[Facts] Re: Phonetics and Linguistics
by Satu (guest)
11/9/2002, 6:12 AM
Hi Silver,
interesting project!
You wrote: "R - the r in french that is made by vibrating the uvula at the back of the throat in a guttural nasal sound"
-- This kind of R is used in German, Danish and in the southern dialects of Sweden and Norway as well.
You wrote: "R - the rolled r sound made in spanish, and in german (not as rolled as harshly), made by vibrating the tip of the tongue against the roof of your mouth"
-- It's just in dialectal German where this kind of rolling R-sound is used. In standard German the R sounds like the French R.
You wrote: "Ch - the ch sound found in gaelic, such as the word 'loch', made similary as the french 'r', it is rather nasal and made at the back of the throat, sometimes written as kh to keep out the confusion of beind related to the english ch sound, like in church"
-- This Ch-sound is used in German and Russian as well.
You wrote: "A few questions, in German I know they have a character that looks something like a B, more like a beta symbol. This makes a double s sound. Is this sound accomplished by putting to s' together, or is it unique. If it is the later, can you try to explain how to make the sound."
-- The German ß is just the way how to write ss after a long vowel. When you have this word "Maße" (= measures) you know that the a is a long vowel. On the other hand in the word "Masse" (= mass, substance) the a is short vowel. The sound of ss and ß is exactly the same.
In every language you'll find a lot of sounds which are unnown in English. E.g. all the Swedish vowels sound very much different to the English ones. It's really hard to explain these sounds to someone who doesn't know the language. If you go to google and search for pronunciations there are some pages with sound examples you can listen to.
Regards, Satu