On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 23:41:11 -0400, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

>> I recently learned that "Nevadda" is the pronunciation used by tha
>> state's
>> residents.
>
> Long d?

OK, point taken. Respelled, to indicate the specific vowel.

>> Some time ago, after living in Colo. Springs for a while, I went back
>> East
>> to my family in upstate NY, and they said I was pronouncing "Denver" as
>> "Dinver". (Is this part of a/the new Great Vowel Shift?)
>
> Northern Cities Shift.

Interesting. It would be even more interesting to hear a predicted future
pronunciation, extrapolating on the trend.

>> Gentle apologies offered for 1. continuing to divert into linguistics
>> and
>> 2. for not knowing ASCII IPA.

> Nu, learn it!

Ah, a NewYorkism! A worthy challenge. One reason for not understanding the
IPA is that its symbols are defined "anatomically", assuming that one
knows phonetics. Can you recommend any self-study sources for phonetics,
short of an adult-education course (not too likely, for me)? Perhaps, as a
practical matter, I should print out Marco's recently-posted draft of
phonetics for English, although I'd prefer to wait for the final form.

For a "reality check", and it might seem pathetically ignorant, but I
don't yet know, for instance, what high and low vowels are. I'm not sure
about "velum" (?); "labium" is lip, I think. I know what a glottal stop
is, also a fricative, nasalization... Risking bad French, maybe I should
try to be less dilettante and more étudiant.

Btw, I found two kana pages on the Web with audio for spoken groups of
kana, and was really surprised to hear some pronunciations; they seemed to
deviate considerably (wrong consonant) from what I expected.

Thanks, Peter!

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
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