Subject: Subject: g/k (was: RE: Re: More stuff

From: Nick Nicholas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 01:57:04 +1100

Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:03:20 -0000
From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Subject: g/k (was: RE: Re: More stuff

> English is another, of course. I formerly rendered /g/:/k/ English-
> style as [k]:[kh], but then I had a terrible time understanding Nick
> who, following the official line, said [g]:[k]; I heard all his
> /p, t, k/ as /b, d, g/.

And of course, you know why I did so, right? Not official line; but 
Modern Greek, which has no aspiration.

Ivan Derzhanski pronounces all umpteen languages he speaks like 
Bulgarian :-) ; I pronounce da'are like Greek, and my German is painful 
indeed. The da'apamoi is Klingon, which I actually pronounce New 
Zealandish --- I overcentralise the lax vowels. (No lax vowels in 
Greek, y'see...)

> So now I try to say [g]:[kh] -- to my ears,
> the /b, d, g/ come out sounding very French.

I'm behind on this: how do you mean? Are you talking about voicing the 
d's in all contexts, or something else? Length?

> (Interestingly, my son said to me the other day "Are you writing to
> [xod]?" with a fully voiced unEnglish-sounding (and hence 
> French-sounding) [d],
> so he must have noticed that the final consonant in _xod_ is not 
> pronounced in
> the English way.)

I always love it when linguists involve their family members in their 
anecdotes....

///
A freshman once observed to me: Nick Nicholas, PhD,
On the edge of the Rubicon French/Italian, Univ. of Melbourne.
Men don't go fishing. [email-masked]
-- Alice Goodman, _Nixon in China_. http://www.opoudjis.net