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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Archaic English [was: Re: Anounsing a nu Ingglish spelling
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References: <32CC4567.BC7@online.no> <32CFF0C3.3AEB@online.no> <E3Lwox.GH4@midway.uchicago.edu> <32D026CB.170@online.no>
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 06:32:03 GMT
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In article <32D026CB.170@online.no>, Anders Blehr  <ablehr@online.no> wrote:
>Daniel von Brighoff wrote:
>
>>         The difference between /au/ and [au] is of no small significance
>> in linguistic usage.  [au] represents a particular speech sound (actually,
>> a range of speech sounds because my phonetic transcriptions tend to be
>> broad) which is approximately that of Eng. 'how' (in my dialect).  A level
>> of abstraction divides this from /au/, which is either a single phoneme or
>> a sequence of two phonemes (depending on the particularly analysis).  It
>> may have a variety of phonetic outcomes depending on dialect, register,
>> rate of speech, etc. [...]
>
>Thanks - as I told you, I'm no linguist.  So what's the correct
>representation of the pronounciation /au/ of the diphtong "au" - /[au]/?

	Phonetic transcriptions should be enclosed in [brackets]
while phone*M*ic transcriptions should be given between /slashes/.  The
sci.lang FAQ covers this issue (and explains what "phonemes" and "phonemic
transcriptions" are). 
>
>>         Regardless of what <acute-accent a> [I can see 'em, I just can't
>> write 'em] once represented in Icelandic, the Icelanders are now choosing
>> to let it represent [au].
>
>It's more that they're choosing to keep the spelling as is instead of
>changing it.  Yes, this is a way of choosing to let "" represent
>/[au]/, but the question they're asking themselves is not "What letter
>should we use to represent /[au]/?" (several possible answers), but
>rather "Should we change the spelling or not?" (yes/no).  If they
>suddenly answered "Yes" to this question, then, and only then, would
>they have to start asking themselves the other.

So, even though all Icelanders learn Danish and English, they never asks
themselves (even subconsciously), "How would I write the Danish bzw.
English sound spelt X using the alphabet I grew up with?"

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
