Why the french prefer spanish instead of english

greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 21:20 GMT
And <girl> or <nurse> ?
Travis   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 21:24 GMT
Those'd be:

<bay> : /be/ --> [beI]
<cought> : /kOt/ --> [k_hO?]
<fire> : /faIr=/ --> [f@I@`]
<layer> : /ler=/ --> [5eI@`]
<joyous> : /dZoIIs/ --> [dZoIIs]
<our> : normally /Ar/ --> [Ar\]; very formally /aUr=/ -->[aU@`]
<slower> : /slor=/ --> [s5oU@`]

Note that the above are all single-syllable, even though some may think of them as two, because phonologically a number of them are "heavy" syllables, and are realized as (non-phonemic) triphthongs.
bernard   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 21:33 GMT
" It shows itself in many different ways. This is no way a criticism of the French..they are perfectly entitled to adopt whatever Language policy they wish, such as refusing to use English in international air traffic control as used by the vast majority of countries. On a trivial note it was shown at the moronic trashy Eurovision CrapSong contest the other week when all the announcements from Paris were in French, which was natural enough and of course perfectly within their rights, but apart from Belgium and Monaco (the other French speaking countries) every other participating country used English. The two *Ukrainian people presenting the whole circus from *Kiyev themselves used English throughout...excepting when talking with Paris, Monaco or Brussels! :-)
Also, I think it's fair to say that the average French person is not as proficient in speaking English as those from other European countries, and not all of these are in northern Europe.
*It may have been some other location...can't remember now, but it was definitely from Eastern Europe....maybe Latvia or Poland...really cannae remember. Beside the point anyway. "

What is there so shoking with no adopting english as second language ??
why we should necessary be like some other countries who are happy to leave their culture to exchange it to the anglo culture ?!
I don't understand this propaganda against the french. If latvian or bieloussians wants to adopt english it is their problem... we could understand that, for those countries english means modernity, the escape from the sovietic era, not for us.
I am fed up to see people always spreading the idea that the french would be a people not interested by other languages and culture just because we prefer to use our language when we can, and others when we need it. But not necessary english. There is sooo much other languages :)
I think that english speaking peoples are hurted in their ego when tehy realise that for us they are just a people like the others, and their language a language like the others, not more. Is that beign againt english ? How many anglophones speak french in their country ? none! - should I conclude that they hate us because they refuse to use french ? OF course not, each one has its languages and tha's good like that. that's all. !
greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 21:44 GMT
So, Travis, you use the [eI] diphthong and the 5 triphthongs. You have [O] in your monophthong system. So Kirk and you are really contrasted indeed.
Travis   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 21:51 GMT
Well, part of that is that I'm just more carefully separating what're single syllables and what're two syllables than most. Most people would have wrote most of what I wrote as being triphthongs with syllable pairs.

As for [eI], I myself only tend to use that when /e/ is word-final, or before another vowel, but even then, it freely alternates with the monophthong [e] when word-final. One must remember that in NAE there is no phonemic contrast between [e] and [eI], or [o] and [oU]. Anyways, in particular, in rather informal speech I tend to replace the word-final [eI] and [oU] which I'd use in more formal speech with [e] and [o]. However, when followed by a consonant, I normally favor the monophthongs [e] and [o] strongly over [eI] and [oU].
greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:03 GMT
"In NAE there is no phonemic contrast between [e] and [eI], or [o] and [oU]".

Do you pronounce <Mae> as <may> ?

And you say neither [g@U] nor [gOU] for <go>, but rather [goU] or even [go] ?
Travis   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:05 GMT
Yes, I myself would pronounce <Mae> the same as <may>, as /me/ --> [meI] or [me], and likewise I'd pronounce <go> as /go/ --> [goU] or [go], in both cases preferring the diphthongized versions in more formal speech, and the monophthongized versions in more informal speech.
greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:09 GMT
Maybe <Mae> wasn't a good example as it is pronounced [me] in French and I assumed it was so in RP too, although it may well not be the case as it could be realised [meI] in RP. Do you think <Mae> is [me] or [meI] in RP ?
Travis   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:14 GMT
I'd assume it'd be /me/ --> [meI] in RP, considering that English English dialects tend to preserve diphthongization more than NAE dialects do, as loss of diphthongization in many case is an innovation in various NAE dialects, except in certain cases like before /r/, where it doesn't like there ever was diphthongization in the first place.
greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:22 GMT
Travis : how do you differentiate <said 'ism'> from <sadism>. I assume the former would be [sediz(@)m] and the latter [seIdiz(@)m].
Travis   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:26 GMT
I'd say the first as /"sEdIzm=/ --> ["sE.dI.zm=], and the latter as /"sedIzm/ --> ["se.dI.zm=] or, if pronounced slowly, as ["seI.dI.zm=].
greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 22:30 GMT
I see... I'm sorry for my poor [eI] diphthong : it seems to be more theory than reality.
Kirk   Monday, June 06, 2005, 03:02 GMT
<<Kirk : this reminds me of a discussion we had previously. So in your Californian dialect there seems to be no [eI]/[EI] diphthong and no triphthong at all ?>>

Right. There's no [eI] unless it's an allophone of /e/, which is normally expressed [e] for me. In open syllables or slower, more formal speech [eI] is more likely to occur but even then the [I] component is very slight. My dialect is rhotic so there are true triphthongs, unless you're going across syllable boundaries, but that can't be counted as contrastive, of course.

