Re: Writing badly (a of Madchen)

Roland Hutchinson wrote (using UTF-8 -- pfui!):

Reinhold [Rey] Aman wrote:
Roland Hutchinson wrote (using UTF-8):
Reinhold [Rey] Aman wrote:

In Standard German, the <ä> in "Mädchen" is pronounced
/E/ = an "open e", as in AmE "mad" or French <è>.

CORRECTION: In ASCII IPA, "Mädchen" is not written /'mE:tC@n/ but
/'m&:tC@n/ or /'m&tC@n/ (i.e., with a long or short <ä>) in Standard
German. What I mean by "long" and "short," see my rant below.

Moreover, native German-speakers think that those are the same vowel!

? ? ? [Added: They don't.]

I mean: Native German speakers commony have trouble distinguishing
between the English vowels /&/ and /E/.

This I don't understand. If I finally got my ASCII IPA symbols right,
German has -- like English -- both identical sounds, written in German
as <ä> and <e>. Why should native-German speakers *commonly* have
trouble distinguishing between these two sounds? Do you mean they
mispronounce the English <rat> like German "Rett" /E/ instead of "Rätt"
/&/ and can't tell the difference? Sure, there *are* such Germans (and
Austrians and Swiss), but I dispute that such speakers are "common."
Much more common are those who can't pronounce English <th> and instead
use /s/ or /z/ or /d/ in "that" --> "sät" or "zät" or "dät".

The latter (as in English <met>) is as close to French <è> as makes no
nevermind. The former (as in English <cat> or <mad>) isn't.

Clearer?

Not really, but that's not your fault. I was confused and have been
misusing and misunderstanding the "Kirshenbaum IPA" (sorry, Evan) symbol
/E/, even though I have three different charts that I have to consult
before screwing around with ASCII IPA renditions.

Correct?

According to your system, yes; according to my system and understanding, no.

Start of Rant (again, like years ago):

Okay, let's try to straighten out this mess with English, German and
some French examples.

Definition of "long" and "short":
---------------------------------
First, a definition of what *I* (and almost everyone in the world) mean
by "long" and "short" vowels, which is very different from the confusing
and "stupid" American one. What a "diphthong" is, everyone knows.

MY "long" and "short" refer to the DURATION / LENGTH OF TIME of
pronouncing a sound (= a TIME measurement), not to the "stupid" American
usage, where "long" and "short" refer to DIPHTHONGS, e.g. /ej/, /oU/ and
VOWELS /e/, /&/ respectively.

Exaggerated, using <i>:
a SHORT "i" takes 1/4 second to pronounce: bit.
a LONG "i" takes one second to pronounce: biiiiiit.


ASCII IPA calls /&/ "short a" (the standard, but to me stupid
designation) as in "mat", "map", "mad", "gag", "rat", "hat". I call
"short a" stupid because it's sometimes LONG (= time duration), as in
"mad" (maaaaad) and "gag" (gaaaaag). It also uses the equally stupid
term "long a", which is not a long (= time duration) vowel but a
DIPHTHONG: /eI/, as in "fade", "date", "drape", "cape".

Definition of "open" and "closed":
----------------------------------
An OPEN vowel is pronounced with the mouth more OPEN and the lips
further apart (O) than when pronouncing a CLOSED vowel, where the mouth
is more CLOSED and the lips are closer together (o). Look into a mirror
and say "bad" (open e) and "bed" (closed e) and observe your lips/mouth
to see the difference.

To me, /&/ is an "open e", which I write as /E/, because the keyboard
has no epsilon (but some fonts do); see chart below: German <ä>, French
<è> and <ê>. It can be long: /E:/ or short: /E/. (Let's forget about
the half-long vowels.)

ASCII IPA calls /E/ "short e" (the standard, but to me stupid
designation) as in "bet", "bed", "peck", "let". I call "short e"
stupid, because it's sometimes LONG (= time duration), as in "bed"
(beeeed) vs. short "bet".

I've been using /e/ for the "closed e": German <e>, French <é>. (And
let's forget about the <e> pronounced as a schwa /@/ in French and German.)

Like almost every other non-native English-learner in the world, I
learned, use and prefer the real IPA with its simple and UNAMBIGUOUS
terms "open" & "closed" and "long" & "short" for vowels, which indeed
are "open" or "closed" (mouth) and "long" or "short" (time) and
combinations thereof.

I really *hate* the American system taught in school and used in
dictionaries (except in some British and Australian ones that use IPA),
where diphthongs confusingly are called "LONG vowels"; e.g., "long a"
(date) = /eI/, "long i" (bite) = /aI/, "long o" (note) = /oU/, etc.

Here, then, is a short, unambiguous table with samples in English,
German, and French:

short OPEN <e>: /E/
--------------------
English: bat
German: hätte
French: thème, êtes

long OPEN <e>: /E:/
---------------------
English: bad
German: bäte
French: bête, père

short CLOSED <e>: /e/
----------------------
English: bet
German: Bett
French: été

long CLOSED <e>: /e:/
-----------------------
English: bed
German: Beet
French: soirée ?

Anyway, why can't American and most other English-language mono- and
bilingual dictionaries -- unlike most dictionaries worldwide -- use the
simple IPA symbols but instead screw around with horizontal bars over
vowels (macrons) and breves to indicate diphthongs and vowels? Are
anglophones too stupid to learn IPA?

End of rant by Rey (call me Don Quixote). Now that I've spent hours
composing this post, I wonder why I've wasted my time again for five or
six readers. I'll read all reactions, complaints and whatever but most
likely won't reply. I *have* work to do and catch up on my 802 e-mails
in my Inbox.

--
~~~ Reinhold [Rey] Aman ~~~
.

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