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Why don’t Asian langs have a "see" sound

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jmr
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Australia
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 Message 33 of 48
20 March 2010 at 7:00am | IP Logged 
I think I've come to the party late, but I'm currently learning Vietnamese, and it can have this "see" ([sɪ] or [si]) sound the OP is searching for, eg. 'xin' and 'xinh', both with the level tone.
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Volte
Tetraglot
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Switzerland
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 Message 34 of 48
20 March 2010 at 7:05am | IP Logged 
IronFist wrote:
Johntm wrote:
IronFist wrote:
Levi wrote:
We have a similar phenomenon in English, where an "s" sound immediately followed by a "y" sound will be pronounced like "sh". At least in my dialect, I say "sh" in:

"Bless you."
"What's your problem?"
"tissue" (not TISS-yoo)

I also say "ch" instead of "t" + "y" in:

"Don't you see?"
"You hurt your head."
"saturate" (not SAT-yer-ate)

In certain words, this phonetic shift has occurred across all dialects: "mission", "special", "appreciate", "question", "righteous", etc. People no longer say "MISS-ee-on", "SPESS-ee-al", "a-PREE-see-ate", "QUEST-ee-on", "RIGHT-ee-ous".


Wow, you're right!

I've also noticed that "tree" starts with a "ch" sound, and "drunk" starts with a "J" sound.

I noticed the latter of those two in high school when someone asked "how do you spell 'drunk'?" And another person replied "D-R-U-N-K." And the girl who asked said, embarrassed, "oh, I thought it started with a J."
Where do you live? Here in the South tree starts with a "tr" sound and drunk starts with a "dr" sound.


Everywhere. My mom is from the south and she says it that way. My dad is from Minnesota and he says it that way. I live in Chicago and everyone here says it that way. Same in California when I go visit relatives out there.

If you actually try to say "tree" with a T and then an R sound, it becomes a 2 syllable word unless you pronounce it at the very front of your mouth, in which case it sounds funny. I think that's why it shortens to "chree." I wish I had a microphone on my computer. I'd record myself saying "go plant a chree" and no one would notice anything funny about it :D


I say 'tree' with a tr. It's one syllable, and it's very near the front of my mouth. My regional variation of English in general seems to be quite front - I've lamented before about how it has no back vowels, for instance.

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egill
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 Message 35 of 48
20 March 2010 at 7:27am | IP Logged 
I believe the disagreement between IronFist and Johntm arises (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) from the fact that they are talking about the same sound. That is they both say something like [tʃɹi] and [dʒɹʌŋk]. In fact I don't think I've ever heard a native speaker who doesn't say them in those ways.

The problem is Johntm writes 'tr' to mean the affricate 'tʃ' (which would be written 'ch' in normal orthography hence the "chree" example) and Ironfist is taking 'tr' to mean literally a 't' sound followed by an 'r' sound, something like "tuhree" [təɹi]. Ditto with 'dr' and 'dʒ' (which can be written 'j' as in "judge" hence "jrunk").

We have only our wonderfully irregular orthography to blame.
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Volte
Tetraglot
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Switzerland
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 Message 36 of 48
20 March 2010 at 8:03am | IP Logged 
egill wrote:
I believe the disagreement between IronFist and Johntm arises (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) from the fact that they are talking about the same sound. That is they both say something like [tʃɹi] and [dʒɹʌŋk]. In fact I don't think I've ever heard a native speaker who doesn't say them in those ways.

The problem is Johntm writes 'tr' to mean the affricate 'tʃ' (which would be written 'ch' in normal orthography hence the "chree" example) and Ironfist is taking 'tr' to mean literally a 't' sound followed by an 'r' sound, something like "tuhree" [təɹi]. Ditto with 'dr' and 'dʒ' (which can be written 'j' as in "judge" hence "jrunk").

We have only our wonderfully irregular orthography to blame.


[təɹi] is closer to what I say than [tʃɹi], though I don't insert a schwa - I'd widely transcribe it [tɹi]. I grew up in Western Canada, for what it may be worth.

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egill
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 Message 37 of 48
20 March 2010 at 11:17am | IP Logged 
It appears that I am mistaken and there is more variation to this than I realized. My apologies. As an aside, I found an interesting blog post about this very phenomenon.

Edited by egill on 20 March 2010 at 11:18am
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Fat-tony
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jiahubooks.co.uk
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 Message 38 of 48
20 March 2010 at 1:27pm | IP Logged 
jmr wrote:
I think I've come to the party late, but I'm currently learning Vietnamese,
and it can have this "see" ([sɪ] or [si]) sound the OP is searching for, eg. 'xin' and
'xinh', both with the level tone.

I've been waiting for someone to go beyond North-East Asia. The sound exists in all the
Asian languages I'm acquainted with outside the sphere of Korean/Japanese/Mandarin. (I'll
write a list if people are interested). Does it exist in Shanghainese?
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IronFist
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 Message 39 of 48
20 March 2010 at 8:36pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
I say 'tree' with a tr. It's one syllable, and it's very near the front of my mouth. My regional variation of English in general seems to be quite front - I've lamented before about how it has no back vowels, for instance.


I'm such a language noob... can I have an example of some "back vowels"?
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IronFist
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 Message 40 of 48
20 March 2010 at 8:39pm | IP Logged 
egill wrote:
It appears that I am mistaken and there is more variation to this than I realized. My apologies. As an aside, I found an interesting blog post about this very phenomenon.


Interesting blog post.

Re: those examples:

I think I pronounce "stray" as somewhere in between "st-ray" and "shtray".

I'm really wishing I had a microphone to record examples right now!


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