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Phonetics and language learning? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| jmlgws Senior Member Canada Joined 7103 days ago 102 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 9 of 15 28 October 2007 at 9:08am | IP Logged |
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Professor Arguelles,
Thank you for your response. Do you have any suggested references on phonetics, or should I just look in the library for books on the International Phonetic Alphabet or similar titles? If I run into the person who I mentioned learned multiple languages simultaneously I shall be sure to ask him for more details about this method. In general though I have no formal training in language study, so I wanted to ask if there is an area of study that I had not run across and should pursue. I did not initially read your post about signing with real names and describing one's situation in more detail. I shall do the latter in a future post about my goals. "jmlgws" are my initials. Thanks again and best regards, Lleweilun Smith 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 10 of 15 28 October 2007 at 6:18pm | IP Logged |
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Mr. Smith, I would think that you might best start with the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association itself.
If you by any chance have access to a wonderful if quaint older method for developing your relationship with Dutch by Fernand G. Renier (I do not give an exact title because it has been printed under several different ones by several different publishers), have a look at the phonetic appendices, for he gives two, one for those conversant with phonetic theory and one for those not, so you can see what the benefit of these principles might be for you. I myself have a phonetic question that I hope someone who has learned Polish better than I have may be able to explain to me. It concerns the pronunciation of eł, i.e., the letter “ł,” the “l” with a slash through it. Every one of the dozen manuals for learning Polish that I have says that this is to be pronounced as a “w,” as in the initial sound in English “wet.” Now, I know that the liquid sounds “r” and “l” are notoriously problematic, having so many shades that rarely overlap between languages, and perhaps I am just hearing wrong, but on the dozen hours of recordings accompanying the dozen manuals, the difference between “l” and “ł’ sounds like two alveolar variants, the first made with the tongue arched up against the roof of the mouth, the second with it pulled down creating a hollow opening in the mouth. English has two similar sounds, the first in “lamp,” the second in “call.” However, while in English this sound only appears in final position, in Russian it can appear in initial and medial positions as well, which is one of the major pronunciation difficulties facing foreign learners in this set of circumstances. Had I only relied on my own ears, I would have assumed that Polish “ł” corresponded to Russian in this respect. As it is, ever since I first met Polish I have thought that this was a puzzling deaf spot in my own hearing apparatus, but I recently came across what Alexander M. Schenker wrote on page xxxv of his Beginning Polish (Yale 1966): “ł used to sound like English l in wool and is still so pronounced in stage Polish. In the colloquial language such a pronunciation exists as a regionalism or an affectation.” So, are the speakers on my sound samples, conscious that they are setting a good example and trying to speak in a higher register, indeed articulating carefully and still pronouncing this sound as an “l” variant, or is it really a w sound as in wet that I am mishearing, perhaps in part because I have been misled by the graphic similarity? Is this a recent sound change? Is it part of a pull chain, or perhaps of push chain, and if so, what other sounds are being affected? Is it thoroughgoing or a question of register? I would be most grateful to anyone who could help me understand any of this any better. Edited by ProfArguelles on 05 November 2007 at 8:56am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cherepaha Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6590 days ago 126 posts - 175 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Polish, Latin, French | Message 11 of 15 04 November 2007 at 1:59am | IP Logged |
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Professor Arguelles,
I do not speak Polish with the exception of knowing some poetry by heart that I?ve heard as a child. So, I will definitely leave it to the experts to provide the definitive confirmation. However, for whatever it is worth, to my Russian ear Polish Ł sounds like Russian sound ? pronounced with the lips slightly protruding, as if in preparation for the Russian ?Ӕ sound. So it is similar to the English W, but is less definitive, as if said by a person who is very relaxed, perhaps falling asleep. The few Russian language web sites, including the article on Polish language in Wikipedia confirm your findings that Polish Ł [1] used to sound very similar to Russian non-palatalized ˠ(hard ˩ as late as the early XXth century; [2] this ?old? pronunciation is still present in the Eastern regions of Poland and among the Polish population of Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine; [3] this ?old? pronunciation is sometimes still required of the TV and radio anchors and is used on the stage. [4] in contemporary Polish, especially in colloquial speech, Ł represents a non-syllable-forming sound. It is close to the Belarusian ? or English W. I have asked the Polish speakers on a different forum, and they confirm that [5] until the 20th century the two ways of pronouncing ł coexisted (the w-like pronunciation belonged to the low register); [6] what is recent is the disappearance of the older Russian-like pronunciation (except for the Polish speakers in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine etc.); [7] the ?old? or ?Eastern? pronunciation was fashionable a few decades ago, popular actors in the 50s or 60s often pronounced it like that. Varia Edit: P.S. Please view the posting with the Cyrillic (Windows) encoding. [To do that in the Internet Explorer go to View > Encoding > Cyrillic(Windows)]. Edited by Cherepaha on 04 November 2007 at 1:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 12 of 15 04 November 2007 at 7:40pm | IP Logged |
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On Ł: Thank you very much for this feedback. I still do not understand how such a sound change is possible or why I cannot hear it, but it is precisely this kind of thing that will drive me to study Polish all the more actively.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| breckes Triglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6800 days ago 84 posts - 89 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian Studies: Italian, Dutch, Swedish | Message 13 of 15 05 November 2007 at 7:12am | IP Logged |
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The same kind of change happened in French : this explains the alternance -al/-aux in the plural of certain words : in the plural, the "l" stood before a consonant and became "w", which made a diphtongue with the preceding vowel.
This is called l-vocalization. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6313 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 14 of 15 05 November 2007 at 10:44am | IP Logged |
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It happens in Cockney English as well, I think. If you have ever seen "My Fair Lady". You might recall Eliza Doolittle's "...crept over me window-sill". The "ll" in sill is pronounced like a "w"
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ? Groupie Joined 6221 days ago 43 posts - 40 votes Studies: Belarusian* | Message 15 of 15 16 November 2007 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
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Dear Professor,
As you know Polish you might like to have a look at this: Ostaszewska, Tambor Fonetyka i fonologia współczesnego języka polskiego Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN Warzawa http://rapidshare.com/files/63637560/Ostaszewska_Fonetyca_po lskiego_uztranslations.rar There should be no space in the url. po lskiego should be polskiego. Edited by ? on 16 November 2007 at 1:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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