar says "Their
vowel qualities weren't always consistent between singers..." Therefore,
why are you now claiming that:
"Randomly pronouncing what should be the same phone in different ways
is not some "difference of opinion" or "dialect variation".
It's just plain wrong;"
You sound like someone FIXING something - but I can't quite tell.
With this in mind - I'm just not reading you.
Although I'm not sure it matters - what was it we were talking about?
Oh yes - Dan wrote:
---------------------------
And how would you know how the Edda was performed in the first place?
Were you there? Even darwing conclusions from modern Icelandic, Faeroes,
and Norwegian traditional folk music doesn't really help, because
performace and musical styles develop and change over time at least as
much as language does.
---------------------------
and later
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I'm not particularly steadfast on Icelandic and Norse, though I know a
bit, but people who specialise on specific topics, can get very opinionated,
and sometimes need to be dragged down to earth again. I know this from
bitter personal experience - I too have my favourite topics. A lot of
knowledge does not mean absolute knowledge.
---------------------------
Dan's idea about being dragged down to earth is interesting because -
your present arguments are sounding excessively bouyant - but then
again - It may simply be some kind of misunderstanding - right?
Also - I don't get the comment:
"Weewee or not the truth is that no-one here is being dogmatic."
What does this weewee character have to do with it? Does it
refer to my hick-speak for "getting upset"?
I have just GOT to get out more often!
Raymond
-----Original Message-----
From: Haukur Thorgeirsson
To:
norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 8/13/2003 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Pronunciation of Old Norse and Other Languages
Heill, Raymond.
> I'm thinking back to a little squabble that arose over the
> silent-r idea in ON. Remember that? Naturally, we all know
> that people, being extremely rational beings, do not, as
> a rule, include silent letters into the initial efforts
> to write down their spoken language. Therefore, we guess
> that the written form of a language, to a fair degree,
> reflects the speech at the time of codification
> (fossilization).
A reasonable assumption. Of course other things must be taken
into account; such as influence from a language that was used
as a model for the orthography of the one recently codified
- Latin for example.
> Now, for you to take written English - a codification
> that is phonetically accurate less than half the time -
> and read each and every letter as if it were Icelandic
> is not remotely a good example of what other people have
> been talking about.
My point is that the Sequentia pronunciation is ALSO not
remotely a good example of what other people have been
talking about. Randomly pronouncing what should be the
same phone in different ways is not some "difference of
opinion" or "dialect variation". It's just plain wrong;
much like my recording of the warmonger's speech.
> It is the FIXING of
> the "facts" of reconstructed pronunciation that is pissing
> everyone off here.
Weewee or not the truth is that no-one here is being dogmatic.
There certainly is more than one way to pronounce Old Norse,
just as there are many ways of pronouncing English. There are,
however, some ways of pronouncing both languages that make no
sense of all - like my recording.
Kveðja,
Haukur
P.S. Once more for the record: I'm not saying Sequentia are
bad artists or that their Edda album is bad music.