tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 10 06:38:12 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: introduction
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: introduction
- Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:37:44 -0500 (EST)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> from "Albert Arendsen" at Feb 9, 98 03:51:43 pm
According to Albert Arendsen:
>
...
> the thing is that people who speak a different language percieve sounds
> differently. no English speaking person will be able to notice the
> difference between the Dutch words {keuken} and {kuiken}, but percieve both
> as {koiken} (in Dutch phonetic).
While I agree with your basic premise, I disagree with its
scope. I once had a fellow from a place I've now forgotten
(Lithuania? Serbo-Croatia?) who introduced himself as "Gunner
Wilson", saying that there's no way in Hell I could pronounce
his real name. I took the bait and noticed a couple sounds near
an English "s" but quite different in a very subtle way. It was
like "Goonahrzz Veel*s*en*s*ch". These two "s" sounds were
slightly different from each other.
I repeated his name back to him and his smug smirk changed to
an expression of shock. He said I was the first English speaker
to pronounce his name right.
As a counterexample to me and an example to your point, one of
my college professors (from North Carolina) refused to believe
that "pen" and "pin" were pronounced differently, even though
other people in the room could tell which word we were saying.
It is true that we tend to hear things within the phoneme set
that we know. Meanwhile, some of us are natural mimicks and can
grasp the differences between sounds that are not within our
normal phoneme set.
This is why I challenge your statement that "no English
speaking person will be able to notice the difference between
the Dutch words {keuken} and {kuiken}, but percieve both as
{koiken} (in Dutch phonetic)." Likely this is true for the vast
majority of English speakers, but also likely I would be able
to perceive and repeat the difference, though I am an English
speaker.
> we can just keep this conversation up for ever, but until there is some
> universal phonetic alphabet we'll never reach a conclusion.
If you come here for conclusions, you will often be
disappointed.
> -Chakotay
charghwI'