Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang
From: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!pipex!peernews.demon.co.uk!storcomp.demon.co.uk!philip
Subject: Re: A common European language (Re: Languages in the EC)
References: <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu> <3h5dv3$8sv@solar.sky.net> <MATTHEW.95Feb10130403@baloo.cpd.ntc.nokia.com> <792546697snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <3hllg7$4n9@panix2.panix.com>
Reply-To: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.27
Lines: 20
X-Posting-Host: storcomp.demon.co.uk
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 17:05:19 +0000
Message-ID: <792695119snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk

In article <3hllg7$4n9@panix2.panix.com> rcpj@panix.com "Pierre Jelenc" writes:
> >Secondly, the hardest phonemes in English 
> >are the "th" sounds in "the" and "thin". The European standard could 
> >include an alternative sound of /z/ for these.
>
> Not at all; "th" is not that difficult compared with the multitude of OH,
> AH, and OO sounds, tense and slack, stressed and unstressed, long and
> short.  They are not only exceedingly difficult to produce, but the
> different accents of English do not even agree on where one ends and the
> next one begins. 

The fact that different accents vary their pronunciation, and that people
can still understand these different accents, implies to me that these
sounds are not crucial to understanding what is being said. So if EU
standard English had easier-to-pronounce vowels, this wouls#d not limit
comprehension.

-- 
Phil Hunt...philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Majority rule for Britain!