<<How would you transcript <girl> in SAMPA as realised in your dialect ? And <caught> ?>>

[g3`5=] is "girl"

[k_hAt_}] is "caught"

<<Kirk, I'd say the same except I'd say that the number of contrastive monophthongs is 14, because I myself consider /r=/ (you may write it as /@`/ if you like), /l=/, /n=/, and /m=/ to be monophthongal vowels.>>

You could consider /r=/ and /l=/ as a sort of vowels, but convention doesn't usually include these in lists of contrastive vowels. But, you're right, it isn't too much of a stretch, I guess.

<<Also, I have a number of novel diphthongs in my own speech which I'm not sure whether they should be considered phonemic or not, beyond the standard phonemic diphthongs /aI/, /aU/ and /oI/. [@I] is clearly an allophone of /aI/, but I'm not quite certain as to how things like [EI], [IU] and so on should be handled>>

That's interesting. I don't have [@I] (which is from your Canadian Raising, right?). I do have some interesting places where diphthongs can show up allophonically, such as my /u/ (always a sound with a complex range of allophones here). It's normally unrounded and fronted, so I usually transcribe it as [M], altho it may be fronter. The same diphthongization rule applies as with /e/ and /o/...in closed position my [M] isn't diphthongal but in open position it has the possibility of a front initial glide or a centralized initial point. Thus:

"loot" [lMt_}]
"do" [dI}]

Altho my "reading voice" is phonologically more conservative than my normal everyday speech, I realized you can hear an example of this kind of "do" when I said the word in a passage for a previous post here. Here's the link:

sdcc13.ucsd.edu/~j14choi/kirkreadsalice.wav

And the text:

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do...etc

That "do" is pretty diphthongal...I tested it in my phonetics program and it starts out as something close to a shorter [I] and then moves on to some kind of centralized nonrounded /u/...probably somewhere in between [1] and [M] for XSAMPA.

<<Kirk and Travis : how do you realise <bay>, <caught>, <fire>, <layer>, <joyous>, <our> and <slower> in your respective dialects ?>>

ok, for me:

"bay" [be] or alternately [beI]
"caught" [k_hAt_}]
"fire" [faI@`]
"layer" [le@`]
"joyous" [dZOIIs]
"our" [Ar\] in very formal speech [æU@`] is possible
"slower" [slo@`]

<<I should have said 15 contrastive monophthongs, for myself, as I distingluish /A/ from /O/, unlike you, apparently, Kirk.>>

Right...as I'm "cot-caught" merged.

<<Do you pronounce <Mae> as <may> ?

And you say neither [g@U] nor [gOU] for <go>, but rather [goU] or even [go] ?>>

Yup. "Mae" and "May" sound the same [me] or [meI] for either.
"go" is either [go] or possibly [goU]. Of course, this [o] isn't traditional cardinal [o], even tho it's a monophthong, it's not very rounded and is somewhat fronted compared to [o] in Spanish or French, for example, so my [go] doesn't sound like it would in French or Spanish. I could probably put in some diacritics marking its fronted and unrounded position, but that could get excessive.

<<Travis : how do you differentiate <said 'ism'> from <sadism>. I assume the former would be [sediz(@)m] and the latter [seIdiz(@)m].>>

for me:

"said 'ism'" [sE4 Izm=]
"sadism" [se4Izm=]

<<I see... I'm sorry for my poor [eI] diphthong : it seems to be more theory than reality.>>

Haha. Yup. Its existence is peripheral in many varieties of North American English :)
Travis   Monday, June 06, 2005, 04:32 GMT
Well, actually, I forgot to mention that I do appear to have an [@I] separate from being an allophone of /aI/, which is Canadian Raising, yes, which is in my pronunciation of, say, the word "twenty", which is formally /"tw@nti/ --> ["tWV~.4~i] here, but when I'm speaking very informally it may be realized as [tW@I~], with [@I~] being a nasalized diphthong.

This is similar to how [EI~] (another nasalized diphthong) ends up being produced in words like "any" and "many" in my speech. "any" is formally /"Eni/ --> ["E~.ni], but through processes like that in the word "twenty", it more often than not is realized as just [EI~]. Actually, [EI~] is my normal pronunciation of the word "any", and I only actually realize it as ["E~.ni] when trying to "force" such; around here, the pronunciation [EI~] appears to be very common, but not quite universal, though. Note this applies to both derived words containing the morpheme "any", and also to phonologically related words like "many" which is formally /"mEni/ --> ["mE~.ni], but which I common realize as ["mEI~]
Travis   Monday, June 06, 2005, 04:36 GMT
And a slight correction to a previous post: I too would use [4] rather than [d] for "said-ism" and "sadism", as

<said-ism> : /"sEdIzm=/ --> ["sE.4I.zm=]
<sadism> : /"sedIzm=/ --> ["se.4I.zm=] or ["seI.4I.zm=]