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ArchivesRe: How would Vespasienne (fem.) be pronounced in French?
in reply to a message by CN
When I was saying that the [e] is only present in English in the group [eI] (which is the sound of the word pain or play) I'm refering to the first sound of the diphthong, obviously.
The sound of feu, peu... is [ø] (which it seems that is the sound of the Swedish Ö/Ø) and the sound of jeune is [œ], two different sounds even in French. These sounds are represented by EU, not only by E and they are not the same that the English [ɜ:]. If you have to explain EU to an English, ok, you can do more or less the analogy, but in Vespasienne there is not EU and your post refered strictely to E.
That to a speaker a foreign sound "sounds" like another sound in other language, it doesn't mean that both sounds are the same. All the speakers distribute what they hear according their phonemes: what is two or three distinctive phonemes in a language, can be simply allophones in another one.
Even in the case of people whith a strong training in phonetics and used to do IPA phonetic transcriptions, often it is very hard to "hear" clearly a sound that is not in your own repertoire.
I take always Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but in the case of the phonetic descriptions of the languages is very accurated and matches the documentation that I have about phonetics in general, Romance phonetics and French phonetics from my degree courses.
Lumia
http://onomastica.mailcatala.com
The sound of feu, peu... is [ø] (which it seems that is the sound of the Swedish Ö/Ø) and the sound of jeune is [œ], two different sounds even in French. These sounds are represented by EU, not only by E and they are not the same that the English [ɜ:]. If you have to explain EU to an English, ok, you can do more or less the analogy, but in Vespasienne there is not EU and your post refered strictely to E.
That to a speaker a foreign sound "sounds" like another sound in other language, it doesn't mean that both sounds are the same. All the speakers distribute what they hear according their phonemes: what is two or three distinctive phonemes in a language, can be simply allophones in another one.
Even in the case of people whith a strong training in phonetics and used to do IPA phonetic transcriptions, often it is very hard to "hear" clearly a sound that is not in your own repertoire.
I take always Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but in the case of the phonetic descriptions of the languages is very accurated and matches the documentation that I have about phonetics in general, Romance phonetics and French phonetics from my degree courses.
Lumia
http://onomastica.mailcatala.com
1
Replies
When I was saying that the [e] is only present in English in the group [eI] (which is the sound of the word pain or play) I'm refering to the first sound of the diphthong, obviously.
Thanks for clarifying. I do however think that many pronounce the [e] as a diphtong, -ay, and consequently é in French like -ay.
I know that the vowel sound in peu and jeune are not the same and the difference exist in Swedish too (using Ö for both sounds). Unfortunately I can't see the phonetical alphabet on my computer so I can't see how the English sound differs from the French. I admit that I honestly can't hear the difference between the English vowel sound in first and the French EU or the Scandinavian Ö/Ø.
I hope you don't feel like I've criticised you. I just think this is very interesting and I realise that you have more knowledge of phonetics than I have.
ETA: Forgot to ask you. You say that "These sounds are represented by EU, not only by E" but the E when saying the French alphabet is pronounced like the EU sound and in words such as regard, renard etc Is this sound phonetically different from the EU sound?
Thanks for clarifying. I do however think that many pronounce the [e] as a diphtong, -ay, and consequently é in French like -ay.
I know that the vowel sound in peu and jeune are not the same and the difference exist in Swedish too (using Ö for both sounds). Unfortunately I can't see the phonetical alphabet on my computer so I can't see how the English sound differs from the French. I admit that I honestly can't hear the difference between the English vowel sound in first and the French EU or the Scandinavian Ö/Ø.
I hope you don't feel like I've criticised you. I just think this is very interesting and I realise that you have more knowledge of phonetics than I have.
ETA: Forgot to ask you. You say that "These sounds are represented by EU, not only by E" but the E when saying the French alphabet is pronounced like the EU sound and in words such as regard, renard etc Is this sound phonetically different from the EU sound?
This message was edited 7/9/2009, 12:33 PM
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I agree with you that many English speakers who don't speak any language with the sound [e], as French or Spanish, will pronounce [eI] instead of only [e] when they see AY. But, this is the most approximate that they can have in their language and to their ears both pronounciations sound pretty much the same or very close.
That is why, for example, the phrase "No way, José" was coined. To my ears "way" and "José" don't rhyme ("way" and the Spanish "rey" do), but for the English speakers they do:
"Why Jose? There's no reason to think that Jose was an actual person. The name was probably chosen for the rhyme with 'no way', which predates the longer phrase."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/no-way-jose.html
You can't hear the difference between the English vowel [ɜː] (open-mid central unrounded) and the French and Swedish [ø] (close-mid front rounded) or the French and Swedish [œ] (open-mid front rounded) because your language system doesn't have the first one as phoneme, so you perceive it as an allophone of these two sounds, probably mainly as allophone of the open-mid front rounded vowel, which has a more near articulation point.
The E when saying the French alphabet is NOT pronounced like the EU sond, it is pronounced [ə] (usually called schwa in English), a mid central vowel (unrounded in English and rounded in French or Catalan). The same is true for the E in words as renard or regard and this is the reason why the sound can even disappear, a situation common with the schwa in unstressed syllables.
Again, you identify this schwa sound as a [œ] (open-mid front rounded) because in Swedish it doesn't exist as a phoneme (according to Wikipedia, it only exists in some dialects as allophone for some unstressed syllables).
You can try to distinguish the English vowels from the French vowels using this video (French vowels):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=RJVxe4inqyg
and this website (American English vowels, but it also has some British English vowels):
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
That is why, for example, the phrase "No way, José" was coined. To my ears "way" and "José" don't rhyme ("way" and the Spanish "rey" do), but for the English speakers they do:
"Why Jose? There's no reason to think that Jose was an actual person. The name was probably chosen for the rhyme with 'no way', which predates the longer phrase."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/no-way-jose.html
You can't hear the difference between the English vowel [ɜː] (open-mid central unrounded) and the French and Swedish [ø] (close-mid front rounded) or the French and Swedish [œ] (open-mid front rounded) because your language system doesn't have the first one as phoneme, so you perceive it as an allophone of these two sounds, probably mainly as allophone of the open-mid front rounded vowel, which has a more near articulation point.
The E when saying the French alphabet is NOT pronounced like the EU sond, it is pronounced [ə] (usually called schwa in English), a mid central vowel (unrounded in English and rounded in French or Catalan). The same is true for the E in words as renard or regard and this is the reason why the sound can even disappear, a situation common with the schwa in unstressed syllables.
Again, you identify this schwa sound as a [œ] (open-mid front rounded) because in Swedish it doesn't exist as a phoneme (according to Wikipedia, it only exists in some dialects as allophone for some unstressed syllables).
You can try to distinguish the English vowels from the French vowels using this video (French vowels):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=RJVxe4inqyg
and this website (American English vowels, but it also has some British English vowels):
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
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