Timeline for Does English language stand special in terms of phonology?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
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| Jul 29, 2019 at 22:48 | comment | added | tum_ | Just came across this post - not bad :) I liked the "long miaow" metaphor... | |
| Jul 5, 2019 at 0:10 | history | edited | Mitsuko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 4, 2019 at 16:00 | comment | added | LjL | @Mitsuko when I hear Japanese, it sounds subjectively like the syllables (and by consequence, the vowels) are often very short, with a "machine gun" rhythm, which makes some sense given the syllables are so few: speech tends to have more of them, but pronounced quicker, compared to languages with many possible syllables like English. Additionally, Japanese has voiceless vowels allophonically in many positions, which to a speaker of English or, probably, Russian sound like there's just a consonant and no vowel at all. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:38 | comment | added | Mitsuko | From my Japanese point of view, this is a mess. When vowels are reduced like this, it is hard to tell precisely what vowel it is. But I adapted to this. When I hear Russian speech, I am focused on consonants. The Russians pronounce them very distinctly. Recognizing the consonants, I already know what word it is. For example, it is easy to fill in the missing vowels in this sentence: Р-шила п-йти в ун-в-рс-тéт взять учéбн-к в б-бл--тéке. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:25 | comment | added | Mitsuko | My teachers told me that I had a strong Japanese accent in Russian because I tended to make long vowels, like: Нáa трáа-вéеe дрóо-вáаa. The key to good Russian prononunciation was to shorten the vowels, reducing them to almost nothing. Like: На тр&ве др&ва, where the symbol & denotes a very short unstressed voiced link. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:20 | comment | added | Anixx | If you are asking whether they have phonemic difference, the answer is yes. A minimal pair is выкрюк vs выкрик (in both cases the stress on ы) | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:14 | comment | added | Anixx | Yes. And the letter э is usually prominently pronounced in Russian. The phonetic analysis of the phrase is as follows: [на трав'э драва] | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:13 | comment | added | Mitsuko | Or lets compare this: привет vs прювет. (I know that the latter word does not exist.) Put the stress on the last syllable in both words and just say quickly both of them. Is there any actual difference? | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:09 | comment | added | Mitsuko | Just say quickly "на траве дрова" and "на трэве дрэва". Is there any noticeable difference in pronunciation? | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:07 | comment | added | Anixx | I am not familiar with "ultrashort" vowels and Old Russian. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:06 | comment | added | Mitsuko | I meant to say that if you pronounce "На траве дрова" as "на тръве дръва" treating ъ like in Old Russian (i.e., like an ultrashort vowel) rather than like in the modern Russian, there will be almost no difference from "На траве дрова." | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:03 | comment | added | Anixx | Okay, so what? Now the hard sign is only used between the prefix and the root if the root starts with a vowel so to make the vowel iotized. Bulgarian is not Russian. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 12:02 | comment | added | Mitsuko | I quote from Wikipedia about ъ: In Bulgarian, the er golyam ("ер голям") is the 27th letter of the alphabet. It is used for the phoneme representing the mid back unrounded vowel (IPA /ɤ̞/), sometimes also notated as a schwa (/ə/). It sounds somewhat like the vowel sound in some pronunciations of English "but" [bʌ̘t] and the German -er in the word Kinder. It is similar to the Romanian letter "ă". Unlike the schwa sound in English, the Bulgarian /ɤ̞/ can appear in unstressed as well as in stressed syllables, for example in въ́здух ['vɤ̞zdux] 'air' or even at the beginning of words | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 11:58 | comment | added | Mitsuko | @Anixx : Have you ever thought why many Russian words ended with ъ at the end in the past? Long time ago, ъ was pronounced as an ultra-short vowel: linguistics.stackexchange.com/a/31852 | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 11:14 | comment | added | Anixx | I think Russian does not have mess with vowels. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 11:11 | comment | added | Anixx | "на тръве дръва," - The ъ should not impact pronunciation in this case, so it can be removed without impact. It indicates hardness of the preceding consonant but it is anyway hard. Other than this in this position the sign does not affect anything. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 9:55 | comment | added | Mitsuko | @Anixx : Speaking in your terms, I can say that both English and Russian have total mess with vowels. But - very differrent kinds of mess! If you want to learn a language that does not have mess, you should learn Japanese. It is very easy phonetically. And I am proud of it :) | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 9:47 | comment | added | Mitsuko | Regarding vowels in English, what matters in English is not precise vowel sounds, but rather flow patterns. It is like a melody, so to speak. You have to recognize patterns. Do not try to break English speech into individual sounds. Think "globally." There is even an expression in English about it: "It sounds like ... . " If you think "locally" rather than "globally," you will hear total mess just as you describe. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 9:45 | comment | added | Mitsuko | @Anixx : Let's consider this: "На траве дрова." Now pronounce it quickly as "на трэве дрэва." Or "на тръве дръва," treating ъ as an ultra-short voiced "pause" or "link". Is there any noticeable difference from the original variant? I think not. Actually, removing unstressed vowels was a key to get rid of my Japanese accent in Russian. Russian speech is built on consonants. I managed to achieve quite good pronunciation in Russian by pronouncing like, "усъвьршенствъвънье." | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 4:48 | comment | added | Anixx | "You can say 'а' instead of 'o,' you can say 'э' instead of 'о,' and so on - no big deal." - my impression was it is the case of english. My impression is english has total mess with vowels. | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 1:15 | history | answered | Mitsuko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |