tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 06 18:22:21 2002
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Re: Alphabet
----- Original Message -----
From: "Qov" <[email protected]>
> This is all very interesting.
>
> Maybe now I can explain what is going on when Americans cannot hear the
> difference between my poS and puS, even though I pronounce the o in poS as
> I pronounce the o in mosaic and the u as the u in prune. I am Canadian.
It
> appears that the Canadian o is a shade closer to the u than the American
o,
> and that it crosses a boundary into what Americans consider to be u
> territory.
>
> I suspect it is related to the fact that Canadians do not hear much
> difference in the ou sound in the Canadian and American pronunciation of
> about -- usually the American ou is longer and has a bit of a w on the
end,
> but it doesn't sound significant to us -- but the Americans find the
> Canadian pronunciation so odd that they insist we are saying a-boot. To a
> Canadian ear the mimicked "a-boot" is much further from the way we say
> about, than is the American abouwt.
It might appear then that Canadian to the American ear is similar to the
Geordie accent of North East England but then they pronounce words like
school as "schoo-el" .. I must agree I my "about" stops just short of
prouncing the "w" in "ow"...
How is your Klingon "aw" as in "cow"? Is that almost "coo"?
Particularly currious due to my surname "Brown"
> The oo sound in the American mimicked a-boot is the same sound as u in
> prune, or puS. The ou sound in my about is closer to u than the sound I
use
> for mosaic or poS. So to me my poS is quite clearly distinguished from
puS.
>
> Do any Americans have difficulty distinguishing the vowel sounds in boat
> and boot, float and flute, mote and moot. They are the same sounds as poS
> and puS for me, I think. I was going to say rote and root, but I remember
> that Americans say root to rhyme with foot and soot.
I would of accepted the rote and root as fitting the pattern also... I find
it strange that some pronounce Route as Rawt wheras in UK it rhymes with boo
t/flute/moot/suit etc
qe'San
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