questions not many people ask

[fox]

"Is that supposed to be a semi-vowel or a voiced palatal affricate?"

When I'm in charge of the world, IPA will be compulsory for all phonetic transcriptions. The fact that in English we don't have the sound German spells with a u-umlaut and French spells with a u -- a high front rounded vowel -- will not give us license to be utter sissies and appropriate the symbol [y] for the sound that begins the word "yowza". The symbol for that is [j], and I'm fed up with seeing that symbol for the sound that begins the word "jitter." It confuses me, and I don't like being confused.

That is all.

Comments

[thalia]

OK... so what's the symbol for the sound that begins the word "jitter"?

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

It's a [j] with an upside-down circumflex over it instead of a dot. "j-wedge." Can't produce it here. :-) (There are also those who consider it a combination of [d] and "z-wedge," and put them both in the same set of brackets, or a combination of a g with an acute accent and z-wedge, and put them both in the same set of brackets. I was previously taught that it's one sound, represented by j-wedge, but my current professor insists it's actually two. And he keeps saying we'll come back to it. So in another few weeks, I might have some more things to say about this -- and also c-wedge, which can also be transcribed with [t] and s-wedge or k-acute and s-wedge, and which is the sound that begins the word "chill.")

:-D

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Generally, a [d] and a yogh, sometimes with a ligature connecting them.

Sometimes, also, a [j] with a thingee-- reverse circumflex? I learned it as a 'hachek', no idea how it's spelled, but the professor was Polish and I don't know whether that's an English word or not-- thingee in place of the dot. You wouldn't use this in phonetics-- it doesn't show that the sound is an affricate, made up of two componant sounds-- but in phonology you might, if that sound were always treated as a single segment.

May I just add here...

[mommybird.livejournal.com]

... that I think *all* fantasy and science fiction writers should be required to provide pronunciation guides for their invented languages on the same scale that Tolkien did? and to spell them consistently? I got really annoyed with Lynn Flewelling when she couldn't tell me whether "Aurenfaie" should be pronounced with English vowels or Italianate ones.

Re: May I just add here...

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Fantasy writers who make up unpronounceable names drive me CRAZY. I mean, sure, they look pretty, but if I refuse to discuss your book with anyone for fear that we'll all start laughing as we have seventeen pronunciations for your main character's name? Bad.

And wow, it's interesting to read, but I still have no idea what all that stuff above means...but it looks cool, or something...

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

'yogh' being more or less a cursive 'z' -- the z-thing with the tail of a g hanging down below the line. Yogh is pronounced the same as z-wedge, and is probably actually more correct, just as it's more correct to use esh (the stretched-out 's' that looks like an f without a cross-bar) instead of s-wedge.

Right?

(Delighted by the solution to the affricate problem, by the way -- phonetics vs. phonology. Of course. The business with the palatal stops was driving me bonkers ... which just goes to show that I deserved that C I got in phonetics sophomore year after all. [g])

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Right?

Yup.

(Delighted by the solution to the affricate problem, by the way -- phonetics vs. phonology. Of course. The business with the palatal stops was driving me bonkers ... which just goes to show that I deserved that C I got in phonetics sophomore year after all. [g])

Evil, evil phonetics. I've found that the further you go in phonology, the less it matters how things actually sound.

Which is a very good thing, since I can't reliably pronounce any of the sounds I'm planning to do my dissertation on...