Nicholas Bodley wrote:

>
> 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.

Catford, Intro to Practical Phonetics (or maybe it's Practical Intro to
Phonetics); there was a 2nd ed. fairly recently. Gives excellent
instructions for producing all those weird sounds by yourself. (Though
having a teacher is better.)

> 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.

"Velar" means back of the oral cavity. I think the velum is what the
uvula dangles from; the velar consonants are forward of the uvular
consonants.

> 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.

Japanese phonetics sometimes don't sound much like what you'd expect
from the phonemic transcriptions.

> Thanks, Peter!

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...