http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/ A blog about love, DIY, linguistics, politics, computer science, cooking, photography and anything else that interests me Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:26:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-789 thomas Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:34:41 +0000 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-789 You wouldn't have been you if you did, would you? ;-) You wouldn’t have been you if you did, would you?

]]> http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-785 phyl Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:54:32 +0000 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-785 Would you still love me if I pronounced my name Phjil??? ;-) Would you still love me if I pronounced my name Phjil???

]]> http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-776 Harry Campbell (ex-BilingDicts) Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:07:35 +0000 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-776 I'd say most Brits actually have very little concept of what a vowel is. All they "know" is that there are five of them and they are letters: a, e, i, o and u. At a stretch they might concede that y can sometimes make trouble by moonlighting as a vowel but it's definitely supposed to be a consonant. This is part of the anglophone idee fixe that Welsh is an impossible language. You only have to look at it to see that, since many of their words have no vowels in at all: it's not physically possible to pronounce a word like <i>cwmwl</i> or <i>byw</i> -- this in spite of the paradox that "consonants" like m, n, l and r are often syllabic in English. In the BBC TV reality show "Last Choir Standing", poor Myleene(?) has been having terrible problems with the word <i>Ysgol</i> (school, y=schwa) in the name of one of the choirs. There's nothing remotely difficult about it, it contains no sounds or combinations not present in English ("do they mean <b>us, Col</b>?"), but she knows it's impossible because she's seen it written down. The programme's website contains a rather embarrassing attempt at a singing lesson given by one of the judges. She gets her victims to sing "the vowels", but soon runs up against the problem of how these vowels are supposed to be pronounced: does the one we call /ai/ make the noise [i:], or [ɪ]? /æ/ or /a:/? /ɔ/, /ɔ:/ or /əU/? etc. We prefer not to think about these things too hard, it gets confusing. I’d say most Brits actually have very little concept of what a vowel is. All they “know” is that there are five of them and they are letters: a, e, i, o and u. At a stretch they might concede that y can sometimes make trouble by moonlighting as a vowel but it’s definitely supposed to be a consonant. This is part of the anglophone idee fixe that Welsh is an impossible language. You only have to look at it to see that, since many of their words have no vowels in at all: it’s not physically possible to pronounce a word like cwmwl or byw — this in spite of the paradox that “consonants” like m, n, l and r are often syllabic in English. In the BBC TV reality show “Last Choir Standing”, poor Myleene(?) has been having terrible problems with the word Ysgol (school, y=schwa) in the name of one of the choirs. There’s nothing remotely difficult about it, it contains no sounds or combinations not present in English (“do they mean us, Col?”), but she knows it’s impossible because she’s seen it written down. The programme’s website contains a rather embarrassing attempt at a singing lesson given by one of the judges. She gets her victims to sing “the vowels”, but soon runs up against the problem of how these vowels are supposed to be pronounced: does the one we call /ai/ make the noise [i:], or [ɪ]? /æ/ or /a:/? /ɔ/, /ɔ:/ or /əU/? etc. We prefer not to think about these things too hard, it gets confusing.

]]> http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-775 Phyl Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:24:39 +0000 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-775 Dad's comment made ME laugh out loud! HAHAHA What's the y problem dad? Dad’s comment made ME laugh out loud! HAHAHA What’s the y problem dad?

]]> http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-768 Dougie Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:30:10 +0000 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2008/08/25/785/#comment-768 Thomas ,.,. This one is just tooooo much for my tiny brain ! I laughed out loud so much at it that Ann thought I had gone over the edge ! Do explain to me sometime what the hell you are talking about here :) Thomas ,.,.
This one is just tooooo much for my tiny brain !
I laughed out loud so much at it that Ann thought I had gone over the edge !
Do explain to me sometime what the hell you are talking about here

]]>